In search of a new lease of life for beekeeping

Beekeeping is characterised in Fes-Boulemane by ancestral local know-how and a diversified indigenous melliferous flora (hare's ear, jujube, thyme, rosemary, holm oak and carob) with forests that spread over 260,000 ha and rangelands of 1,000,000 ha. But the sector remains handicapped by a certain number of constraints. Mohammed Mezzour, pastoral agronomist, head of service at the regional directorate of agriculture Fes-Boulemane, put forward during a conference on hive products held recently in Fes, the predominance of the traditional beekeeping sector with some 1,500 traditional hives, the non-valorisation of honey production with a gross margin of 110 DH/kg and the low level of health monitoring. Results: the number of hives amounts to 6,100, including 4,600 modern ones, and honey production does not exceed 62 tonnes. "The traditional hive produces 0.5 to 6 kg of honey while the prod…