SUNS 4336 Wednesday 2 December 1998
EAST AFRICA: TAMING THE WILD AFRICAN BEE
Nairobi, Nov 30 (IPS/Judith Achieng') -- To many, the wild African bee feared for its painful sting is best left alone, but, thanks to new income-boosting technologies, some 3500 families in East Africa now depend on these insects for a living.
Barnabas Lugonzo, a farmer in the western Kenyan town of Kakamega, some 500 kilometres from the capital Nairobi, recalls how he used to keep the bees, as a part-time occupation, in a hollow-wooden log hanging precariously in the woods.
Every seven months, he would use an outdated technique to smoke the bees out of the hives to enable him to harvest the honey. "I would often escape with at least two stings and the pains could take a while to subside," he recalls.
With improved technology now, Lugonzo uses modern bee-hive, called 'Langstroth Hive', which increases honey production five fold. He also wears protective gear when harvesting, instead of the out-dated smoke technique. "We have now realised that bees are just like people, they travel long distances in search of food and should therefore be treated kindly," he says.
Lugonzo, along with 249 other East African farmers from the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, attended a one-month course, which ended last week, on modern methods of bee-keeping at the International Centre For Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi.
The modern hive, which measures 24 by 17 inches, takes about two months to produce honey, depending on the season and the stability of bee population, Lugonzo explains. According to him, the hive produces up to 20 kilograms of honey, with one kilogramme fetching up to 120 shillings.
One US Dollar is equal to 60 Kenya shillings.
Lugonzo also has noticed that about 35 young people in his home area who used to cut down trees in the nearby forests for sale have abandoned the trade for bee-keeping. "We are educating the youths that trees are so sacred to us, they provide rain, food and shelter," he says.
Lugonzo, who has ten hives, says bee-keeping is the most environmentally-friendly business than cutting tree, a practice which, he says, only destroys the environment.
Mary Mosha of the 'Abesco' bee-keepers group in the northern Tanzanian resort town of Arusha says they are expecting a "good harvest" this season.
The income of farmers who use modern bee-keeping method has increased by between 40 to 60 percent, according to ICIPE annual report of 1997.
Based on these "encouraging results", ICIPE says it is planning to extend the method to eleven other countries in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Current studies at ICIPE focus on the life cycles and behaviour of different bee colonies in order to come up with less aggressive bees whose populations increase quickly and are more productive, according to Suresh Raina of ICIPE.
But farmers from Baringo in Kenya's Rift Valley province who have produced more than 50 tonnes of honey since January of last year complain that they lack market to sell their honey.
"We have so much honey but we don't know where to sell it," complains one farmer.
ICIPE says it is planning to establish a marketing outlet for farmers who are unable to develop their own markets. "We are helping with research and trying to solve marketing problems," says Raina.
ICIPE, along with some UN agencies like the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has distributed 1000 modern beehives which will be paid for with the honey produced by the farmers.