One hive is just a hive, but five hives make an apiary

 

On May 19, in the forest heart of Bashkiria, the historical and cultural complex Shulgan-Tash in the Southern Urals, a scientific and practical symposium was held on the occasion of the World Bee Day (WBD) 2023. The events were organized by the FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation, together with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Bashkortostan.

The scientific and practical symposium was held under the slogan of the WBD – “Bee Engaged in the Pollinator-Friendly Agricultural Production”.

The moderator was Alfir Mannapov, Head of the Department of Aquaculture and Apiculture at the Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural University.

In the report of Azat Ziganshin, Head of the veterinary department of the Republic of Bashkortostan, it was noted that there are now 13 578 bee apiaries in the Republic, and 13 034 of them have been certified and identified. At the same time, as Azat Ziganshin pointed out, one bee package brought in the region from outside can provoke a disease of bees in the entire settlement, which can spread to the entire region and even the entire Republic. These circumstances increase the importance of the collective responsibility of industry participants.

A great help for Bashkir beekeepers is the availability of a mobile laboratory for diagnosing bee diseases and beekeeping products that ensures the delivery of test results in 30 minutes.

A responsible approach to the labeling of each bee colony, as Azat Ziganshin emphasized, will allow organizing full accounting of bee colonies in the Republic; controlling the movement of bee colonies, preventing their unauthorized import; excluding the introduction of falsified honey into circulation disguised as honey produced in Bashkortostan; controlling the epizootic state of the beekeeping industry; confirming the origin of honey and preserving the Bashkir Honey brand; ensuring the implementation of veterinary rules for the identification and registration of animals.

“It is known that bee and other pollinator provide precious ecosystem service by pollination.  Therefore, maintaining the plants diversity,” said Jingyuan Xia, Director of the FAO Plant Production and Protection (NSP) Division, during his video message to the symposium participants. “As part of this fundamental service, bees and other pollinators ensure the production of an abundant, varied and nutritious diet.”

“Unfortunately, some agricultural practices, such as intensive monoculture production, improper and overuse of chemicals, reduce the capacity of the bee and other pollinator to provide ecosystem service,” the FAO expert said. “We must protect bee and other pollinator and improve agricultural production for the food security and nutrition worldwide.”

“The pollinator-friendly practice should include crop rotation, increase of agri-diversity, reduction of pesticide application, and the preservation of the pollinator habitats. 

FAO recognises the importance of bee and other pollinator in implementing the Four Betters Strategic Framework – for Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better Environment, and a Better Life.

FAO launched a global initiative – One Country One Priority Product (OCOP). Four countries selected honey as a priority product: Benin, Chile, Rwanda and Vietnam. In these countries, as Jingyuan Xia said in conclusion, “pollinator-friendly practice will be implemented by optimising the benefit of the pollinator and minimising the use of harmful agricultural practice.” 

Fitrat Yumaguzhin, Professor of the Department of Beekeeping, Private Zootechnics and Animal Breeding, Bashkir State Agrarian University (Ufa), in his presentation titled “Biological features and value of the Burzyan population of the dark forest bee in the Bashkir Urals Biosphere Reserve”, spoke in detail about a long-term study (1976 – 2019) of trends in indicators of the Burzyan wild honey bee’s exterior features. The researchers considered such indicators as proboscis length, primary wing length and width, cubital index, third tergite length, third tergite width, tarsal index. No less important were the tests and comparison of two types of honey from the Burzyan bee in the Shulgan-Tash reserve – centrifuged honey and wild honey.

Revner Baitullin, Director of the State Autonomous Institution “Bashkir Research Centre for Beekeeping and Apitherapy”, in the report titled “Comprehensive study of Apis mellifera mellifera L. honey bee in the Republic of Bashkortostan” spoke about ongoing research aimed at assessing the state of the species composition of bees on the territory of the Republic and identifying purebred populations of dark forest bees.

“The research programme includes conducting a survey among beekeepers, collecting bee samples from apiaries, the beekeepers of which indicated in the questionnaires that they contain bee colonies of the Central Russian and Bashkir breeds, as well as studying morphometric and genetic indicators of bees.

The morphometric studies involved 53 apiaries with a total of 6549 bee colonies. 207 bee samples were analyzed. 11 purebred, 28 conditionally purebred, and 14 crossbred apiaries were identified. The largest number of purebred apiaries, as Revner Baitullin said in conclusion, was found in the Zilair district.

“A set of methods has been developed for the identification of the Apis mellifera mellifera L. subspecies, it operates in a high degree of intraspecific hybridization of the honey bee in Russia,” Professor Elena Saltykova, Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetic Expertise, ANCO Altyn Solok, told the audience in her presentation “Burzyan bee Resource for beekeeping in Bashkortostan. “On the basis of nuclear and mtDNA polymorphism, the existence of at least four local populations of Apis mellifera mellifera L. preserved in the Urals has been shown.”

Much has already been done to “preserve the gene pool and, in particular, to prevent outbreeding depression, preserve the valuable properties of the subspecies and its individual populations, as well as to use it as a basis for beekeeping and selection,” said Professor Saltykova.

