Pakistan exports 440 containers of honey to Gulf in 2012-13

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Pakistan has exported 440 containers honey to Gulf states during the financial year 2012-13 and it was expected in 2013-14 the volume would be much higher than the previous year.
President Honey Bee Keepers and Exporters Association Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Raza Khan Afridi said Pakistani honey has big demand in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait and Bahrain.
The price of one kilogramme honey in international market in Pakistani currency is Rs 1000 and each container contains 20,000 kilogramme of honey.
He called for provision of facilities to honey exporters to increase the export of the commodity and stressed need for the establishment of Honey Board having representation of all stakeholders including the association and forest department.
For increase in the production of honey, Khan Afridi said the beekeepers should be given facilities as due to poverty his bees use to die. He said bee keepers are poor and they have bear a loss of Rs 160,000 colonies annually in head of transportation, feeding and working.
He especially complained of the police attitude with bee keepers at the time of the transportation of colonies and every truck have to pay an amount ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 1000 per truck. He in particular complained of the improper treatment of Peshawar and Kohat Police.
The variety of bees known as Apis-Mellaffera was imported from Italy in 1982 for Afghan refugees.
He said demand of honey in international market particularly in Gulf was manifold higher than the present supply. For increase in the production, he called for the plantation of berry plants in open places to provide feeding for the bees. In this connection, he especially stressed the active role of forest and agriculture departments and district administration should also cooperate with them.
He called for the establishment of a honey specific department to work for the promotion of investment in the sector under the supervision of public sector. He demanded making arrangement for the processing of the honey.
He said beekeeping is an informal emerging sector providing employment opportunity to thousands of people. He especially appreciated the efforts of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority for the development of the sector. After carpet manufacturing, beekeeping is the second potential export oriented sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, whose growth is stagnant due to the lack of facilitation by both federal and provincial governments.

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Honey trivia

There are all kinds of interesting facts about honey. Here’s a hodgepodge of trivia that might improve your chances of winning a quiz show.

• Honey has antibacterial properties and is used in some cultures to prevent infection of cuts and burns. A medico friend of mine recently visited a burn clinic in China where honey is used in the patients’ dressings.
• In olden days, a common practice was for newlyweds to drink mead (honey wine) for one month (one phase of the moon) to assure the birth of a son. Thus the term “honeymoon.”
• The honey bee’s image became a symbol for kings and religious leaders and was honored on ancient coins and in mythology.
• One gallon of honey (3.79 liters) weighs 11 lbs., 13.2 ounces (5.36 kg.).
• The Romans used honey to pay their taxes (I don’t think the IRS would approve).
• Honey found in the tombs of the Egyptian Pharaohs was still edible. That’s an impressive shelf life!
• To produce 1 pound of honey, the bees must visit 2 million flowers!

How Bees Make Honey

 

It has been said that except for man, nowhere in the world is there anything to compare with the incredible efficiency of the industry of the honeybee. Inside the beehive each bee has a special job to do and the whole process runs smoothly.

Bees need two different kinds of food. One is honey made from nectar, the sugary juice that collects in the heart of the flowers. The other comes from the anthers of flowers, which contain numerous small grains called pollen. Just as flowers have different colours, so do their pollen.
Let us go with the honeybee from her flower to the hive and see what happens. Most bees gather only pollen or nectar. As she sucks the nectar from the flower, it is stored in her special honey stomach ready to be transferred to the honey-making bees in the hive. If hungry she opens a valve in the nectar “sac” and a portion of the payload passes through to her own stomach to be converted to energy for her own needs.
The bee is a marvelous flying machine. She can carry a payload of nectar or pollen close to her own weight. Consider that even the most advanced design in aircraft can only take off with a load one-quarter of its own weight and you’ll appreciate the miracle that the honeybee can remain airborne with such a load.
When her nectar “sacs” are full, the honeybee returns to the hive. Nectar is delivered to one of the indoor bees and is then passed mouth-to-mouth from bee to bee until its moisture content is reduced from about 70% to 20%. This changes the nectar into honey. Sometimes the nectar is stored at once in cells in the honeycomb before the mouth-to-mouth working because some evaporation is caused by the 32.5°C temperature inside the hive.

Finally, the honey is placed in storage cells and capped with beeswax in readiness for the arrival of newborn baby bees. Pollen is mixed with nectar to make “bee bread” and is fed to the larvae. A baby bee needs food rich in protein if the bee community is to flourish.
Before returning to the flower again for more pollen, the bee combs, cleans and cares for herself ? not because she is vain but so she can work more efficiently. Throughout her life cycle, the bee will work tirelessly collecting pollen, bringing it back to the hive, cleaning herself, then setting out for more pollen.
Forager bees start out from the hive for blossom patches when three weeks old. As they live to be only six or seven weeks old they have much work to do and little time in which to do it.
There will be many other bees working at the same time, and the air will be noisy with their droning. It takes 300 bees about three weeks to gather 450 g of honey. On average, a hive contains 40,000 bees. 

Source of Article: Australian Honey Bee Industry council