A beekeeper in Homs: Working in honey production is profitable and provides job opportunities

Homs-Sana

Asaad Asaad from Dardaria village in the western Homs countryside has been working in beekeeping for more than 35 years. This profession has been inherited from father to grandfather. It is considered one of the profitable economic projects that secures a source of income for all members of his family.

Asaad spoke to SANA reporter about the process of beekeeping and the difficulties encountered in developing it, pointing to the great development witnessed by the sector, specifically the use of modern requirements such as wooden cells instead of clay and pottery, which saves effort and fatigue and increases productivity.

Regarding the difficulties of production and marketing, Asaad pointed to the decline in the productivity of cells this year from about 28 kilograms of honey to 10 kilograms, in conjunction with the weakness of the marketing process in general.

As for the difficulties experienced by beekeepers, among Asaad, it is concentrated in the high prices of wooden hives, the price of one of which, when empty, reaches 120 thousand pounds, and reaches 700 thousand pounds, and it is full of bees, in addition to the decline in flower spaces and the high costs of transporting hives, calling for a study and treatment of the phenomenon of bee migration and re- Granting material loans to beekeepers as before to enable them to continue this profession, which provides job opportunities for many families.

And about the types of bees and the stages of picking, between Asaad, he owns various varieties, including (Carnioli-Bakfast-Carnica-Piana-Kordofan-Italian), which differs from the local bees in the possibility of collecting the largest amount of honey, but foreign bees are weak in resistance to diseases and weather conditions that bees are accustomed to. Municipal.

As for the stages of honey harvesting, Asaad explained that it depends mainly on the availability of flowering seasons, and harvesting may take place four times per year according to the available pastoral map and places of availability of pastures, pointing out that it is difficult for any ordinary person to distinguish between natural and adulterated honey except through laboratories.

Khalil Asaad is a graduate of mechanical engineering and helps his father in beekeeping. He says that he works in the cultivation of queen bees, which is the basis for determining the type and activity of bees. He seeks to develop this method, noting that he annually replaces queens whose production declines with new queens in order to obtain good, productive and disease-resistant strains. and weather conditions.

For his part, Engineer Nasser Shofan, Head of the Bee Division in the Directorate of Agriculture in Homs, confirmed that the weather conditions in the governorate during the current season negatively affected bees, pointing out that the governorate’s production during the past year amounted to about 300 tons of honey, while the number of breeders reached 1,300, and the total number of cells is 28,500 cells. .

Abdul Hamid Junaidy

SANA Economic Bulletin

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