ARGENTINEAN BEEKEEPING: MAKING ALTERNATIVES

Original in Spanish

A typical characteristic of beekeepers is their capacity of looking for solutions to the problems they face. Each beekeeper manages as a carpenter, mechanic, alchemist!! The way for entering into a market, make the difference to achieve a reasonable honey price and thriving is a challenge to our creativity. The most dynamic and creative environment, for the diffusion and construction of new tools and alternatives is this "Espacio Apicola".

Published on March 2007

ARGENTINE BEEKEEPING MAGAZINE
5 EDITIONS YEARLY
CURRENT INFORMATION ABOUT ARGENTINE BEEKEEPING
50 BEEKEEPING ENTERPRISES ADVERTISE IN OUR MAGAZINE



Main titles of the 76th edition of ESPACIO APICOLA,
January - March - 2007.

Index
VISIT OUR SPONSORS - Thank you



EDITOR WORDS:
FACING THE REALITY
Fernando L Esteban Cordoba: (March 2007) In our editorial of last October, in Espacio Apicola 74th, we seemed to be optimists about how the season was coming; regrettably, for most beekeepers, the yield seemed to have been lower than what we expected the minium production would be and those who make an integrated handling with pastures didn't reach the historical average for the region. We also expected some gain which had allowed us to invest more in production and market development.
Besides the thin crop and the low honey price the year started with, we must add an inflationary process, which we describe in our editorial 75th.
If we added the requirements and documentation we have imposed ourselves to comply with in the last years, for the homogenized, the sample taking , the trazability tables, up to be inside the regulations of an intermediate area, between the dirty and the clean areas, in the extraction rooms... we would surely answer with anger to the question What does the argentinean honey taste like?, that Alicia Basilio chose to insert us in the Sensorial Analysis of honeys like a marketing tool for our products.
But things are like this; what could be an ending point becomes a challenge and what should be a celebration, a battle.
We put at your service the best tools we found, not only to defend your products, but also your desires of living. Take advantage of them; the Masello's opinions; the confirmation that there are honeys that work as antibiotic; the api flora from Chubut, learning with bees smell to find the pollen we need to satiate our appetite and the nectar to cheer the life up, we invite you to share the Api - Expo of Rio Cuarto, next May 11, 12 and 13th. Until then, enjoy your "Espacio Apicola" magazine.
Fernando L. Esteban - Director
To top

25 YEARS OF BEEKEEPING IN THE NORTH OF SANTA FE PROVINCE: BALANCE AND CHANGES
Interview to: Daniel Massello
Calchaqui - Santa Fe - Argentina danielmassello@csdnet.com.ar
Daniel Massello and Fernando Esteban Daniel Massello and Fernando Esteban, February 2007

By the middle of February we visited Daniel Massello, a queen breeder from Arrecifes sorroungings Buenos Aires county that, escaping from the soya, came to Calchaquí, in the South of Reconquista, Santa Fe province, in 1979.
The area is in the middle of two important geographical regions, Chaco and the Pampa Húmeda with mesopotámicas characteristics for beeing near to the Paraná coast and the Low Submeridionales. Since March of 1994, when we visited for first time, up to now, the beekeeper from this area had to adapt to the deep changes that the agriculture advance imposed in the ecosystem and the increase of the climatic lack of foresight. Daniel tells us how he faced from the apiary handing those changes, approached through the following topics:
DEEP CHANGES IN THE REGION
SOYA ADVANCE IN THE REGION
BEE SELECTION AND FEEDING HANDLING
FEEDING HANDLING DURING THE SEASON
FEEDING DIAGNOSTIC
PASTURES SPACES HANDLING

To top

ANTIMICROBE ACTIVITY AND MICROBIOLOGY QUALITY OF HONEYS FROM CALCHAQUÍ VALLEY - SALTA - ARGENTINA
Rosario Gomez de Diaz and Berta Di Carlo
Salta - Argentina
Honey Vs. Staphylococcus aureus
charo@unsa.edu.ar

(Introduction of the Editor) Discovering scientifically the antibacterial properties of some honeys is, no doubt, one of the best tools to promote the honey consumption and value its differentiation.
Rosario Gomez and Berta Di Carlo published in Espacio Apicola 69th a “Physical and Chemical Characterization of Honeys from Salta province, Argentina”, a work that they had presented within the framework of the VII Latin American Food Chemistry and Technological Meeting and 1st Food Chemistry and Feeding Technology Symposium.
For that, in our 69th editorial, we announced that this link to the increasing importance of Food Chemistry and Technology (Bromatology), as a science of the quality and innocuosness of foods, was very encouraging for the beekeping sector. As this work shows, the routine of biochemical analysis characteristic in a food laboratory, allows the investigator not only to find problems but also virtues of the food that he analyzes, It will be necessary to multiply these studies in the whole country.
SUMMARY In this work, the antibacterial activity and the control of microbiological quality of honeys from the Calchaqui valley, Salta.
The honeys showed antibacterial inhibition up to a 50% dilutions for Staphylococcus aureus, 25% for Escherichia coli and 75% for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, with inhibition halos from 26 to 10 mm. The total recounts of mesophylus aerobic varied between 101 to 1.103 UFC/g and there was absence of molds and yeasts.
The load microbiological of the honeys presents normal values due to its low watery activity that doesn't allow the microorbanisms growth and they possess antibacterial action, so that they can be used as an alternative therapy in infections treatment.

