They are making a change with bees and honey

I am Silas Ekudo, 34, a resident of Kauje Village, Bukedea Sub county in Bukedea District. I am also the chairman and a founder member of the Bukedea Honey Producers and Processors Association (Buhopa).

When there were unprecedented rains in 2007 most communities in the Teso region had not seen the worst, as this was followed later by the deadly floods in 2010. We were told that the floods were caused by destruction to the environment, which was caused by deforestation and poor farming methods.

Then there was a lot of cutting down trees to make charcoal, hence the frequent natural disasters in the region.

The floods, though did not affect my sub county directly, on both occasions destroyed crops in nearby sub-counties, flooded latrines in homes and in schools plus contaminating water sources and displacing many people.
There was a shortage of food in the area thereafter. However, innovation sometimes results from painful experiences.

An eye opener
In 2007, me and 16 other youths in the sub-county decided to join hands and start a farmers’ club. The project started as a youth livelihood empowerment programme to cover Bukedea Sub county. It now covers the entire district.

Farmers needed to appreciate trees in a better way; if somebody is able to harvest honey and make money then he or she will appreciate a tree. Because it is that tree that will house a bee hive, provide flowers for the bees to collect nector from, and better still if it is a fruit tree.

The idea of beekeeping was hatched around 2008, with guidance from Self help Africa, an organisation which supports Buhopa.

I started on a small scale, Self Help Africa was giving two to four modern bee hives to each of our members. I got two Kenya Top Bar (KTB) hives. Like most of the other members in Buhopa, I produced honey but was challenged with the market due to poor packaging. This was an eye opener and we decided to seek ways to address the whole value chain in terms of production, processing and marketing.

Opportunity to make money
This was followed by a series of workshops and trainings from Self Help Africa to address the above issues in addition to crop production. In other words commercialising beekeeping and ensuring food security.

During one of the trainings, I realised climate change challenge is a reality which should be addressed by all people and all stakeholders including small scale farmers.

Now I have an opportunity to make money hustle free, increase crop yields through crop pollination, but at the same time limit the effects of climate change. Each of our members was encouraged to make at least four bee hives a month using locally available materials.

The group now has 60 members with a total of 827 bee hives producing at least 4,000 Kgs of honey every four months. We sell each kilogramme at Shs15,000 or Shs20,000 depending on the season. And there are two seasons.

As a group, we produced 700-1300 kilogrammes of beeswax and about 230 kilogrammes of propolis last season.

On my own, I have 136 bee hives with 120 of them colonised. Last season, I harvested 679 kilogrammes and sold each at Shs20,000.

During the 2013 National Honey Week exhibition in Kampala, I met a buyer from Kenya who offered a relatively better price for bees ax at Shs10,000 per kilogramme. So, now I am able to sell all the beeswax but we have to save some from which I make candles. The buyer also buys propolis at Shs25,000 per kilogramme.

From the proceeeds, I have built a house, installed a solar panel for power and dug a borehole for the community to have safe water. I am also in position to pay school fees for my six children.

The farm surrounds the apiary properly fenced and in a natural forest, the borehole provides water for my bees during dry season, so they do not have to move long distances for that.

Apart from the maize, beans, sunflower and pineapple plantations that I have, I also practise agro forestry. There are a number of medicinal and and fruit trees surrounding my home. I also keep record of the production levels of all my activities.

More knowledge, more skills
Buhopa’s main area of focus is food security but with a strong relationship to conserving the environment and combating climate change. How do we help the farmers to appreciate the challenges of climate change minus addressing issues of food, and how do you talk about food like without the pollinators?

However, I still have a number of challenges including the high cost of packaging materials and the need to attain more knowledge and skills on value addition. Despite the fact that we know how to make bee hives and how to attract bees to the beehives plus colony division, we need to learn how to add value to bees’ products.

A case in point is propolis so we can sell it as tincture and also make smearing jelly, soap, shoe polish, lipstick out of bees wax. The weather changes also affect the performance of the bees, as they will not make enough honey during the drought.

About bukedea producers and processors group

The Bukedea Honey Producers and Processors Association (Buhopa) started as a youth livelihood programme to combat issues affecting food security through addressing climate change. Thus, they are engaged in tree planting, bee keeping, animal and poultry keeping and also fruit farming, mainly oranges and passion fruit.

Buhopa has also evolved to engage in trading food stuffs and they have formed a savings and credit cooperative organisation (Sacco).

Buhopa also conducts trainings on youth entrepreneurship skills. They focus on beekeeping, honey harvesting and processing, plus bee hive making. “We have trained members on honey handling, harvesting. Honey is weighed before and after processing. We deduct money for containers and labels then the balance is taken by the owner,” explains Silas Ekudo, the chairman, Buhopa.

Expert take >
Promoting beekeeping projects

There are many different entry points for projects to strengthen livelihoods with beekeeping, such as including trees for bees within planting schemes to improve pollination and increase crop harvests, assisting honey hunters through beekeeping or making and marketing honey wines or beeswax cosmetics.
Beekeeping projects have been started in many developing countries and are frequently supported by international organisations, governments or non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Beekeeping fits in well with other interventions and is often incorporated as one of a number implemented. Some minimum resources, however, should normally be available to people.

Natural resources: indigenous species
Beekeeping projects can improve the potential for beekeeping by planting melliferous (yielding or producing honey) vegetation. Indigenous honeybees have evolved and survived successfully under local conditions and will be better suited to them than introduced bees.
The European honeybees introduced into many countries and African bees introduced into Central and South America currently form the basis of successful beekeeping industries.

Human resources: Skills, training and extension
Beekeeping is a widespread activity with a wealth of existing local knowledge and skills. The addition of a little technical information, however, can lead to greatly improved harvests of honey and beeswax.
There are many ways to assist honey hunters or beekeepers to build on their resources to create more income by harvesting and processing honey more skilfully, and to obtain better prices by saving and selling beeswax and by making secondary products.
Beekeepers and trainers often lack appropriate training materials—most of the literature discusses keeping European bees in temperate zone conditions.

Training is often theoretical rather than practical, placing emphasis on changing the type of hive used without providing practical guidance and follow up. New beekeepers need training in how to work with bees, how to maintain honey quality, how to separate honey from beeswax, how to render beeswax, how to manufacture secondary products and how to make beekeeping clothes and equipment.

Source: FAO