Conservation today is about bridging the divide between human beings and the environment to ensure long-term, sustainable solutions. The Green Trust has been a pioneer of this approach and supports projects that encapsulate it. “Badgers and Beekeepers” is such a project.

One of the newcomers to the Green Trust’s portfolio, funding was approved for it earlier this year. The project came about after wildlife researchers, Keith & Colleen Begg, revealed that the honey badger (or ratel as is it also known ) is severely persecuted by beekeepers and is now listed as “Near Threatened” on the Red Data Species List.

For years commercial beekeepers in South Africa have been at war with the honey badgers who destroy their hives to get at the honey and larvae. In an industry worth an estimated 3.2 billion rand,  honey badgers are widely regarded as vermin and farmers poison or trap them.

One can understand the farmers’ problem since each fully-equipped hive – excluding the honey - costs around R500.00 and honey badgers destroy them in minutes. One can also understand that seeking out honey and bee larvae is instinctive for honey badgers.

The beauty of this project is that logistically the war is easily resolved. All the beekeepers need to do is construct simple, cost-effective badger-proof hives. Essentially what this entails is introducing higher, sturdy stands, which puts hives out of the badger’s reach. Or lower, tightly sealed stands that cannot be toppled. The cost of the stands ranges from R30 to R200 – depending on whether they’re bought or home-made. Several beekeepers have been doing this for decades but the majority haven’t. Compounding the problem is the considerable expansion of the honey industry in the past twenty years. Accordingly, conflict between beekeepers and badgers has increased.

This growth of the honey industry poses a major logistical problem for the Badgers and Beekeepers project as the executant of  the project, Joan Isham, explains: “Only          1 000 beekeepers in South Africa are registered – this amounts to 10 percent of an estimated 10 000 commercial beekeepers countrywide. Many don’t want to reveal themselves because honey provides a tax-free income. This hinders the badger-proof hive educational campaign.  We try to reach them but it’s extremely tricky because hives are spread over vast farmlands and often you don’t even know they’re there. We estimate there are over 60 000 hives in the Western Cape alone.”

Spurring farmers to register is the new “Badger-friendly Honey” campaign, whereby participating beekeepers are permitted to use nationally recognised badger-friendly labels on their products. Major retail chains like Woolworths are supporting the campaign and will only buy honey from badger-friendly beekeepers.

We join her on a journey up the west coast to visit two beekeepers who have introduced entirely successful badger-proof hives.

The west coast – comprising sandveld and coastal fynbos - is a key conservation area for honey badgers because while they occur all over the country (apart from the Free State), they favour this region.

“The honey has been excellent this year because we’ve had a bumper flower season,” says beekeeper Anita Grunder.

Grunder started keeping bees in 1985 and now has 200 hives. She estimates there are 80 000 in bees in the hive her husband Heinrich opens to show us inside. The number of bees in a hive is a point of dispute between beekeepers. Some say you don’t get hives greater than     15 000; others say they can exceed 120 000.

While Heinrich holds up the honeycomb, Anita bellows gentle amounts of smoke (from smouldering hessian strips) into the hive to take the edge off the swarm’s anger at being disturbed.

Standing there (in protective gear of course), surrounded by 80 000 disturbed bees, is one of those moments in life when time slows right down. Only afterwards does the brain really register the wonder and impact of it.

The Grunders say they have not had any badger problems since strapping their hives to one-metre-high stands. The stands also keep the hives drier and keep out the ants. “We strongly encourage other beekeepers to go the badger-proof route,” they state. A second farmer in the area using badger-proof hives is Derick Hugo who was sceptical about their worth when Isham first approached him.

After experimenting with his own, low-level, tightly sealed stands, he’s converted. “The thing about honey badgers, I’ve discovered, is they don’t sukkel (struggle) for long. If they cannot break into or topple the hive, they move off to find easier prey.”

Hugo started beekeeping in 1957 when his father-in-law gave him a hive as a wedding present. “He said I was too poor to put jam on the table so he had better give me a hive to make sure his daughter has honey.”

His hives have served him well and today his wife not only has jam on the table but tens of kilograms of delicious badger-friendly honey.

ends

For more information e-mail Joan Isham at joanisham@bermar.co.za

or

Keith and Colleen Begg at ratel@iafrica.com

Website: www.honeybadger.com

Sidebar: ABOUT BADGERS AND BEES

·        To avoid human contact in populated areas, honey badgers are most active at night and hence rarely seen.

·        Badgers are about 30cm high but can weigh between 6 and 14 kilograms. The male is one-third bigger than the female.

·        Female honey badgers bear one cub every two years, the gestation period is 6-8 weeks and cubs are dependent on their mothers until they are eighteen months old. At this rate, decimated honey badger populations struggle to recover.

·        Contrary to popular belief, they ransack hives for the brood (bee larvae) rather than for the honey.

·        Bee larvae only constitute about 4% of the honey badger’s diet in the wild. The rest is made up of everything from rats to scorpions to snakes to jackal pups. Putting the hives out of their reach does not adversely affect the badgers.

·        Bee larvae eat the pollen deposited in the hive by the worker bees. Honey is the adult bee’s fuel to get them to the pollen source. Whatever they don’t use is regurgitated as honey into the honeycomb.

·        Bees will travel up to 8 kilometres in an emergency to find water and food.

·        Apart from the handful of male drones which impregnate the queen, the hive comprises female worker bees whose lifespan is 35 to 40 days.

·        The queen bee is a normal female bee that is fed royal jelly which transforms her into royal breeding material. She lives for up to seven years and spends her life filling the honeycomb with eggs. Eggs take 14 days to hatch.

·        If the honey is not harvested, the hive expands until it is too large for the hive. At this point the bees will create another queen and half will leave with her in a swarm to form another hive.

·        To move a swarm, place a wax sheath that has already been used in a hive in a box and the box near the bees. The bees will recognise the smell of the used wax and move into the box.

·        If a bee stings you, don’t pull at the sting. In doing so you squeeze all the poison inside. Instead, get a sharp knife and scrape off the sting.

·        Anyone wanting to know about bees should get hold of “Beekeeping in South Africa” (3rd edition, revised); editor: M.F. Johannsmeier. Published by the Plant Protection Research Institute(PPRI).

      Contact Joe Hugill (011) 953 4883 or SAFBA’s (South African Federation  of Beekeeper Associations), chairman Nico Langenhoven (021) 863 2988.