Honey sector still to impact local, export...

Guyana through training” exposed twenty five mainly unemployed persons between the ages of 18-45 years to training in apiary management/beekeeping. Roberts said the workshop was seeking to, among other things, equip participants to establish apiaries and to understand the technical skills and requirements for managing an apiary. Information emanating from the GCCI said that the forum also includes field exercises involving visits to honey bee hives and to the New Guyana Marketing Corporation packaging facility.

Last year, Guyana’s limited export market for honey in Barbados and St. Lucia was dealt a blow when the industry was slapped with an in-transit ban for its irregular use of Trinidad and Tobago as a transit point for exporting honey to other Caribbean countries in contravention of a regulation that obtains in the twin-island republic prohibiting the movement of honey within one mile of the country. Since then there has been no movement insofar as the unblocking of the ban is concerned though Apiculture Society Vice President Linden Stewart told this newspaper earlier this week that the ban was scheduled to be lifted at the end of October. Stewart, who is one of the country’s leading bee experts, told Stabroek Business that he was optimistic that Guyana’s hosting of next year’s regional beekeeping conference would help raise the profile of the local industry and galvanize the country’s beekeepers.