ARGENTINE BEEKEEPING
API FLORA MAP OF THE WEST OF CORDOBA PROVINCE - ARGENTINA

Original in Spanish

After a hard work, teachers from National University of Cordoba, made the Api Flora Map of the West of Cordoba Province. It is a very useful tool for beekeepers and Honey buyers, as it shows the prevalent pollen in honeys from the region. It is also a work that bases the necessity of conservating the ecosystems for regional benefit and for bees survival. This work is published with other about microbiology, that proves the antibacterial activity of vegetable extracts and the necessity of preserving the biodiversity. Both investigation lines base the formal request of implementing a Strategic Agricultural Plan that includes Beekeping made by this Editorial to the province government.

Hard Edition published in January of 2008

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Main titles of the 80th edition of ESPACIO APICOLA,
November - December 2007.

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EDITOR WORDS:
CLENCHED TEETH
Fernando L Esteban Córdoba: (January 2008) - Ever since several years, through this editorial, we have been proposing the necessity of an agricultural integration and new alternatives development, to make beekeeping activity not only profitable but also make it contributes to a new order of agricultural activities.
Although we have got an agro-exporter country, our authorities, grown in the time when people dreamt of "the new man" and "the agrarian reformation", they only kept the refrain of one of their songs "A desalambrar, a desalambrar!" (Something like take the fence out to get a new distribution of the land) and they forgot the whole rest. Because we are taking the fence out, removing the Australian tanks (big tanks for water in the countryside), the drinking troughs, the litle farmers' houses and any tree that is on the way of "direct sowing" (a special cultivation system). But start working on people's need and how planning the production of all kind of fruits, vegetables, cereales and a variety of excellent meats, making use of the different cultures that form our country and the soil we are lucky to live in, never.
They have their speech so paralyzed and they abandoned their dreams that, they still believe that the enemy is the cattle oligarchy!, while the main cattle cold-storage plants are in foreign hands and the meat we consume is produced in "feed lots" and it is fattened with corn and soya beans by the same capitals they formerly complained.
On the other hand, the Faculties of Agronomic Engineering issue every year, hundreads of enabling degrees to put a kiosk to sell agroquemicals or occupy any position in a public office, after all the policies are assigned by the multinationals that sell us the seed, the fertilizer, the agroquemicals and the watering technology...
From these pages we suggest proposals and we base them thanks to the contribution of many professionals who don't sell agroquemicals, and aren't neither useful idiots nor accomplices of multinationals in any position of the public administration. We hope our effort to be useful to strengthen yours. Enjoy your "Espacio Apícola" magazine!
Fernando L. Esteban - Director
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Antibacterial Activity of Vegetable Extracts and Products From Aromatic Plants Against Paenibacillus larvae, American Loque causative agent
María Julia González
Río Cuarto - Córdoba - Argentina

ensayo microbiologico
Photograph from one the published essays
mgonzalez@exa.unrc.edu.ar

Among the posters that were presented in the Api-Expo Río Cuarto 2007, there was this made by the biochemical María Julia González.
There, it is showed that in the universe of autochthonous and also exotic vegetation, bees can find resources to prevent and maybe control the different infections that they can suffer.
The Essays reaffirm our commitment to defend and to promote the conservation and propagation of the vegetable diversity and they are the beggining to develop new sanitary non-pollutants products, and linked to other productive activities such as the cultivation and exploitation of aromatic or medicinal plants.
We publish the complete work that justifies the following CONCLUSIONS:
It was demonstrated that the stocks of Paenibacillus larvae studied were inhibited in their growth when they faced different extracts and/or products of aromatic plants. The stock "Balcarce V" turned out to be the most sensitive in front of the essayed vegetable fractions.
The vegetables that had a bigger antibacterial activity percentage in all their fractions were: Eucalyptus, Marcela del Campo, Peperina and Suico.
From the essayed fractions, the water distillation remainder (ARD) and the decoction (D) presented a bigger inhibitory activity that the essential oil (AE).
As the antibiotics used in the American Foul Brood treatment have generated the appearance of resistant stocks and as their application is restricted due to the residuals that they leave in the honey and beekeeping products, this natural alternative could be used to control the illness.
The use of the ARD would optimize the yield of the vegetable species, being able to apply it for different purposes in the beekeeping handling, reserving the AE for special chemotherapeutic practices. As the decoctions (D) are easy and fast to obtein, this fraction can be reserved for homemade practices, using them in the same way as the ARD.

