The Tale of Bees and Coconuts forging an Alliance

The Philippine Bee Board and The Philippine Coconut Farmers’ Congress write a new ABC – the Alliance of Bees and Coconuts 

Only days after the three biggest national coconut farmers’ organizations[1] formed the first Philippine Coconut Farmers Congress (PCFC) demanding from government an administrative mechanism to manage the proper utilization of billions of pesos in coco levy funds, beekeepers, researchers and members of the academe involved in the propagation of the apiculture industry in the country formed the Philippine Bee Board (PBB) opposing Administrative Order 14 signed by Agriculture Sec. Proceso J. Alcala as unlawful since they said an AO cannot supersede a law. 

Leaders of the two groups immediately saw how useful an alliance would be – seeking the enhancement of the country’s coconut production using bees as pollinators and the propagation of other bee technology to propel the local bee industry.

Historical forging of alliance: Seated from left Ka Charlie Avila, executive director of PCFC and Ana Locsin executive director of the PBB signed the Alliance of Bees and Coconuts recently at Ilog Maria. Witnessed by (standing from left) Mayette Tamondong of PASCFO, Joel Magsaysay founding president of BEENET and Dr. Cleofe Cervancia of UPLB.

The Original Deal[2]

In the story of the Universe as told by Science, there was a time hundreds of millions of years ago when plants and animals struck a deal. Animals depended on plants to make food for them. Plants needed animals to spread their kind to new places. The seeds grew into food that animals ate and carried farther, where the seeds grew into food that animals ate and carried still farther…we get the idea. Plants and animals depended on each other so much that one would die without the other. That’s why, over a long time, plants began to grow splashy fragrant flowers – their way of flirting, “Dinner’s ready! Come and get it!”

The picture was rather clear, namely, one of plants eating sunlight; animals eating plants and each other. That’s how energy flowed from the sun and was transformed into Earthlings everywhere. Yes, that’s how it goes. Photosynthesizing plants eat energy from the Sun and turn it into leaves, roots, and seeds that are consumed by plant-eating animals. Meat-eating animals consume the plant-eaters. When animals and plants die, bacteria eat (decompose) their bodies. Their molecules go back into the soil to be taken up through plant roots and transformed into life once again.

But before all that, plants need to reproduce themselves. Not all plants can pollinate themselves. Many need to have seeds of others brought to them for fertilization to happen.

Pollination of Coconuts

Coconut trees, for instance, seem to be of both kinds: self-pollinating and cross-pollinating, meaning male and female flowers pollinate each other. In this process, honeybees help a lot, a whole lot. They pollinate coconut flowers by landing on one flower and having pollen attach to their legs and bellies. When they visit the next flower the pollen comes off and pollinates the flower as they collect more.

from:http://www.sfsu.edu/news/2008/spring/images/27.jpg

 Honeybees visit coconut flowers throughout the year, no question about that – morning and afternoon. Without bees, the fruit setting of palms, both tall or dwarf, drops drastically.

Some top-notch pollinators are Apis mellifera (European honey bee), which is high yielding in producing honey, and Apis cerana indica (Asian honey bee), which is lower yielding but more faithful in visiting the coconut plants. Honey, of course, has been a favorite of humans for thousands of years.

phoenixmasonry.org//King_Solomon

The wise King Solomon said 2,000 years ago, “My son, eat thou honey, because it is good, and honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste.”  Honey was one of the items found in our times in the private tomb of ancient Egyptians Yuya and Tjuju in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor (ancient Thebes). And this honey preserved thousands of years ago during Egypt’s 18th Dynasty could still be found safe, delicious and edible in our own time. Yes, honey destroys harmful bacteria and its own degradation consequently seemed rather slow – as evidenced by this discovery.

 What a natural advantage then to have the following: hundreds of millions of coconut trees in this country bearing billions of flowers and fruits the whole year round, and honeybees just finding them so attractive, which is why the Apis cerana ones tend to build their colonies in coconut plantations.[3] The disadvantage is that very few of our farmers are beekeepers by avocation.

Again there’s no question about it: poor farmers can become rich, very rich, if they only learn to make friends with bees. The latter won’t mind doing so much work for them. They do it for their queens. And – good news – the government may have been rather negligent in facilitating the extension of such simple age-old skills of wealth creation to date but today the private Philippine Bee Board is willing and ready to share both know-how and networks.

But, first, consider the following background information: [4]

In the culture of honeybees in coconut plantation, the spadix (inflorescent) should be allowed to secrete nectar during the day. Then, this is gathered at night and fed to the bees in the morning. The coconut nectar that cannot be consumed by the bees may be fermented into native wine (tuba) or vinegar.

Half of the sliced spadix can be opened so it can still produce nuts to be processed into copra, candies, and other by-products.

Studies made by the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) show that half of the length of coconut spadix can be tapped without significant effect on its production of nuts. A spadix has thousands of flowerets in it, but only 10 to 15 develop into nuts.

