Natasha Said­wan

Pro­duc­tion Ed­i­tor

natasha.said­wan@guardian.co.tt

To bee or not to bee?

For hun­dreds of pa­trons at Sat­ur­day’s Hon­ey Fest, the an­swer was easy.

On May 20, every year we cel­e­brate World Bee Day, so it was on­ly nat­ur­al and fit­ting that the in­au­gur­al Hon­ey Fest be in­tro­duced on the same day to pay homage to bees and their eco­log­i­cal im­pact on our world and their pri­ma­ry pro­duce—hon­ey.

The brain­child of Buz­zCon­cepts, the fes­ti­val al­so com­mem­o­rat­ed the event com­pa­ny’s an­niver­sary.

“We cel­e­brat­ed 20 years this year and we want­ed to or­gan­ise a fes­ti­val, some­thing in­ter­ac­tive, some­thing sus­tain­able” said man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Bren­don Brath­waite.

“We are al­ways work­ing, just like work­ers bees, and so hon­ey came to mind. And we want­ed to cel­e­brate it through food, cul­ture and learn­ing.”

The day-long event was held at UWI’s De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts grounds in St Au­gus­tine and it fea­tured some­thing for every­one: hon­ey mar­ket­place, chil­dren’s en­ter­tain­ment along with ed­u­ca­tion­al work­shops and ses­sions through­out the day.

Hon­ey Fest gave pro­duc­ers of hon­ey and byprod­ucts, some from as far as Matu­ra and Man­zanil­la, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their goods, some of which were quite unique, across dozens of booths.

Of­fer­ings in­clud­ed hon­ey­comb, hon­ey cit­rus wings, cof­fee-in­fused hon­ey, hot hon­ey (chili), hon­ey in­fused jel­ly, chow, sno cone and ice­cream. The booth Coun­try Style Dou­bles was one of the busiest with pa­tron taste test­ing one of our sta­ples served with man­go and hon­ey sauce.

Non-ed­i­ble prod­ucts such as bee-re­lat­ed crafts, by prod­ucts of bees wax like can­dles and soaps were al­so on sales.

Sev­er­al booths were manned by lo­cal api­arists who lib­er­al­ly shared in­for­ma­tion not on­ly about their prod­ucts but abouts bees and hon­ey.

Ray­mond Charles, of Charles Nat­ur­al Hon­ey, em­pha­sised the crit­i­cal role of the in­sect.

“Bees pol­li­nate 80 to 85 per cent of all fruits and veg­eta­bles, with­out bees, we would not sur­vive, “ he said, stress­ing the need for preser­va­tion.

Be­de Ra­jahram, All T&T Api­cul­ture Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Ltd, show­cased the ver­sa­til­i­ty of nat­ur­al bees wax.

“It can be used in skin­care, med­i­c­i­nal pur­pos­es, food preser­va­tion, and for mak­ing prod­ucts such as can­dles and pol­ish,” he ex­plained.

The Buz­zCon­cept or­gan­is­er not­ed that the for­mat was in­formed by years of event ex­pe­ri­ence.

“We have at­tend­ed sev­er­al fes­ti­vals and there were things that worked, things that didn’t and things we could en­hance. We made sure we had en­ter­tain­ment through­out the day and we teamed up with the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co­op­er­a­tion on Agri­cul­ture (IICA) along with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture who as­sist­ed with the ed­u­ca­tion­al seg­ments and work­shop.”

Through­out the day, bee facts were shared and every­one had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to win prizes which be­ing ed­u­cat­ed.

Among the many fun facts were that T&T has over 160 species of bees and that one bee can vis­it 5,000 flow­ers per day.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture’s booth emerged as one of the most well at­tend­ed and in­ter­ac­tive.

Armed with an ob­ser­va­to­ry hive full of bees, min­istry rep­re­sen­ta­tives Joseph Lu­cas and John Fa­chot­tie shared in­sights on lo­cal bee pop­u­la­tions.

Vis­i­tors to this booth learned about the two main types of lo­cal bees: African­ised bees from Trinidad, which are more ag­gres­sive and the Eu­ro­pean bees, which are of a calmer tem­pera­ment but pro­duce slow­er, main­ly found in To­ba­go. We al­so learned about stin­g­less bees, (Ap­i­dae, Melipon­i­nae) which are in­dige­nous to Trinidad.

Lu­cas al­so shared in­for­ma­tion on what to do when faced with an un­want­ed bee hive in your area.

“The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture man­ages bee re­moval through its bee abate­ment pro­gramme. Au­tho­rised bee­keep­ers and per­son­nel cap­ture or de­stroy bees in lo­ca­tions that pose a risk to the pub­lic, such as homes, parks, or util­i­ty poles.”

Fa­chot­tie al­so shared that the min­istry of­fered out­reach pro­grammes to com­mu­ni­ties on how to deal with fer­al bees via work­shops and demon­stra­tions.

In­for­ma­tion was not the on­ly things shared freely.

Sam­ples of var­i­ous tast­ing hon­ey, hon­ey comb and hon­ey in­fused prod­ucts were of­fered to the hun­dreds of vis­i­tors who crossed the fes­ti­val gates.

The more ad­ven­tur­ous adults sam­pled hon­ey in­fused black maca and hon­ey mead found at Hon­ey­Gate booth, owned and op­er­at­ed by San­jay Per­sad.

“All our hon­ey prod­ucts are all nat­ur­al and made for well­ness. Our black maca with in­fused hon­ey is an aphro­disi­ac that nat­u­ral­ly boosts your en­er­gy, sta­mi­na and en­cour­age hor­mon­al bal­ance and our matcha in­fused hon­ey is rich in an­tiox­i­dants and sup­ports me­tab­o­lism,” he added.

Hon­ey Fest pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bet­ter un­der­stand the vi­tal role bees play and a chance to dis­cov­er lo­cal ven­dors and savour hon­ey and hon­ey prod­ucts.