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Request of a Strategic and Sustainable Agricultural Plan that Includes Beekeeping
Fernando Esteban
Córdoba - Argentina

"For an Agricultural Integration" and "Building Alternatives" were some of the slogans with which we have summoned ourselves during the last years in the Fairs and Beekeeping Meetings from the center of the country.
In the last edition, with the members of the Advisory Beekeeping Council of Córdoba and a lot of producers and investigators of the country, we signed an Open Letter to the three powers of the Nation that we presented in the Casa Rosada and we did not receive any answer.
Then, and upon one's own initiative, through the Advisory Beekeeping Council of Córdoba, we wrote this letter to the current Province Governor from whom, at least, we received an encouraging formal answer.
The letter requests the following points:
1. - to reward the owners of parcels where beehives are placed.
2. - to impose the plantation of native species.
3. - to create new lines of meat and milk production feeding with leguminous species that give bigger concentration of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA).
4. - Reconvert the "green belt" of Córdoba city and promote the creation of vegetable production centers in the periphery of all the cities of the province.
5. - Dedicate budgetary outgoings to get back plantations of aromatic herbs.
6. - to have a significant province budget to guide the agroindustrial profile of the province.
Conclusion and challenge.
Córdoba and the center region of the country, have impoverished, it has degraded its land and it has endangered its productive and cultural dynamism for the sake of monoculture that displaced other regional productions like beekeeping and it gives more than 30% from its profit to the national government...
To the letter it is attached scientist works that supports it.

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QUEEN BEES BREEDING: Importance of Drones Breeding in Beekeeping
Gilles Fert
Argagnon - France
cuadro zanganero
Drones breeding frame. Photo: Gilles Fert

In our previous edition, we published an article about queen bees breeding in Mexico and the importance that this activity has in a country that must combat against the africanized bees. This combat is highly promoted and financed by the United States that really needs to guarantee the meekness in its apiaries and a low propensity to swarm, in order to make a rational use of its bees.
As it is accepted that the behaviors of aggressiveness and swarm are specially imposed genetically by the drones, this article by Gilles Fert, a famous queen bees breeder from the south of France, has a special interest for beekeepers and especially for queenbees breeders.

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API FLORA MAP OF THE WESTERN DEPARTMENTS OF CORDOBA PROVINCE
Cristina Costa
Córdoba - Argentina
Region del Mapa Apibotanico de las provincias del oeste de Cordoba
Ing. Agr. Luisa OLIVA¹; Ing. Agr. Raśl NOBILE¹; Ing. Agr. Julio A. SPADONI¹; Ing. Agr. Enrique SOSA¹; Ing. Agr. Víctor BARRIONUEVO¹; Ing. Agr. Patricia CISTERNAS¹ Biól. Cristina COSTA²; Biól . Estela PISTONE²
1 - Teachers From Faculty of Agricultural Sciences -UNC - 2 Teachers from Faculty of Exact Physical and Natural Sciences - UNC.

PROLOGUE
In the "Determination of the botanical Origin of the honeys and making of the Api Flora Map of the western departments of Córdoba Province, Argentina" project we intended to create a tool that could be useful for the beekeeper, and for all those readers, interested in the conservation of the environment and in the sustainable development. We present the Api Flora Map for the departments of the northwest of Córdoba.
What does an Api Flora Map offer?
It offers coded information of the main species used by Apis mellifera to obtain pollen and/or nectar, the vulgar and scientific name and the botanical family they belong; also the period of flowering, the color of the monoflora honeys and the way of dispersion of the pollen. As antecedents in our country, it is quoted the publication of the Subsecretary of Agrarian Matters of Entre Ríos province, Paraná and Concordia Departments (1995). The authors used similar codes in the Api Flora map, in order to avoid problems of interpretations. In this project have worked Investigation Teachers from the Faculties of Agrarian Sciences and Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the National University of Córdoba. The interdisciplinary team is integrated by the Agricultural Engineers Julio Spadoni, Luisa Olive, Raúl Nóbile, Enrique Sosa, Victor Barrionuevo, Patricia Cisternas and the Biologists Cristina Costa and Estela Pistone. We aspire that our work is useful for beekeepers, and that contributes to facilitate the taking of decisions regarding the possible productive alternatives. Adapting and adopting handling technics regarding the system require knowledge about biology, behavior, nutrition, flowering, among others. So that, we consider that this work is another contribution to the knowledge of the interactions between the variables or components of the beekeeping systems. For this reason, we should not rest in the results of the work, but committing in the continuous and combined task to continue carrying out contributions. After five years of work, we can confirm that the climatic and floral conditions of the region, allow to produce honeys of native plants, with possibilities of origin certification, but we can also say that producing in this environment is not an easy task and that it is necessary to struggle to take care of this potential, generating sustainable production systems as much beekeeping as all those that can be developed in the region. Then, we can see a future with possibilities for the crop and commercialization of differentiated honeys. Thanks to beekeepers from the area, because without them we couldn't have reached the objectives and thanks to the Secretary of Science and Technique of the UNC that it subsidized part of the project. Also, to Diego Osés, Agronomy student, for his help in the different tasks of the project.
Prof. Engineer Agr. M. Sc. Julio Spadoni, Director
Prof. Biol. Maróa Cristina Costa, Co-director

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First on-line edition March 5th of 1997


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