BH24-The Cape bee (Apis capensis) from South Africa could destroy local bee colonies and threaten the livelihood of an estimated 50 000 small scale honey farmers if nothing is done to strengthen monitoring mechanism in the country, an environmentalist has warned.
Environment Africa country director Barney Mawire said the Cape bee could paralyse the local bee population and affect the country’s small but important beekeeping industry.
“Zimbabwe’s bee population is now under threat from Cape bees from South Africa,” he said. “We fear that if they come they might take over local bee colonies. We need to strengthen our local reporting and monitoring mechanism to ensure the survival of our local bees.
“The Cape bees kill local bee varieties and threaten local bee populations.”
Apiculturalists say the Cape bee tends to be a more docile bee than the African bee.
They say it can be distinguished from the African bee by a darker abdomen and is sometimes referred to as “black bees.”
It has a unique characteristic in that the worker bees (females) have the ability to produce both male and female offspring and thus able to re-queen a colony which has become queenless.
The downside of this characteristic, according to apiculturalists, is that it has the ability to parasitise scutellata (African honey bee) colonies.
Capensis laying workers invade and subsequently begin to lay their own eggs, challenging the scutellata queen’s ability to control the colony.
“The original colony becomes overtaken by Cape bees and will collapse,” said Mawire.

Meet the Harare Agricultural Show tractor winner

Faith Mhandu

A sudden twist of events in the agriculture sector in Zimbabwe continues to bring surprises in the country with small scale farmers now eligible to compete and beat commercial farmers.

In the recently held Harare Agricultural Show’s 104^th Edition, the overall winner was a 26 year old communal farmer from Guruve who scooped 75 horsepower tractor.

Mrs Nyasha Chamwazhika-Tapererwa, a mother of two, had no idea of what God had in store for her when she displayed shelled maize and cobs, ground nuts and horticultural produce.

She however received the shock of her life when she was informed that she was the overall agricultural produce winner and now a proud owner of a tractor.

“Although I was confident that my produce was good, I never imagined that I would walk away with a tractor, this is one thing I was not expecting at all,” said Mrs Tapererwa blinking off tears of joy in her eyes.

Immediately after receiving her price, the slender average height dark lady broke into song and dance with fellow farmers celebrating her victory.

Mrs Tapererwa and her husband have been into farming since they married eight years ago and have been blessed with two children.

Mr Tapererwa spends most of the time in Harare where he works as a driver while his wife is a full time farmer.

“Our plot is 12,5 acres of land but we also use our relatives’ idle fields as well as renting  from other villagers,” said Mrs Tapererwa.

“During the 2013/14 summer cropping season we planted 8,5 hectares of maize and we harvested 17 tonnes.”

The Tapererwa family is not new to winning big prices at the Harare Agricultural Show as they have also been the champions of 2010 and 2011 walking away with big prices while last year they took the second price in the overall agri-produce category.

“We both grew up in farming families and as early as 1994 when I was only 16, we used to join these competitions together with my parents and it was a real challenge since we competed with white commercial farmers who had vast experience in the agribusiness.

“In 2010 and 2011, we scooped the overall agri-produce winner and we walked home with a scooter and a motor bike while last year we came second in the overall winner in the agri-produce category and walked away with a ridger,” he said.

The family which produces maize, tobacco, small grains and horticultural produce said they relied much on hired labour which was a bit costly for them.

Mr Tapererwa said he has confidence in the judges who adjudicated their produce as it was done transparently.

“The fact that we won a tractor stirred a lot of controversy amongst some contestants to the extent that Zimbabwe Agricultural Society staff had to visit our farm to authenticate whether we actually have grown what we brought to this year’s show,” he said.

The sponsors of the grand price Southern Regional Trading Company promised to provide operator training and first year service to the winner farmer as a way of alleviating poverty to small scale farmers.