By Beritah Mutune
Introduction
On May 20, 2021, the world was celebrating The World Bee Day, to acknowledge the role played by bees in food production and life sustenance. One out of every three bites of food we eat exists because of pollinators, including many fruits and vegetables. Healthy ecosystems also depend on pollinators. Pollinators include: all bees, butterflies and some wasps, moths, birds, flies, beetles, and small mammals, such as bats. They feed on nectar (sugars) and pollen (protein) from flowers.
As they carry pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part of the same or another flower, fertilization occurs producing fruits, seeds, and young plants. Pollen sticks on their bodies while they are feeding on nectar in the flower and is transported from one flower to another as they move in search of food, shelter, nest-building materials, and sometimes even mates.
Well-pollinated crops can be of noticeably better quality (seed and fruit) and consumers and markets are sensitive to quality consideration, appearance, health benefits and genetic diversity all by ‘good’ pollination.
Human activities are gradually wiping away bees and other natural pollinators that play a great role in food production. This has led some farmers to resort to the desperation of manually pollinating flowers to increase food production. For example, in farming crops of the cucurbits family, including cucumbers pumpkins, squash, and watermelons, some farmers are resorting to hand pollinating by manually transferring pollen from male flowers to female flowers, due to reduced production. This is because, cucurbits have separate male and female flowers, and they require a pollinator, such as honeybees, to transfer pollen from male to female flowers. Wind is not enough to do pollination. Pollen of cucurbits is heavy and sticky and needs to be transported by insects as it cannot be blown by the wind.
In the years past, pollinators were not a problem, because the environment provided a conducive environment for them to thrive. Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are the main pollinators of most crops and increased use of harmful chemicals is slowly decimating them.
Why are pollinators in trouble?
Populations of bees and other pollinators are declining around the world for several reasons:
- Agriculture, mining, and human development contribute to loss of pollinator habitat. Also, the replacement of indigenous plants which provide a suitable pollinator habitat with non-native plants has contributed to their loss.
- Parasites and diseases affect both pollinators and the plants on which they depend.
- Insecticides kill pollinators and may hamper the ability of pollinators to navigate or forage while herbicides kill important host plants.
- Climate change is modifying the distribution of pollinators and their host plant bloom dates, which affects the availability of food sources.
How to protect your honeybees
- Bees can be kept at a distance safe from areas where pesticides are being applied. This must be at least 2 – 3 kilometers.
- Spraying can be done late in the afternoon or early in the evening when bees are not flying as pesticides settle at night ensuring that bees are not exposed to high pesticide concentrations.
- Providing a habitat for many types of pollinators by planting native flowers of different shapes, sizes and colours.
- One can also: (a) use non-lethal methods such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to control pests. (b) provide nesting sites for bees in living and dead trees, bush, and bare ground.
Farmers need to practice integrated farming, by ensuring crop diversity in the farm, and keeping bees. Keeping bees in your farm ensures continued pollination and gives the benefit of harvesting honeymade from nectar which is of immense health benefits to the body. If you consider bee keeping below are the steps to follow:
Selecting an appropriate site for your apiary:
Choosing a good site for the apiary is paramount in ensuring that the bees live in harmony with people and domestic animals. The apiary must be away from areas frequented by people, and away from livestock.
Ensure to choose a site with a good balance between light and shade.
If the place is a hot area, ensure there is enough shade and it may also be necessary to apply water to the apiary to keep the colony sufficiently cool during the day. Overheating of a colony of bees may lead to rapid death.
In a cool area such as the highlands, only minimal shade is required otherwise the apiary will be damp, and make the bees less active.
There should be forage around the apiary where the bees harvest nectar without travelling long distances.
Making the hives
There are various types of hives but The Kenya Top Bar Hive (KTBH) is the easiest to make. The KTBH has three basic components, i.e. the body, top bars and the roof.
The top bars are the only part of the beehive that has to be accurately measured. The bars need to be exactly 3.2cm wide which is the proven distance apart that bees like to make their comb. This includes a small gap that the bees leave which helps them to pass between combs to both deposit wax and feed the brood. You may find it worth the investment to get these thin strips of top bars cut with an industrial saw machine. If you don’t manage to cut the top bars exactly to 3.2cm the bees tend to lay down their wax combs over the join of the top bars. This isn’t a disaster; it just means that you’ll find it harder to harvest honey as several top bars will get ‘stuck together’.
Langstroth bee hives are an option which serve the same purpose with the KTBH. However they are more complicated to make and cost more to buy.
Setting up the hives
- Hanging hives
• Use two strong and heavy posts, each about 2.5 to 3 meters long.
• Dig two holes about 3/4 of a meter deep and 2 meters apart (or take two strides).
• Pack soil and stones around the posts. Make sure the posts are very firm. Think ahead to
when the hive will be heavy with honey – if they are not firm they will fall over later.
• Remember: once bees enter the hive it will be difficult to make changes!
• Now that the holes are dug and the posts are in position, use wires to hang the hive between
the two posts.
• Remember: put the wire around the back of the posts as shown in fig.7 below.
• Remember: hang the hive at waist height (for ease of working and not to strain your back)
and keep it level.
You can also hang hives between two trees or a post and a tree. Just follow the same
instructions but remember to use heavy strong nails.
(If your hives are made of heavy material such as trunk/mud, do not hang, place them on stands.
- Placing hives
• If you don’t want to hang the hives, you can place them on stands. It is best to use this
method for the mud hive as it is not strong enough to hang.
• Remember: the stand should be sturdy and high enough for the hive to be at waist height.
• Put the legs of the stand in cans of used engine oil to prevent pests getting into the hive.
• Hives on stands are more prone to attack by the honey badger
keep a limit of not more than 20 hives per apiary depending on the availability of bee forage. Bees forage in a radius of 3km from the apiary so if you want to keep more than 20 hives find another apiary site 3 or more kms away from the existing apiary.
For more information on apiary management, see TOF Issue 180 page 3& 4.