Honey

Background

The beekeeping project involves local communities in the North Rupununi in collaboration with Iwokrama International Centre. Beekeeping was adopted by local communities as a means of generating additional income for local households.

African bees have spread and interbred with native bees throughout Guyana and most South America. The prosblem for the local communities is that they are more aggressive than indigenous bees, although they do tend to produce more honey.

Further development of the project requires additional funding.

Local Uses

Honey is widely used in the communities for food and medicine and is also sold to visitors and tourists.

 Harvesting Honey in the Forest

Sustainability

The project is currently managed by local communities, with training done by Iwokrama, the Guyana Bee Association and Zambian honey producers. The project is sponsored by the Commonwealth programme and Iwokrama.

The project was funded in two separate projects by DFID: one project to Iwokrama, one to the International Centre for Underutilsed Crops (ICUC).

This provides the Bee Coordinator with a stipend for his work in providing technical assistance and sharing his knowledge with other trainee beekeepers. The ICUC project provides the stipend for Huxley Moses as a local coordinator is seen as essential to the sustainability of the project.

The project makes use of appropriate and cost effective technologies that will ensure the long-term sustainability of honey businesses in the Rupununi .

Local Involvement

There are five communities that are part of the Beekeeping Project Toka, Yakarinta, Massara, Wowetta and Surama. These five villages are the ones that the ICUC project was concentrating. These communities are monitored by a local Bee Coordinator Huxley Moses who is from the village of Wowetta. Huxley has built his capacity from working along with the two beekeepers from the Guyana Beekeeping Association, and through practical hands-on workshops facilitated by the Zambian beekeepers in Guyana and in Zambia.

In June 2003 two representatives from the North Rupununi, Huxley Moses, Bee Coordinator and Bryan Allicock, Community Development Officer, Ministry of Amerindian Affairs were sent on study tour in Zambia to have first hand observation on how the Zambians harvest, transport, package and market their honey for export to the UK.

Business Development 

The skills and knowledge gained from the training course that Mr. Huxley Moses and Bryan learned from the training with the Zambians will help them and their communities to be manage beekeeping in the North Rupununi. A first step will be the formation of a North Rupununi Beekeepers Association.

In November 2003, the production of honey has increased with a total of 51 gallons of honey produced from six communities.