Islamabad: (Parliament Times) Four-day advanced training workshop was organized by the Honeybee Research Institute at NARC, Islamabad, Pakistan. The objective was to raise the awareness about the role and importance of bees in ecosystem and to draw the attention of the people for the protection and conservation of honeybees and other pollinators. It was emphasized to take concrete steps to preserve and protect the bees. The contents of the training workshop are principles of Queen Rearing and stock improvement, queen rearing methods (traditional and nontraditional), choosing the best stock (hive) to raise queens, grafting frame honey composition, quality control parameters, granulation and quality grading and Preparation of honey samples for testing and analysis also included.
Dr. Ghulam Muhammad Ali DG, NARC as the chief guest of the event emphasized on enhancing the scope of research activities regarding pollination, mites and disease control, quality queen breeding and honey analysis. He further added that NARC playing a vital role in boosting up beekeeping sector in Pakistan. Dr. Ghulam M. Ali further added that Honey Production is a very useful business in Pakistan. Honey production and beekeeping are environmentally friendly practices. These non-framing business activities have the potential to provide a wide range of economic contributions and Honeybee Research Institute, NARC in boosting up the beekeeping sector in Pakistan. Dr. Rashid Mehmood, Director, Honey Bee Research Institute (HBRI),NARC highlighted the role of PARC and emphasized on the need to save the bees for the services that they provide to the humanity. Dr. Rashid also spoke on the importance of honeybees as pollinators and the conservation of bees for the conservation of biodiversity as well as further steps in enhancing the status of bees in Pakistan. He also emphasized on the need to improve and strengthen the honey analysis laboratories to keep a check on the honey quality and pesticide residues in honey with special focus on increasing the honey export of Pakistan by reaching the European honey market. He highlighted the major issues such as deforestation, indiscriminate use of pesticides, climate change effects as well as bee colony problems. Professors from different Universities in Pakistan, beekeepers, scientists / para-scientists are also participants of the four days Workshop. The workshop is continued up-to 18th April, 2019. A beekeeper Aziz Abdullah, Chakwal also presented the problems faced by beekeeper and urged the scientists to resolve the issues faced by beekeepers