A coconut tree produces an average of 1 liter of coconut nectar, which has 15 percent sucrose and 5 percent or more of dry matter. It can support the nectar needs of two strong Apis cerana colonies. A colony of this species has the potential to produce 15 – 30 kilos of honey from a single coconut tree. And deliberate culture can bring about thousands of colonies, if you need to.

Based on this estimate, according to the PCA, a coconut farmer can earn an additional income of Php 100,000 a hectare from his honey, pollen, royal jelly and wax.

And yet, isn’t it true that the country has been importing more than a billion dollars’ worth of honey and bee products from year 1989 to the present?  Madness? Obviously. We therefore need this new Alliance of Bees and Coconuts to enable us to export double – triple – that amount.

from:efabre.net

Honey is used mainly in the Philippines as a health food. Pharmaceutical companies utilize it as a base for cough syrups and energy drinks. Pollen and royal jelly are components of energy pills and capsules. Cosmetics companies also use bee products in beautifying agents, as they do a lot of coconut products already.

The local and global demand for honeybee products is indubitably on the rise. Prices are good. More and more people are more and more conscious of what true wellness products are that they should go after. And the champs are more often than not the products of coconuts and bees.

Natural and Safe Bee Products

Dangers like Varroa mites do not seriously affect Apis cerana, our local honeybees. Hence, we can do away with pest control that only contaminate bee products; no need for antibiotics, miticides, nematocides, and other items of suicide. The cutting down of forests and coconut trees, however, is the real danger and may one day result in the extinction of the indigenous honeybees. Also, the excessive use of insecticides on farm crops has proven fatal to these bees.

The Role of the Government

In the early 1980s, the government embarked on a program to promote beekeeping. Coordinated by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), the drive, known as Pukyutang Barangay Program, did not flourish. Somehow, it did not get enough backing from the government in terms of research and development and credit facilities.

Under law, it is the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) that handles the quarantining of imported bees, in collaboration with UPLB (University of the Philippines Los Banos). These agencies have strict requirements for importation.  The mandate of BPI is pursuant to Plant Quarantine Act of 3027 and revised through Presidential Decree 1433 (dated1978). The rationale for this is that bees are potential vectors of plant diseases. A pest of bees like the small hive beetles could infest avocado, mango, pineapple, papaya and other fruits. It makes sense that phytosanitary personnel should handle this job.  In both the U.K. and the U.S., for instance, bees are under Plant Protection Division of the Department of Agriculture.

DA Sec. Alcala

The beekeepers of this country found all this in order until Secretary Proceso J. Alcala issued DA-AO 14 (a Department Administrative Order), wherein the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) would now coordinate with the National Apiculture Research, Training and Development Institute (NARTDI – an entity created through RA 9151 in year 2000).

“This is the cause of our disenchantment. First of all, NARTDI has never lived up to its mandate since its inception. They have not produced quality queens, which are their number one mandate and have been for the last ten years. Because of this failure, we, the beekeepers, are forced to import queens from other countries which draws away our hard earned dollars, not to mention exposing us to the possibility of bringing in new pests and diseases with each importation; hence the need for the strictest quarantine measures,” said Founding President of BEENET Philippines Joel Magsaysay.

Joel Magsaysay

“And for certain, NARTDI does not represent the private sector who are the main players in the bee industry; the majority of its members are not beekeepers but are from either the government and/or the academe. Only in the Philippines can we see the academe lead an industry. They have not contributed new knowledge in bee science and technology. We simply cannot trust this institution. There is an endless clamor to review this law, but no action,” Magsaysay lamented.

Ever since, private beekeepers have not been receiving any assistance from the Department of Agriculture. Government assistance, if any, was limited to the technical services of state universities like the University of the Philippines Los Baños through its Bee Program in terms of bee pest and diseases diagnosis and management, bee product analysis and pollination advisory. Other State Colleges and Universities also offered training assistance.

All this led Magsaysay to ask again: “We have been beekeepers for a long time and have existed even without government help.  Although we appreciate the fact that DA Sec. Alcala realizes the importance of bees to agriculture, more so, through the allocation of funds for bees – we can’t help but wonder that now that there is funding, why is there a need to change and alter the way things have been run.” If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Or do some people want to break it to allow them to get more funds to “fix” it some more?

According to Magsaysay, DA Undersecretary/ Chief of Staff Atty. Emerson U. Palad relayed Secretary Alcala’s position that “he will not revoke AO 14.” Ka Charlie of the coconut farmers’ group found this hard to believe: “Nothing is absolute, not in government for sure – whether the government be clean or corrupt. Ultimately the people’s will shall prevail, according to no less than the incumbent President, Alcala’s boss, who trumpets his faith no end that his only boss is the Filipino people who, by the way, include beekeepers and coconut farmers,” Charlie Avila said. FINIS.