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The International Bee Research Association at
Cardiff has a vast library of information on bees.
Dr Nicola Bradbear, its advisory officer for
tropical apiculture, is engaged in making this
information available to beekeepers in the villages
of the developing world.
The
newsletter she edits has a circulation of 3,100
copies in these countries and it does reach the
villages. “We don’t want it in libraries,” she
says, “We want it in the beekeeper’s hand.”
It won a gold medal from the World Federation of
Beekeepers.
It emphasises the point that local beekeeping
practices can be best for their area. You don’t
have to have European bees and expensive European
equipment.
Apart from the newsletter, she also prepares
information leaflets and charts, providing the
concept, content and design herself: these are
often taken up by educational institutions and by
aid projects, and the charts have been translated
into Arabic and other languages.
The newsletter, well illustrated with
photographs and instructions, offers to far- from-
wealthy people an inexpensive way of increasing
their income. One issue showed how to make candles
for sale. Another showed how attractive labels can
increase honey sales. The newsletter informs its
readers about new techniques successful in
developing countries, about combating disease, and
about publications and meetings. Advice is adapted
to beekeepers’ circumstances.
Construction of hive smokers from scrap metal,
using a low-tech model described by Dr Bradbear, is
under way in Madagascar.
Articles on tropical beekeeping appear in other
journals and newsletters but no other publication
is devoted to the developing countries and no
similarly comprehensive and international
information service is available to small
beekeepers there. For many in the Caribbean, for
example, it is the only source of relevant and
practical advice. Few aid activities can produce
such results for such small outlay.
Letters from all over the world respond to the
newsletter and other publications. They come from
extension workers as well as institutes and
agencies. A Nigerian writes: “The Beekeepers Club
is already taking shape. Thanks for support through
the information we receive from you.”
Dr Bradbear’s father kept bees and gave her an
interest in them. She trained in biochemistry with
a particular interest in sources of protein
available in developing countries. Joining IBRA in
1983 enabled her to combine her interests in world
development and beekeeping.
She has been active in arrangements for the
International Tropical Apiculture Conference to be
held in Trinidad and Tobago in 1992 because of the
interest in beekeeping there.
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