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Apis mellifera in
the Incas' country by Gilles Fert With its big honey production potential, |
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Situated on the
western coast of South America, Peru has a land area of 1285,216 square
kilometres, that is more than twice the size of France, with a population of 25
million inhabitants. Three main natural regions are distinguishable:
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in the west, the coastal zone along the Pacific shore where most professional beekeepers live; |
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in the middle, the Andes, consisting of plateaus which lie at altitudes reaching up to 4,000 metres high; |
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in the East, the Amazon rainforest that spreads out on more than one half of the country |
The coastal plain is certainly the region with the highest number of beekeepers. A dense network of streams gushing down the Andes towards the Pacific Ocean make the irrigation of numerous cultivations possible. Orchards of citrus fruits, avocado trees, medlar trees and mango trees provide bees with nectar flows since August, that is in the Winter in the Southern hemisphere. The north of that coastal zone, bordering the Ecuador, is the region where the most important honey yields are harvested. Following the blossom of carob trees (Proposis sp.), harvests that can amount to 45 kg/hive have been noted. It is also the region where beekeepers practise transhumance.
 Beekeepers |
A few beekeeping figures in Peru:
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The plateaux of the Andes give a nectar flow right after the wet season.
There is family beekeeping. A mere apiary with more often than not a few
beehives can be a valuable profit source. This region, with a temperate climate,
has a big production potential. In the region of Cuzco, famous for its
Machu-Pichu, beekeeping is largely widespread. The spreading of the blossoming
period depending on altitude should favour beekeepers’transhumance, but
unfortunately, the bad condition of roads make moving bees a difficult task.
Some micro-cooperatives, often run by women, pave the way to beekeeping
popularization and ease honey marketing.
Honey
versus coca...
The Amazon forest offers nectar flows all year long except during the wet
season. Several beekeeping development projects are carried out. The local
farmers from that region are traditionally used to growing coca seedlings. The
hard drug chemically extracted from their leaves can be traced to the
international market. For the last ten years or so, the United Nations have set
an agricultural development scheme aiming at replacing that crop by other
productions. Beekeeping holds a major role in that challenging project. Over
2,000 beehives have just been spread in the Huallaga valley. Moreover, all these
bees contribute to coffee, cocoa an papaya pollinization. The task is not an
easy one, knowing that farmers make big profit from selling coca leaves.
However, several encouraging examples show one more time that beekeeping is a
quite viable alternative. In a country where the drift from the land is a matter
which proves to be more concerning every year, beekeeping can participate in
helping local people stay on the land.
Let’s mention that Peru shows a deficit in honey and imports between 100 and 150
tonnes each year from Chile and Argentina. The import prices of a kg of honey
are approximately 1 Euro, while local honey is sold 1.5 Euro.
A
difficult census...
The total number of beekeepers is estimated to range between 10,000 and 12,000.
Most of them are amateur beekeepers with a dozen of hives. Only half of them
have a technical knowledge on bees. Professional beekeepers represent less than
5%. Six bee-farms of the coastal zone own more than 1,000 hives. The hives are
of Langstroth type with Hoffmann frames. The average production per hive amounts
to about 25 kg. The latest harvests show a lower yield with a dozen kg only.
Some beekeepers make royal jelly. The local market is booming, with the kilo of fresh jelly selling at 30 Euros and 10 grammes at 8 Euros. The hives are sometimes set on roof-tops, so as to reduce the high risks of theft
Beekeeping, a will of the
government...
After the climatic phenomenon ‘el Nino’ which mostly raged in the northern
regions, the government launched three years ago a vast programme of beekeeping
development. Over 2,000 beekeepers were granted subsidies to extend their
apiary. 30,000 hives have thus been spread in the provinces of Tumbes, Piura and
Lambayaque. These hives also favour the production of tangerines, mangoes and
cotton. Now, this programme is loosing some ground, and the goals are far from
reached. Today, beekeepers, are taking their fate in hand.
 Beehives on the roof of dwellings to prevent theft and vandalistic acts |
The Africanized bee |
They organize classes with colleagues from all the different regions.
Beekeepers from the neighbouring countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador are also
invited to attend these classes, because beekeeping faces the same problems
there.
The Creolian bee..
The American continent had had no Apis mellifera bees before the arrival of
Europeans. Traditional beekeeping and gathering were done with a small bee with
no sting called mellipona. Still today, some tribes gather honey from the local
bee. They credit this ‘palo honey’ with some specific properties and prefer it
to honey from European bees for traditional rites. For example, the local mead
called ‘chuchuwasi’, a well-known aphrodisiac beverage, is made from ‘palo
honey’ in which plants macerate. All over the Amazon region, the rearing of
mellipona bees in hives made from small wooden boxes is booming. These small
harmless bees can produce up to 5kg of honey per colony. They are hardy, well
adapted to their environment and unlike European bees, they are not prone to any
sanitary disease requiring treatments. That makes it the ideal bee for the
development of underprivileged areas. For some farmers, they are a first contact
with beekeeping.
 Le cours d’élevage de reines |
The main melliferous and
polleniferous sources:
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After getting used to working with the insects, the ‘melliponicultors’ can go ahead with the next step which consists in working with Africanized or European bees. The first Spanish settlers imported the black bee from Europe. Since then, numerous supply of Italian and, to a lesser extent, Creolian bees have contributed to the making of that so-called ‘Creolian’ bee which can now be found in the country. For some years, the region along the boundaries of the Ecuador and the Amazon rain forest are being progressively swarmed over by the Africanized bee. The latter has the fault of being very aggressive, but its good quality is to be more productive. Moreover, breeding Africanized bees does not require anti-varroa treatment. Except for varroase disease, Peru seems to be free from bee diseases. There are only some trouble with European foulbrood at times when pollen is scarce.
The Creolian bee has a very developed natural cleaning behaviour. Cleaning tests with frozen brood carried out by breeders have proved its cleaning qualities. For ten years or so, varroase disease control was performed with the fluvalinate molecule, but a growing number of beekeepers use with perfectly satisfactory results the method from Argentina which consists in putting cotton cords soaked with petroleum jelly over the frames. So as to counter the progress of the Africanized bee, queen rearing practice is developing in the coastal zone. The renewing of queens and the reproduction of the least aggressive and most productive colonies thanks to modern breeding techniques make it possible to keep a bee relatively unpolluted by the Africanized bee.
 Fabian Huaman and his Creolian bees |
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Bee bread loaves at the
Kechuas’...
In the region of Apurimac, in the south of Cuzco, people are used to improving
their everyday diet with a dish which is as delicious as original. Indeed, a
wild bee, 4 times bigger than our mellifera, is subject to relentless research.
The well-known and impressive ‘moscardon’ -’huayronjo’ in Kechua- makes a much
appreciated bee bread loaf. after having dug a gallery in the dead trunk of the
Cabuya ‘maguey’, a plant measuring about 6 m high, it lays down in its nest a
series of pollen pellets bigger than hazelnuts. Each nest contains around 250gr.
of pollen -’misqui’ in Kechua- and is particularly rich in vitamins and protein.
That gathering beekeeping is practised everywhere the moscardon lives, that is
in the mountainous zone situated between 1,000 and 2,800 m high.
Gilles FERT
Email : Gilles.Fert@wanadoo.fr
Web : www.beekeeping.com/fert/
 Selecting queens among the best cleaners |
References:
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| Realization: Gilles
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