Regular readers of Bee World may recall that in the Spring of 2000 I visited The Gambia (Beekeeping Around the World, Bee World 81(1): 38–42) The purpose was to conduct an assessment of the state of beekeeping in that country on behalf of the Commonwealth Secretariat. It was February 2000, a particularly dark, wet and miserable February. My wife, Jane known to some as IBRA’s ‘bookshop lady’, decided that our holiday savings would be well spent if she joined me on the trip to Banjul. As things turned out we both had the experience of a lifetime.