“Pollination of entomophilous crops by honey bees gives an increase in yield from 10% to 60%, depending on the number of bee colonies set for pollination,” Valentina Limanskaya, an expert at the National Agrarian Scientific and Educational Centre, Kazakh Research Institute of Animal Husbandry and Feed Production LLP, said in her report. “The effect of pollination exceeds 5-10 times the direct income that bees give in the form of honey, wax, and other bee products. Introducting innovations into the technological schemes for growing entomophilous crops and installing an apiary will make it possible, while maintaining the current volume of seed production, to obtain tangible economic benefits.  

Based on the calculations made by FAO experts, as Valentina Limanskaya noted, “one bee family accounts for 163 hectares of agricultural land. According to the Institute of Marketing Research, 96 million hectares of land are used for agricultural purposes in Kazakhstan. Thus, in the Republic of Kazakhstan, 589 000 bee colonies are needed to achieve the required level.”

“To popularize the traditional Bashkir wild-honey hunting, a draft design of the beekeeping bee museum has been developed,” Favzil Malikov, director of the Shulgan-Tash Cave Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve, said. “The project provides for a modern museum building recalling a wild hive. The building is cylindrical in shape, the roof is flat, the facade of the building is styled as a “honeycomb”: the trim elements and window openings are arranged in a hexagonal grid. 

There will be four exhibition halls in the museum. The first exhibition, named “Bees. Honey”, will be dedicated to the biological description of bees, the bee family (swarm) and its composition, the functioning of the bee swarm as a single whole organism, the peculiarities of Bashkir bees, the history and stages of the development of beekeeping in the region. 

A stand with identification marks (tamgas) will be installed in the second exhibition “Beekeepers' Utensils”. It is an ancestral sign of belonging among the Turkic peoples, inherited from generations. Identification marks (tamgas) were used for branding cattle, wild-honey bee trees, boundary markers, and signing official documents. 

The third exposition, named “Healing properties of honey”, will reveal the useful properties of bee products: honey, wax, pollen loads, bee pollen, propolis, comb cappings, bee venom. The fourth exhibit, Local Flora, will present a collection of local flora specimens. 

Benjamin Forster, a Swiss beekeeper (who is also a Russian citizen) and head of the company “Beekeeping Forster”, pointed out to a burning issue: the annihilation of hogweed because of herbicides. The company produces cream honey using environmentally friendly Swiss technologies. Forster gets by without chemicals and antibiotics when treating bees, as well as the use of pesticides in fighting Varroa mites, fierce enemies of bees. 

“There is a need to use pesticides and herbicides intelligently, or even better not to use them at all. There are such techniques. Each of us, beekeepers, can contribute to this transition. This is in our mutual interests,” the two-meter-tall Russified Swiss, who lives next to his apiary in the Pereslavl-Zalessky area on Pleshcheyev Lake, stressed. Benjamin Forster is a true devotee who knows the meaning and price of organic beekeeping. 

There was great interest in the presentation by Aglyam Sharipov, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences and Senior Researcher at the Bashkir Scientific Research Centre for Beekeeping and Apitherapy, on “A wild-honey hunter's stages of professional development”. “The centuries-old ‘mentor-apprentice’ system of knowledge and experience transfer has played an important role in preserving the skills of the Bashkir wild-honey hunting unchanged,” Aglyam Sharipov said. “It has been revealed that each wild-honey hunter undergoes ten stages of mentoring in his professional development”.

The first stage: A young wild-honey hunter is a child (grandson) up to six years old. A Mentor is a grandfather, a wild-honey hunter, who is over 60 years old. “The grandfather gives children a general idea of what being a wild-honey hunter means. He talks about other crafts and introduces children to family traditions, tells them about the history of the family, village and country,” Aglyam Sharipov detailed. 

The second stage: A young assistant of the wild-honey hunter is a boy (the wild-honey hunter's son) who is seven-ten years old. The mentor is a father, a wild-honey hunter, who is 30-50 years old. “A boy of this age is interested in everything, but he does only small jobs: he lights the smoker, gives tools, takes care of the horses, etc. The boy in practice masters the first knowledge, skills and abilities of a wild-honey hunter”… 

After going through the subsequent stages of growing up and becoming an independent hunter, which lasts for decades, the wild-honey hunter closes the circle and becomes a “grandfather mentor” at the tenth stage. Now, he is considered a “pensioner” of his profession and is engaged with young wild-honey hunters. 

“Wild-honey hunting skills have been preserved among the Bashkir people thanks to the tradition of timely passing on not only knowledge and experience to the younger generation, but also giving them timely credence,” Aglyam Sharipov concluded. 

For more information, click here to watch and listen to the recording of the press conference and symposium. 

The forum, which was held at the Shulgan-Tash historical and cultural complex, was also attended by: Mikhail Kosarev, Director of the Shulgan-Tash State Natural Biosphere Reserve ; Evgenia Romanenko, Deputy Director of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Federal Centre for Animal Health”; Anita Schluchter Roth, Head of the Department of Economics, Finance and Science, Embassy of Switzerland in Moscow; Sergey Oleynikov, Chairman of the Union of Public Associations of Belarusian Beekeepers; Igor Nizhegorodov, Head of Crop Production, Sibbiopharm LLC; Alexey Naumov, Head of the Department of Socio-Economic Geography of Foreign Countries, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Bernard Schreiner, Minister Counsellor of the Slovenian Embassy in Russia; Andrey Petrov, Consul General of the Russian Federation in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); as well as beekeepers from Brazil.