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Dubai /Â WAM
Researchers at the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) reached a major milestone in the breeding of large populations of queen bees, as part of the UAE Honey Bee Species Production Project.
According to Rashid Mohamed Al Shariqi, Director-General of ADFCA, the project is being undertaken as part of a directive by H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Presidential Affairs, and ADFCA Chairman, to find a strain of bee that can adapt to the local environment and produce high quality honey, as an alternative to the annual import of honey from abroad.
”The bee strain development research is a national strategic project based on scientific processes for cross-breeding strains of bees that are adaptable to the local environment. The prime objective is to reduce imports to the minimum, and to sustain the bee breeding and bee keeping sector,” he said.
”The relative success in the expansion of agricultural production and the sincere desire to engage in such experiments, opened up new areas of interest to produce high quality local honey at acceptable quantities,” Al Shariqi stated.
”It is essential to encourage farmers to keep and breed bees to increase the national production of honey, whether for purposes of personal consumption or commercial marketing,” he added
Al Shariqi made his remarks as he reviewed the project’s final results. The project is a joint partnership between ADFCA’s Research and Development Division and the Abu Dhabi Farmer’s Services Centre. He also honoured the partners of the project.
Speaking about the honey consumption to import ratio, the Director-General said Abu Dhabi imported seven tonnes of honey in 2015.
”Yearly per capita consumption of honey in Germany stands at 2kg, compared to 5kg for Abu Dhabi citizens and 4kg for expatriate residents,” he noted.
Dr. Mohamed Al Hammadi, Acting Executive-Director of the ADFCA’s Research and Development Division, said that researchers had conducted cross-breeding experiments on the best bee strains to produce the group’s baseline for the genetic improvement project of the UAE’s next generation of bees.
”The queen bees propagated by our researchers have the ability to survive the hot summer season and produce more honey,” he stated. This research project is one of the ADFCA’s key initiatives to achieve food
security in the UAE, he said.
The project also faced a daunting challenge with the death of the swarm cells at the flowering season during the start of the summer season. Bee breeders lost the imported beehive, which lived for only one season, so new ones had to be imported, he
further added.
A two-year experimental study, conducted by researchers on the causes of this problem, succeeded in raising the survival age of the cell from 10 percent to 96 percent over the course of the year, through the good management of the beehive and pest prevention.
