Tanzania's unexplored beekeeping potential

Tanzania’s beekeeping sector has much greater potential for growing into a true giant than commonly thought or imagined.

...the sub-sector has so far seen little in terms of serious investment and therefore remains largely underdeveloped.


... the country currently produces a lowly 4,860 tonnes of honey and only 324 tonnes of beeswax... when it could easily hit annual targets to the tune of 138,000 tonnes of honey and 9,200 tonnes of beeswax...

Lack of forest cover where to place beehives or lack of a ready market for the honey, beeswax, etc., would have made the sad scenario we are witnessing easy to understand. The irony of it all, however, is that we are told Tanzania is endowed with over 34 million hectares of forestland hosting millions of colonies of honey bees alongside a rich stock of honey and beeswax ready for harvesting.

...IPP Media

Researcher in Kenya changes lives through beekeeping education

Garreson Publishing runs a monthly e-mail newsletter for beekeepers (subscribe). This article is the first in a series of interviews of beekeepers from across the world.

Tom Carroll teaches beekeeping at Baraka Agricultural College in Molo, Kenya. He runs Apiconsult.com, which has articles about African beekeeping, including a fascinating picture gallery.

Honey and wax vary in color and flavor- do you have any favorite flavor from Kenya?

I think Acacia honey is the favourite in Kenya. Generally African honey is darker and stronger in flavour.

How big are your beekeeping classes, and how do you find students?

Our classes are 15-20 students and most of the students are sponsored by charities as ordinary farmers cannot afford even a modest fee – about 90 USD for a week including tuition, food and accommodation.

Have you experienced any cultural challenges teaching beekeeping?

Yes – the biggest problem is to try and understand what is appropriate for the circumstances of the local area where I work. That means getting rid of ideas to get the latest equipment etc – simple is better definitely. Often small beneficial changes to existing practices are the best way to go.

How significant is becoming a beekeeper to someone’s life? As I understand it here, most people are hobbyists, and of the people who keep bees for a living, very few of them are full time (it is an add-on to other farming).

While beekeepers are small scale – they are not necessarily hobbyists. Beekeeping is very important in contributing to people’s livelihoods. My own calculation is that...

full article...Making Beehives

Uganda: Funding education through beekeeping

by Gary Sieling

The Bwindi Youth have fifty hives, but dream of having eight hundred. This Ugandan youth program started by founder Agaba Moses to help pay his school fees, and has grown to fifty people, with visions of spurring entrepreneurship, tourism, and job creation in southern Uganda.

This region in Uganda is widely known for Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a park of 128 square miles that is home to diverse wildlife, flowering plants, and trees. This park dates back to the early 1930s, when it was established as a government recognized forest reserve. In the 1960s it was designated an animal sanctuary, and restricted in the early 90s to protect endangered mountain gorillas. The Bwindi Youth offices are listed as “40 metres from game park entrance.” Because the gorillas are fenced inside the park they do not destroy the beehives.

The vast majority of local residents are dependent on agriculture for their income, including the Batwa Pygmies. When the Impenetrable National Park was established, the Batwa peoples were evicted from the park, they were given no compensation, having no title to the land.

The Bwindi Youth aim to be a community led organization to teach people agricultural methods, conservation, nutrition, and upstanding moral values, while providing new ways of making a living. They currently sell honey in the area where they work, and have a computer and camera, but lack financial means for packaging their honey to distribute further.

What they lack for in means, they make up for in organization. Their group of fifty has a detailed constitution, budget, long-term work plan, and promotional brochures. Five of their members are called out on their brochure as officers, ranging from counseling, tourism, and catering, to graphic design and business administration.

see photos...Making Beehives

Uganda hosts honey exhibition

Uganda was to host the first honey exhibition in Africa on August 24, to raise awareness about investment opportunities in honey trade.

“This is a great opportunity for us to participate in the expo dubbed ‘ApiExpo Africa’ due in October to share our experiences on the development of bee keeping and exhibit our bee products with an aim of sourcing for export markets in Africa and Europe,” said Florence Katta, the Uganda Export Promotion Board executive director.

