Youths get training in beekeeping

The young people, between the ages of eight and 16, participated in Junior Beekeeping Classes during February 2020, at the Commission’s headquarters, Codrington House, St Michael.

The participants who were introduced to several pertinent topics and also benefitted from demonstrations, group explorations, projects, hands-on activities and a field trip, received certificates of completion this morning during a brief ceremony at NCC’s headquarters.

The objective of the classes included the introduction of honeybees through hands-on activities, showcase the relationship between humans and honeybees, feature honeybees as an integral species in the island’s food chain, and to highlight the honeybee as pollinators and their relevance in the earth’s ecosystem.

Minister of Environment and National Beautification Trevor Prescod who applauded NCC for introducing and facilitating the classes, stressed that beekeeping is a sector that needs to be resuscitated.

The Minister noted that as his Ministry seeks to work with beekeepers to expand and boost the island’s honey production to maximum capacity; the Junior Beekeeping Classes programme will be continued in the near future to get more young people interested and involved in the industry.

“Bees continue to live a very solitary life. They live in total separation while being at the centre of the ecosystem for life. Bees live totally in isolation of all other species. Bees cluster together in a collective way and they move together. In this department’s effort to capture a lot of the features of biodiversity, this programme is one that we intend to proliferate within the months ahead,”

Prescod said NCC was currently exploring initiatives that would restore the indigenous species to the island’s landscape. (AH)