More Than Honey

Kate Atkins

1st May, 2003

They build masterfully constructed homes, have a brilliantly regulated social order, are essential to sustaining the environment and are playing a vital role in sustainable development projects.

Beekeeping for development

Annoyed with the marginalisation of the beekeeper’s role in genuine sustainable development, Nicola Bradbear and Helen Jackson founded Bees for Development in 1993 – an organisation devoted to promoting global understanding of the benefits of beekeeping. Ten years on, Bradbear and Jackson’s project remains central to spreading awareness of beekeeping’s potential to improve livelihoods and ecological sustainability at a grassroots level.

‘Small-scale [beekeeping] projects do not tend to attract government or donor support… [so] beekeeping [is] ignored,’ explains Bradbear.

Since it spans forestry, horticulture, agriculture, natural environment, animal husbandry and entomology, beekeeping cannot be easily classified into a single sector of development aid. Consequently, apiaries have not been well-endorsed by aid projects in the past. Even worse, bees are commonly treated as pests and are often blasted with insecticide in the summer.

Minimal input needed

Beekeeping equipment does not need high-tech materials and can be easily made from natural resources already used locally. People are...

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