“We believe in the promotion and development of the apiculture (honey) sector in Uganda and want to spread our footprints in Africa. Rural bee-farmers countrywide should grasp this important event to create strong business linkages with players in the international and regional markets,” Katta said at the opening of the apiculture stakeholders meeting at the UEPB boardroom.

“The exhibition will also help bee-keepers seek knowledge on how to enhance the quality and quantity of honey to make Uganda the giant source of the product in Africa and the leading exporter to the international markets,” she said.

Bosco Okello, the assistant trade promotion officer, said: “The exhibitors will showcase honey products, modern honey processing equipment and distribute brochures and news letters.”

Jurua Jackson of the Uganda National Apiculture Development Organisation (TUNADO), said investing in bee-keeping was cost-effective. “It is time for people to think about investing in this sector because one does not require huge start -up capital and it is not labour intensive. The profits are good," he said.

New Vision

Reduction in forest areas impacts Kenyan honey production

Honey production in Kenya's Rift Valley Province has continued to fall in the past three years due to destruction of forests and diminishing land sizes.

The province's bee keeping officer, Mr. John Mwangi, said 2,010,000 litres of honey was produced last year compared to 2,023,481 harvested the previous year. He said the province produced 2,250,000 litres of honey in 2003, but since then it has been on the decline.

He said negative human activity along the forests had contributed to less vegetation where bees drew nectar. He said land demarcation due to increasing population was also affecting bee keeping. Mwangi also said people feared bee stings and were reluctant to accommodate hives especially in densely populated areas.

"So far the leading honey producers in the region are the arid and semi-arid region, because they are sparsely populated and hence have less human impact on the environment," he said.
Mwangi said most bee-keeping in the region was by small scale and peasant farmers who are unable to purchase modern hives.

The Standard

Kenya bee industry hampered by old methods

Outdated beekeeping methods and misplaced views are holding back the growth of apiculture in Kenya's Rift Valley province. Most farmers in the region view bees as wild insects whose honey can only be obtained from bushes, rather than a source of income that can be kept and nurtured in homesteads, said the provincial beekeeping officer, J. M. Kimani.

Kimani said said the Livestock and Fisheries Development ministry was trying to change farmers' attitudes towards apiculture (bee farming) through a field extension programme, enabling farmers to attend agricultural shows, farmers' exchange visits and demonstration farms.According to the agriculture ministry's annual reports, Rift Valley Province produced 2,023,481 kg of honey in 2005, a 10 per cent decrease from the 2004 production.

In 2004, production had shot up by 24 per cent more than the year before, when only 1,822,283kg were harvested. Of the 19 districts covered in the reports, Samburu, Turkana, Koibatek, Kericho and Bomet have maintained steady growth in honey production.

To encourage farmers to turn to apiculture, the government plans to move in and address the issues affecting farmers. The move would include providing them with protective clothing and modern honey harvesting equipment as well as teaching them harvesting skills.

Though some farmers have complained of the high cost of beekeeping gear, Kimani said there was general resistance to modern beekeeping methods. The traditional method of using hollowed out logs as hives has grown in the province. According to data from the livestock ministry, traditional beehives nearly doubled from 173,774 to 313,418 between 2003 and 2005. Meanwhile, modern hives have increased minimally, reaching 7,386 in 2005.

Kimani identified diminishing land as another factor in the fall of honey production. Acacia trees, a leading source of nectar that bees need to produce honey, are diminishing and increasingly limited to private land, where owners see the insect as a nuisance. He added that policy issues, such as a Kenya Wildlife Service rule that does not allow bee farming in national parks and game reserves, have also worked against campaigns to increase honey production in the province.

Even as the ministry spearheads efforts to boost honey production in the country, Kimani said some recipients of funds abandoned projects as soon as officials left.

"Bees should not be treated differently from other farm animals," the official said. "Every time we visit farmers, we find abandoned apiaries while farmers complain that bees have refused to produce honey," he said. "These insects are not in the business of producing honey for farmers," he said.

Business Daily

Bee keeping catches on in Kenya

While most farmers in Central Kenya rely on cash crops like coffee and tea, some are trying their hands at a different form of agriculture : bee-keeping. The practice is already popular in Eastern Province, from where honey is produced and sold locally and abroad. And it has been slowly picking up in Central province, with farmers such as 45-year-old Stephen Gitonga
who has set up 70 beehives in an open-timber room, and expects to harvest 4,200 kg by the end of July.

