Apiculture abuzz in Barbados

Apiculture has been making a big buzz around the world recently. That’s because it’s forecast to be a 10-billion-dollar industry by 2023.

Local bee farmers are trying to reap the sweet successes of this rapidly gowning industry.

Apiculture is the practice of managing honeybee colonies to attain desired products such as honey, pollen, beeswax, etc.

According to International business magazine, Business Wire, the global demand for bee-products, especially honey and propolis, is expanding due to increasing incentives for their consumption. Honey is finding its way in the natural food market due to its special properties, flavor diversity and aesthetics.

The growth has been attributed to the increasing awareness and promotion of its benefits to health and wellbeing.

In an interview, Damian Hinds, President of the Barbados Apiculture Association and National Programme Officer with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture said the Association has big plans to tap into this industry.

Hinds explained his association which stands at about 54 members, has expanded by 25 percent within the last year.

“The most of them would have joined us in 2019 so it is encouraging, we actually have been recognizing a lot of our new members are actually females, which is another encouraging sign in terms of what we want to do for development...we also have some new young members.”

Some areas he believed could be explored include raw products such as beeswax and honey.

“We recognize that there is a significant niche in that area and this could also be done to the benefit of export markets and so on.”

One of the biggest money-making ventures from apiculture, aside from byproducts is pollination services.

This is setting up hives near crops such as cotton, sugar cane, cassava etc.

“The more bees we have, the better crop… the better cotton because bees also work on them very well. In fact, the ministry actually ha some evidence of beekeepers or hives actually contributing to the increased productivity of the crop…so it is not just about hive products,” said Hinds.

Economic Benefits
He added that apiculture can “tremendously” contribute to the economy of Barbados because just with pollination services because data by the Ministry of Agriculture show that hives improve agricultural output by 35 percent.

Other economic ventures which are in the pipeline he disclosed include tourism packages.

“We have potential given our tourist industry to develop tourism packages, around beekeeping for tourists”.

Still Importing
Earlier this year Representative of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture in Barbados, Ena Harvey said that Barbados imports over 2/3 of the honey-based products which are imported regionally.

Hinds revealed “preliminary evidence suggests that we produce less than 5 percent, maybe less than 2 percent of the honey produced in Barbados which means that 95 to 98 percent of it is being imported.”

He said if “we can double our honey output in five years” we can go from 2 to 5 percent to 4 to 10 percent of production locally.


Medicinal Purposes
Honey has been proven to have many medicinal benefits and Hinds is of the view that if the forty farms across the island upscale the just over 600 hives they have a chance of making it a niche for the country.

“Given our country's experience with alternative medicinal practices, the potential for us to offer a Tahseen therapy to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic joint pains is very possible,” he said.

“Medicinal benefits of pollen cannot be denied and we will have to look into those parts as well. And again, given that our bees potentially based on the environment, their work and the mix of flora and so on, that we have could be producing some unique would have unique characteristics,” he added.