Bees for Development Journal 103
PROJECTS UNDERWAY AT BfD
Janet Lowore, Elizabeth McLeod and Nicola Bradbear, Bees for Development, 1 Agincourt Street, Monmouth, NP25 3DZ, UK PHOTOs © Bees for Development
Keywords: Africa, beeswax, Cameroon, Centre of Excellence, Darwin Initiative, Ethiopia, Europe, honey export, Kyrgyzstan, Rural Development Fund, Trade Advance Ltd - UK
CAMEROON In BfDJ 97 we reported a successful new approach to honey filtering in Cameroon that relies predominantly on cheap and locally available materials. The honey filtering table uses fine stainless steel mesh to separate honey from the beeswax comb and other residues.
The challenge of efficient, organic wax extraction After extracting top quality, cold filtered honey, the next challenge is to separate the beautiful, bright yellow beeswax from the comb residue left on the table This separation needs to avoid direct contact between smoke and wax because the Cameroon wax is certified as being organic by the UK’s Soil Association. If smoke gets into the wax this cannot be removed using organic methods and so destroys the valuable status of the wax.
Guiding Hope’s honey and wax sellers in Yaoundé and beeswax drip through the mesh and leave the residues in the mesh. The liquid is channelled out of the separator into a bucket where the molten wax sits on top of the honey. This allows the wax to be siphoned off from the top of the bucket and the honey from the bottom.
Current methods wash the comb with water, however this wastes the honey left in the residue. Therefore in Cameroon we tested a miniature version of a steam method to melt and separate the honey and beeswax.
Results The steam method took about six hours to work - this is slower than the manual method currently in use. Although it separated both honey and beeswax from the residues, the honey had higher water content because it absorbed water during the steaming therefore it would not be useful as table honey. Both the existing
How does it work? A tank with water is heated from underneath the separator to avoid contact of smoke and wax. Inside the separator, the comb residue is held in a mesh container. As it melts, the liquid honey
Fine stainless steel mesh in the honey filtering table separates the honey from wax and other residues
Testing underway for the ‘steam method’ separator
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