To top

WHAT DOES THE ARGENTINEAN HONEY TASTE LIKE?
Alicia Basilio, Beatriz Achaval, Graciela Ciappini, Carlos Ferrari and Laura Gurini
Buenos Aires - Argentina
Introduction
The wealth of our api flora motivated publications in the first beekeeping magazines edited in our country. In the first beekeeping books translated to Spanish and ready for their massive diffusion, the relationship beween the flora and the honey characteristics was develeped (for example Langstroth and Dadant, in the translation of its edition in 1907). However nowadays, it doesn't exist, in our country, honeys that represent a region, that have been completely characterized for their physical - chemical, melisopalinological and sensorial faculties.
Many group works have been making their best to reach this characterization, and they are near to get the first results. In this magazine, very complete descriptions about the pollen component and honeys' physical - chemical properties have been pulished.
There is a side that is becoming very relevant to the market where most of our exports are going to (European Union): it is the honeys' sensorial analysis.
In this presentation we want to insert you in the main notions about the sensorial analysis and spread the efforts that are being made to incorporate this characterization to the competitive advantages that have always been together with the quality of our honeys.
Note of the Editor:Facundo and Fernando Esteban of the Espacio Apicola team translated the Wheel of Scents initially proposed by CARI (Centre Apicole de Recherche et d'information) during the Workshop of the Honey International Commission in Lovaina, Belgium 2001 and finally improved by Lucia Piana and Livia Persano Oddo in the work published in Apidologie 35 INRA/DIB-AGIB/EDB Sciences (2004) available in www.edpsciences.org
AMPLIAR - Rueda de Olores de la Miel
* It is a tentative translation that tries to be adapted; For example: Blackcurrant is a currant characteristic for Europe and “Red Fruit” that textually would be "Fruta Roja", is a scent sui generis that identifies for example beers made with the attach of apple juice, about “Crumpled Leave” we have no idea what it is about and may be other should be revised. - Fernando L. Esteban.-
The topics approached in the article are developed trough the following titles:
What are the advantages of having local honeys correctly separated by types?
Sensorial analysis
Progress in the country
The article also comes with 5 annexes that referrto:
What's happening with honeys in our country?
What about honey according to senses?
As introduction to the sensorial analysis, we are defining some words according to the Norma IRAM 20001: 1995
What does honey taste like?
Honey from our own bees, is the most delicious!

To top

LEARNING THE FLORAL SMELLS INSIDE THE BEEHIVE: ITS IMPORTANCE DURING THE FOOD GATHERING (Experience in fields with sunflower cultivations)
Andres Arenas, Paula Diaz and Walter Farina
Study Group of Social Insects - Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences - UBA - Argentina
andresarenas79@yahoo.com.ar

(From introduction) When foraging bees comes back to the colony and unload the food gathered to their partners, the last ones can sense the floral smells in the nectar or the ones impregnated on the body of the foraging bee. If they comes back from a food rich in nectar or pollen food source, they usually have a stereotyped behavior among their partners. This behavior, which has been very well studied by the winner of the Nobel prize Karl von Frish (previous page picture), is called "the dance of the bees" and offers information about the placing of the flora (according to the way to the sun and the distance from the beehive, this dance helps to the dissipation of the volatile ones that brings the forager on its body). It is demostrated that the success of bees when adapting to almost all the climates of the world is due to their gathering strategies. However
what role do the smell code have when gathering for a colony?
How is the transfer of smell codes among nest partners?
How can the gathering of a resource from the exterior modify the behaviors and gathering choices among nest partners?
These are some of the questions that must be answered to understand the processes which guide the gathering for bees. (Continue from the works published previously in Espacio Apicola 74th edition)
SCIENTIFIC POINT OF VIEW
REACTION OF THE BEE TO THE SUNFLOWER MONOCULTURE
TRANSCENDENCY OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE BEES SMELL PHYSIOLOGY
Due to the bees have a great importance as pollen agents and as nutritious resources storing agents, analysing their biology and behaviour approache us not only to improve our knowledge on these wonderful insects, but also to improve possible uses that have a direct incidence on the bees handling.

To top



PALINOLOGIC CHARACTERISTIC OF HONEYS FROM CHUBUT
Alicia Forcone
Palinology Laboratory - Faculty of Natural Sciences - National University of La Patagonia San Juan Bosco - Trelew - Chubut - Argentina
aforcone@infovia.com.ar

As scientific directress of the Trelew Herbal, directress of the Palinology Laboratory of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the National University from Patagonia San Juan Bosco and responsible for the Control of Quality of Honey and Beekeeping Products Laboratory (CORFO - Ministry of Production from Chubut and UNPSJB) the presence of Dra. Alicia Forcone, besides hierarchizing the Argentinean Beekeeping Regions Meeting presenting the Api flora from Chubut; she will add to the Meeting the efforts and experience of the Patagonia provinces when protecting and differentiating their products.
In the introduction she explains: In Chubut province, beekeeping is practiced in three regions, two of them are in areas watered by the extra-Andean sector: the inferior valley of the Chubut river located in the southern end of the Phytogeographic Province of the Mount and the Senguerr river, in the Patagonica Phytogeographic County (Steppe). The remaining beekeeping establishments are in the northwest region, next to the Andean, (that is in the Forests Subantartic and ecotone, between these and Chubut).
The work describes the Api flora from each one of these regions.

To top


First on-line edition March 5th of 1997


This page is modernized approximately every 30 days.
If you need a specific information or you want to receive the Espacio Apícola Magazine don't hesitate to contact us.

ESPACIO APICOLA
Punilla 1784
5006 Córdoba
Argentine Republic
Tel/Fax: +54-351-4564337
E-mail: inform@apicultura.com.ar