One langstroth, a type of bee hive, produces 60 kg of honey per harvest, and Gitonga enthusiastically says he expects four or five harvests this year. The langstroth is divided into two sections,the brood box and the super,where the honey is stored. The queen bee is situated in the middle, separated from the rest of the "brood" by a mesh barrier. Gitonga observes that with this type of beehive, the most common type worldwide, the bees will not be disturbed or scared away during harvest. "The honey is on the top, so one will never come into contact with the bee unless he wants to scare them away," says Gitonga.

The idea to go into honey production came from Gitonga's coffee plantation, he said. "I thought coffee flowers might help me earn extra coins by rearing bees," he says. "And since then, I have received a double advantage because the bees have really boosted my coffee growing by 30 per cent through pollination, and I can sell honey."

The cost of his type of beekeeping is higher than the the traditional hollowed out logs. Building the hives cost Gitonga Sh200,000 ($3,000) and the langstroth structures cost Sh266,000 ($4,000). But he is confident of earning back every shilling despite the expense. "I might even double the money I used to set-up this project by the end of this year," he said. He expecting to expand the operation, as demand is more than what he produces. Leading supermarkets, shops, herbal clinics and individuals have already booked his next harvest, due in July. "Competition is stiff, but most people prefer pure honey straight from the farm," he says.

One main competitor for Gitonga and other individual producers is Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, which has set-up its own beehives.

The price of the honey depends on its purity. Gitonga says his "coffee honey," which the bees make from pollen from coffee flowers on his plantation, is very sweet. Obtaining bees is a challenge for farmers. Bee-keepers are often compelled to search in the bush for them from hanging beehives. "The process of luring the bees back to your farm is not easy," he said. Escape of the bees and injury are occupational hazards.

With two workers, the farmer ensures the bees have sufficient water and checks for problems such as spiders, fire-ants, wax moths and termites, which can invade the hives and drive out the bees. For now Githonga says he is content to supply his honey to the local market.

Business Daily

Ugandan beekeepers allege exploitation by UK charity

Money wrangles between the Uganda Honey Beekeepers Association (UHA) and Hives Save Lives (HSLA), a UK-based charity, have stalled the production and export of honey. The beekeepers accuse HSLA of using documents and photographic materials belonging to UHA to solicit for money from donors worldwide. "HSLA is using our property to get money that never gets to the poor people it is meant to help. The charity also owes the bee-keepers money for training and making them hives they sold to farmers," said Ramsey Owot, the UHA president.

The charity allegedly gets money to train, equip and market Ugandan honey globally. Owot wrote to Richard Unwin, a UK businessman, seeking financial assistance to help the beekeepers improve production. Unwin is reportedly soliciting money from local and international organisations, claiming he is helping poor people by training and equipping them with free hives and protective gear for harvesting honey.

Unwin, who claims to be President Museveni's advisor for international trade and development, first came to Uganda in 2001 in search of investment opportunities. He met UHA members and discussed the intervention needed to boost the sector. He later sent Nicole Bradbear, whom he called a honey expert, to assess the sector's potential. Bradbear reportedly wrote a report highlighting the sector's potential to produce honey and other hive products for the local and international markets.

One of Unwin's initial plans was to set up a marketing company for the sector to link the producers to buyers in Europe and America, but the idea was snubbed by the beekeepers, saying they did not have any product to market yet. The beekeepers then wrote a proposal that would improve the sector and alleviate poverty in rural areas. The promotion and development plan highlighted areas of intervention and asked the "investor" to help them find philanthropists.

The two parties agreed to set up a charity organisation that would help them raise funds. Suggestions were made for the charity to cover the whole of Africa after progress was realised in Uganda. The organisation was named HSLA by Owot and registered in the UK by a Nancy Bikson in 2003. Its objectives were to alleviate poverty, provide education and training worldwide by manufacturing and providing beekeeping equipment, disseminate beekeeping techniques and guide the honey producers to enable them earn their own living.

