Bee raising industry is an important support for agricultural production, and also has its own product value chain. Bees have an impact on improving the output and quality of agricultural products since they are the main insect pollinating crops, fruits, vegetables, grass and Chinese traditional medicine plants, etc. China has a vast territory and with its varied climate, geography and ecological conditions, is a major bee breeding and honey producer. Yanbian has natural conditions suited for bees and has a centuries-old tradition on bee raising. Bee raising is an important source of farmers’ income. An ongoing goal of the industry is to increase understanding on bee disease prevention and production, increase income, improve quality of bee products and facilitate the ability of extension institutions to serve the industry. With the great support and co-operation of LHESP, the Yanbian prefecture AHB and the Yanbian Prefecture Bee Station, the On-Farm Food Safety Training for Associations - Bee Disease Prevention and Control was held successfully in Yanbian Prefecture on April 20th -22nd, 2010. This training also got great support and effort from Antu County AHB and the city and county bee associations. Mr. Li Baogen, Assistant Manager of BPO introduced the training and helped to conduct the sessions.

Considering the big demand and the large number of bee farmers, we held this training three times - one day for each training session. The number of trainees for this training was the highest of any of the trainings that have been held in Jilin since the project inception. In total, 319 participants attended this training - 297 men and 22 women. There were 104 attendees from minority groups. The breakdown by training is: The first training: 113 participants; 109 men and 4 women; 67 from minorities; The second training: 77 participants; 73 men and 4 women; 25 from minorities; and the third training: 129 participants; 115 men and 14 women; 12 from minorities.

This was a successful training combining practice and theory. We invited 10 local bee experts and one recognized expert, Dr. Liang Wanfeng for this training. Through this training, participants learned knowledge about bee disease prevention and control. They also learned about production management, new trends of bee raising，how to identify true and fake honey, how to produce organic honey and other new policy information. The concept of disease prevention being more important than treatment was emphasized. In this training, bee farmers received useful knowledge and answers to the questions that they had. The weather through this year has been quite cold, which will bring many problems such as the shortage of pollen. This training was quite timely and necessary for the bee farmers. Trainees fully agreed with this kind of participatory learning method and they appreciated the openness of the experts in conveying their knowledge and practical experience. The local experts like to disseminate their knowledge of bee production and to cooperate with bee stations on their work related to technical knowledge, information dissemination, quality inspection, etc. The prefecture bee station will work with local bee experts to develop one technical manual and to establish a bee industry website.

According to the feedback, bee farmers haven’t enough confidence in the association, at present. The roles of the association in some counties are not defined and the conduct of some of these associations is not consistent and complete. Improving the associations will be a work priority and a long-term task for the extension groups. This training also laid the foundation to strengthen the basic production association’s leading role on connecting enterprises, government and industry development under the framework of laws and regulations. The associations will build their capacity as an independent group that can play an important role in working with government to plan and carry out government programs and practical training.
 

Mr. Li Baogen giving speech	Mr. Jin Hande talking his experience as one member of participants	Mr. Zhang Linguo, the deputy head of Yanbian Prefecture AHB, explaining the questions related to the policy

Group discussion	The leaders are always studying with us	Participants learning from experts during the training break