BATUAN, Bohol, June 17 (PIA) -- Thirty future bee keepers from Batuan town completed a day’s worth of orientation in stingless bee keeping and honey production in a bid to make the town the "Stingless Bee Capital" in Bohol.
Department of Agriculture in Central Viasayas bee keeping expert and researcher Jojo Nemenzo Jr. came all the way from his research station at the Bohol Experimental Station in Ubay to join Jomer Balag, owner of the Jolits Eco Farm, to train locals on the intricacies of bee keeping.
Balag, himself an integrated pest management specialist, has been using stingless bee as in-house pollinators in his plants and has professed to have increased his harvest by 40% to 60%.
The activity also highlights the provincial launching of the stingless bee keeping and honey production, which was in coordination with the DA’s Agricultural Training Institute, Gawad Kalinga, Local Government of Batuan, and Brgy. Cambacay and Upper Cabacnitan.
“The goal is to steamroll a community of bee keepers, which will not only help people earn income from honey, but increase their harvests as well,” said Balag, whose pioneering use of domesticated feral stingless bees as pollinators in his garden is earning him the title as the authority in stingless bees in Bohol.
Although relatively inferior in honey production compared to honey bees, the option for the endemic stingless bees bodes well for Cambacay and Upper Cabacnitan, which is within the Chocolate Hills and the Rajah Sikatuna Protected Landscape - all under the National Integrated Protected Areas Act, said Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer Ariel Rica.
Everyone is barred from bringing in exotic bee species with their potential to create an imbalance in the ecology.
The option for stingless bees also came when Balag noticed that these kinds of bees can access the pollens of even the tiniest of flowers, and that these bees can go to multispecies of flowers as they range for pollens, thereby assuring the propagation and sustainability of the endemic species in the protected area, said Nemenzo who presented the pros and cons of the bee species now being kept for honey production.
For Balag, however, even if the stingless bees do not produce so much of the honey, these insects do not venture out far and could saturate the task of pollination in the nearby farms, increasing the production.
"We wish to tie this bee keeping with vegetable production, considering the enhanced pollination which could drastically increase the potential for income in Gawad Kalinga sites," said Rey Balatayo, Gawad Kalinga (GK) community organizer and volunteerism advocate.
GK funded the 30 stingless bee colonies, which training participants would get as starter kits for their own backyard stingless bee keeping projects.
Each colony, according to Nemenzo, can house between 15,000 to 30,000 stingless bees.
Several of them go out of the boxes every night to search for pollens which they store as food.
From these pollens are sugary secretions, which the bees store in honey pots that they stick to filaments inside the bee box colonies.
National government agencies also came during the launch to pitch in their support to the project.
Present during the launching were the Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Training Institute, Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Philippine Information Agency, Bohol Provincial Government, and non-government organizations affiliated with Bohol Integrated Sustainable Agriculture and Development. (RAHC/PIA7 Bohol)
