Beekeeping in UAE

[Quevy]

http://gulfnews.com/xpress/news/inside-region-s-first-queen-bee-rearing-station-1.2173881


Interesting article about beekeeping in the UAE

 

[maddydog]

Interesting numbers: 1200 hives & 100,000 queens by the end of the summer,

 

[Finman]

.
Hatta hype queens.... Where do they come from and in what climate they can over winter?

As a mating place it is like Hawaii.
.

 

[eltalia]

.
Hatta hype queens.... Where do they come from and in what climate they can over winter?

As a mating place it is like Hawaii.
.

Maybe the video message has more, Fin-ol'-chap?
https://m.you tube.com/watch?v=YYrknSSi4N0

Interesting the apiary is using what I know as blown polycarb shells
for broodboxes. That construction uses a void between skins in lieu
of polyurathane fill. The setout also lends to indicating massive forage
lands close by... weird when sails are required as apiary shelter.
What monocrop exists in those conditions?

Bill

 

[Quevy]

The setout also lends to indicating massive forage
lands close by... weird when sails are required as apiary shelter.
What monocrop exists in those conditions?

Bill

Hatta is a mountainous enclave surrounded by desert. Bees can feed for one month only on flowering mountain acacias. (Sidr tree)
Temperatures can reach end 40 C in summer. 113 F Plus
There is no major agriculture around or in Hatta

Here is another article

https://www.thenational.ae/uae/envi...billions-of-bees-around-the-world-1.670846#16

 

[sipa]

Sidr honey is highly prized in the Arab world, and expensive !

 

[eltalia]

There is no major agriculture around or in Hatta

So how are these fellas sustaining an industry? And reading
around it is big business, you don't fly jumbos around the ME
for peanuts.. or a bag of dried camel rattles (jerky, Arab style).

They have run the love bug line, that's selling well.
https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyl...s-from-how-to-use-it-and-the-benefits-1.83054
"“This special mix for married people helps them become, well, more amorous,
and I have had couples come back and tell me they are now expecting a child after many
years of trying,” says Alnahmy, the 30-year-old manager at Global Village’s Yemeni Honey
World stall."

I noted the seemingly bare hills in background of Hatta and, yes, it does look like
ideal Acacia country. We have the prickly variety here, introduced as a dry zone fodder
for cattle and sheep. It gets a creamy yellow flower in the coming of winter.
I have never thought to run bees on it.
The prickles on it are woody and will spear into the flesh easily, and it invades waterways,
two reasons to bulldoze the stands. Yet some insist on preserving the weed.

https://www.beefcentral.com/propert...ly-subject-for-future-cattle-property-values/
"Rodger Savory February 3, 2017
Property owners can save a fortune in dry season feed bills if they are lucky enough
to have prickly acacia on their stations, 17% protein is perfect for livestock. Don’t bulldoze
hire backpacker to trim low branches with long arm chainsaw, cat"


I am left wondering how beekeeping is possible around the UAE at the levels these
articles tout when there is no apparent sustainable forage flora??

Bill

 

[Quevy]

They have run the love bug line, that's selling well.
https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyl...s-from-how-to-use-it-and-the-benefits-1.83054
"“This special mix for married people helps them become, well, more amorous,
and I have had couples come back and tell me they are now expecting a child after many
years of trying,” says Alnahmy, the 30-year-old manager at Global Village’s Yemeni Honey World stall."

With the ongoing war the honey industry all but collapsed in Yemen.
Mountainous Yemen used to be THE producer of high quality Sidr honey in the Arabian Peninsula. Selling in the Kingdom, UAE and Oman.
And yes, they always sold their honey as aphrodesiac.
With the destruction caused by war and the lack of any control, the so called Yemeni honey found on the Middle East markets is a mix with great percentage of chinese honey.
As for the aphrodesiac properties, good luck.