In addition to crops planting, many residents of Battambang province’s Samlot district have begun keeping bees as an additional source of income. The Apiarist, or beekeeper, received their training from the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP).
Chey Rang, one of the local farmers who has taken up the new occupation, said beekeeping has improved her life, as it provided her with an additional source of income and helped her to support her children’s education.
“Beekeeping will put my children through university. It is a secondary income for me, as I also grow cassava, corn and beans,” she explained.
Through the training she received from MJP in 2019, Rang learned how to identify a queen bee and how to protect her hive. She learnt about which kinds of flowering plants would encourage the bees to make honey and in what season, as well as where the place the hives and when to move them.
Each of the participating families received one bee hive to start, while Rang has expanded her interest in beekeeping and now has 25 hives.
When the season is good, honey can be harvested from her hives in as little as two weeks. She can collect as much as 50 litres, with each litre selling for up to 70,000 riel ($17.50).
“If we compare my hives to planted crops, the difference is clear. It may take two or three months to harvest crops after planting, but honey can be collected from beehives in just half a month,” she said.
Mil Samet, manager of MJP’s Agriculture and Beekeeping Programme, said beekeeping does not just provide benefits to the community through additional income, but also helps to pollinate trees and flowers more effectively.
“In the beginning, many people were not aware of the benefits of beekeeping, but when they saw the work our foundation was doing, they became very interested. To be honest, most of them do not earn a great deal of money from it, but it is only a part-time occupation for most of the participants,” he said.
He explained that the there are about 30 families involved, with around 100 hives between them.
“In the past, there were about 180 beehives, but as the summer season has passed there are fewer in use,” he said.
Neth Pheaktra, Ministry of Environment spokesman, said the ministry had cooperated with UNESCO and other partner organisations and has prepared a roadmap for a national sustainable beekeeping and wild bee conservation plan.
He added that the Kingdom has many species of bees in its protected areas and they provide many benefits to the local people. He noted that harvesting wild honey from the forest was not enough to meet demand, so beekeeping was also a priority.
“Our plans for sustainable bee conservation are two-fold: first, to ensure a supply of honey, and second, to ensure the biodiversity of the Kingdom’s bees, as they play an important role in conserving the ecosystem,” he said.
“We are working hard to protect and conserve this forest resource. We have educated people on sustainable ways to harvest wild honey. People used to smoke the bees out of their hive, but that meant they would abandon the hive, and often perish. We need to explain the importance of sustainable practices to the public,” he added.