HSLA owes UHA $2,794 for training and making hives and also owes Tropical Bee-care Centre (TBC) over sh10m ($6,000). Hillary Besekya, the managing director of TBC in Bunyaruguru, said that HSLA breached a contract they signed with Tropical Bee Care Centre when they failed to pay for hives they collected. Besekya also wants HSLA to pay him for using his pictures on their websites without his approval. UHA has also filed a case against the charity for injuring their business.

"HSLA is supposed to raise funds that will enable the farmers to get formal training in beekeeping. But the company is engaged in processing honey. Malaika Honey is part of HSLA and is buying and processing honey for the local market," Owot said. "These people are crooks. They have contacted all our members and given them buckets to collect and sell them raw honey."

Linda Whitby, the project director of HSLA, however, said that HSLA does not owe any UHA member money. She said they stopped dealing with UHA and TBC because they used to inflate charges and were making them sub-standard hives. Whitby also disassociated her organisation from Malaika Honey.

"It is unfortunate that people claim to be investors when they are cheats. Malaika and HSLA share websites and offices. How can they say they do not know each other when one introduced the other to us," Owot wondered.

New Vision

African scientists hold key to beetle invasion of US, EU hives

Scientists from the International Centre of Insect Physiology & Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya, are working with colleagues from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to eradicate a beetle invasion that is endangering the $200 million-worth honey industry in the US.

The beetle invasion which scientists have dubbed 'Collapse Colony Disorder,' was described by media reports having triggered an exodus of millions of honeybees from hives in Europe and the US, causing losses estimated at billions of dollars.

The small hive beetle,Aethina tumida, is described as an invasive organism indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, where it is effectively dealt with by African honeybees.

The scientists will explore the possibilities of equipping the European honeybees with the ability to fight off the small hive beetle. "We have published a paper detailing the relationship between the two, and are in the process of preparing a research proposal for possible funding," said Dr. Baldwyn Torto, Icipe's head of behavioural and chemical ecology.

He says Icipe is confident that the research aimed at understanding the beetle will prove more important than the adoption of a quick chemical-based option of eradicating the problematic beetle in the US and Europe.

Outbreaks of the Collapse Colony Disorder were first reported in the US in November 2006. The exodus has since spread to 24 US states, as well as to Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain. Beekeepers have been losing from 30-90 per cent of their bees. The Economist magazine of April 26 called the phenomenon a "mystery," baffling researchers and beekeepers alike. "What appear to be normal healthy adults suddenly disappear within two days, leaving their queen, food stores and young." Scientists estimate that each colony has between 40,000 and 60,000 bees.

Initially, it was suspected that the exodus of bees from hives in the US and Europe had something to do with a failure in the bees' immune system. Other scientists sought answers in the bees' genetic make up, with still others interestingly linking it to the widespread use of mobile phones. But now scientists say that the problematic relationship between the small hive beetle and the European honeybee springs from the fact that the latter is not equipped to handle the beetle, unlike its African cousin.

ICIPE and USDA have already published a research paper that shows that the small hive beetle might be responsible for the mass exodus of the European honeybees. Published in PNAS, a journal of the US National Academy of Science on May 4, the article reports that the small hive beetle does not affect African honeybees because the latter have "evolved effective methods to mitigate beetle infestation."

It seems that the African honeybee does this through a number of behavioural methods, including removing the beetle's eggs from honeycombs as it cleans up the hive, or "imprisoning" the invading beetles in the hives' cracks and crevices.

Dr. Torto said that African bees mainly bank on their aggressiveness to accomplish this. But the European honeybee is not as lucky. As a result, each time the beetle, which has a special appetite for the pollen that bees collect and store in hives, infests a hive in the US, it introduces a fungus that promotes the development of yeast, causing the bees to vacate the hive.

"Beetles are scavengers and their job is to clean up. In the case of the small hive beetle, it uses a fungus to digest pollen. This fungus causes fermentation, in effect causing a change of the chemistry in the hives. Since bees are very sensitive to such variations, they eventually abandon the hives," said Torto.

Relying on this information, ICIPE and USDA scientists now intend to go further and establish how this unique trait in African honeybees can be used to deal with the Collapse Colony Disorder. According to Torto, the research will also enable Kenya and other African countries to be prepared in the unlikely event that the problem hits Africa.

East African