The apiculture, or beekeeping industry in Belize is on the road to revival. Harvesting honey for a living is no easy trade but the Ministry of Agriculture is optimistic that it will catch on eventually, by appealing to the younger generation through educational expo's like the one that happened today in Orange walk. Jomarie Lanza was at the event and here's her report.
Bee's, Beekeepers, NGO's and students swarmed Muffle's College auditorium in Orange Walk today for the 2nd annual International Beekeeping Symposium and expo. Every corner you looked there was honey, beeswax, soaps and a surplus of data on the apiculture industry. Belize's national coordinator for Honey & Beekeeping says it's the networking highlight of the season for those within the sector.
Miguel Huertas, MOA, National Coordinator Honey & Beekeeping
"What we are doing for this international beekeeping symposium is that we are gathering beekeepers across the country and bringing experts from across our neighboring countries, Mexico, Guatemala and we also have experts from Honduras. What we are doing is we are trying to sensitive and bring awareness of what are the priorities that we are doing for the ministry we understand that honey is a sector that is growing slowly but it is growing and it can become one of the sectors that can benefit not only economically but it is one that is very environmentally friendly and I believe that this event or this sector is one of the sectors that we can work and expand nationally we have great potential to expand the bee keeping sector and that is one of the purposes that we want as an objective for our ministry."
There were more than 25 booths at the event and each presented a topic on beekeeping to educate the public on the art and science behind the craft.
Miguel Huertas, MOA, National Coordinator Honey & Beekeeping
"What we are trying to do is sensitize and inform the public of what is apiculture or beekeeping for what we have done and how we have organized the booths is that each specific booth has one specific topic to speak about for example one of them is what is apiculture? So when you approach that booth that is what they will explain all the way to the end product that is in the colony up to the end when it is on the market so everyone that comes to this booth today they will have an idea from A-Z in what is beekeeping."
And for some families like the Esquivel's from Corozal, their Beekeeping dates back to decades of an established family trade. The Esquivel's have significantly grown their business over the years, so much so that it has taken them all the way to Taiwan for a trade expo.
Ezekiel Esquivel, Esquivel & Sons Honey products "Today at this symposium we are offering information about what is apiculture, basically apiculture is everything that deals with Bees."
"How to maintain a bee colony, hive to harvest honey, wax and all the products that bees give you that is the point of apiculture."
Reporter
"And recently your business went to represent Belize in Taiwan."
Ezekiel Esquivel, Esquivel & Sons Honey products
"Yes, I was there in Taiwan. A couple of weeks ago I went with Beltraide to showcase my product and I met some good friends and found a new market area, and hopefully this year that is coming we can go back and start to get the proper equipments to ship our products to Taiwan."
And further out West in San Jose Succotz, Sho's Natural Honey has been producing the sweet stuff for the past 8 years. They possess a wealth of knowledge on queen rearing and how the hive itself operates.
Christian Sho, Sho's Natural Honey
"Well basically our honey is from different flowering plants in the west, we have corn we have mango we have from different fruit trees so the honey we have here is original only from the flowers."
"This is just a display of the bees that we work with everyday and this is the topic we presented today about queen rearing."
"We have the nicotine process I have the nicot over there and basically we have the one that we call swarming when the bees are very populated and there is no more space so the queen will swarm and we get a nucleus and we take advantage of that process."
Approximately 296 bee species are estimated to be present in Belize.
