Beekeeping Workshops a great success!

While I was in Canada, Arthur hosted a Basic Beekeeping workshop at Mudrenicagi sponsored and taught by the Agricultural Department. There were 26 participants who successfully completed the workshop. Participants learnt about the lives of bees, colony management, tools and protective equipment, and how to harvest the honey. Everyone enjoyed the practical experience of suiting up in a bee suit and opening a hive to identify the worker bees, drones, and queen. They were also able to harvest 9 frames which gave us 17kg (11.5 litres) of honey, not bad for our first harvest.

Although there are not many beekeepers in our area, beekeeping is well established in Labasa and Savusavu areas. The Fijian government is encouraging the expansion of beekeeping to other areas of our island through the provision of bee colonies at a subsidised rate once a farmer has completed their basic beekeeping workshop. Twelve participants from the first training session took advantage of this offer.  But a challenge for farmers in our area is purchasing the bee boxes and transporting them from Labasa to our location. So Arthur decided to set up a bee box manufacturing workshop at our place to provide local farmers with the box locally at the same rate that they would purchase it in Labasa but without the shipping cost. Arthur, Charlie and Zakaria have been very busy producing the 12 double box hives. Rayape and I have also been helping out.

This month we hosted a second beekeeping workshop on May 18-19th with 14 participants, including myself.  The weather was not very good – lots of rain and wind – so unfortunately we were not able to complete the practical experience. But we were able to invite Mr. Alipate, the Divisional Planning Officer for the North as our chief guest.  He closed our training session with an informative talk about beekeeping in Fiji and presented the certificates to the successful participants from the first training session.  As well the 12 nucleus colonies were delivered by the Agricultural dept.  We’ll be busy this week delivering the boxes and colonies.