Bees for Development Journal 95
PRACTICAL BEEKEEPING
USING LOCAL STYLE AND TOP-BAR HIVES IN UGANDA Geofrey Kizito, Kikandwa Environmental Association, PO Box 40, Mityana, Uganda Keywords: Africa, basket hive, bee disease, beeswax, clay pipe hive, floriculture, log hive
bees. The iron sheet is placed over the hive to prevent rain from causing damage. When the honey area is full, the farmer removes some combs for honey extraction. Note: a few honey combs are always left behind.
Background information
In the wild, honey bees nest in hollow trees. Beekeepers used to keep bees in a variety of containers including hollow logs, baskets, clay pipes and wooden boxes. However it is not easy extracting honey from these hives and it can result in destroying the colony. Now honey bees are kept in improved style hives made of locally available materials. Each community uses different materials available from their surrounding environment. The hives are woven like baskets into cylindrical shapes.
Hygiene
Like any farmer or animal owner, a good beekeeper must keep her/his colony healthy. He/she needs to make sure that the hives are kept dry and are in a sheltered place. The beekeeper will often look at the bees as they go in and out of the hive. If bees are dying most beekeepers suspect something is wrong and try to find a solution or treatment. Often bees are faced with problems from pesticides and agrochemicals used in agriculture, and they can abscond to another area. This may be conducive to the colony but is a loss to the beekeeper. It is important to monitor the hives. The beekeeper needs to make sure that bees have enough food at the end of the dry season after removing the honey, and must make up any discrepancy in the rainy season by feeding with sugar syrup. He/she may also feed the bees at other times if the weather is bad and the bees are unable to forage. The beekeeper wears protective clothing (a bee suit) because if they feel threatened, honey bees will sting to protect their colony. We have introduced 85 top-bar hives and 300 local style hives. We are encouraging women and young people to join us. From February-May and August-November is the wet season, flowering is high and there is a lot of honey. Our objectives are to promote floriculture in the community instead of the bees having to fly long distances in search of nectar and pollen. Also to begin marketing beeswax as most farmers see it as a waste product. We know how to use gentle heat to clean wax but still lack the knowledge to make full use of it, for example in candle making. Our challenges are proper handling of honey when harvesting
Materials required
• Locally available material for example bamboo, Dombeya sp, palm tree, shea nut tree and reeds made into thin strips for weaving • Cow dung • Beeswax • An odd number of sticks each about 2 m long • Corrugated iron sheet
Making the hive
PHOTOS © GEOFREY KIZITO
The beekeeper arranges the sticks in a cylindrical shape (the higher the number of sticks the bigger the hive). He/she starts weaving the materials from one end to another. The beekeeper will smear a 0.25 cm layer of cow dung on the inside and 1 cm layer on the outside of the hive and leave it to dry. When it is dry the beekeeper will smear the inside of the hive with beeswax to reduce the work for the colony in sealing the hive, and to help the bees to build the combs easily. A cover is designed from local materials and sealed with cow dung and beeswax. Small holes are left to allow entrance and exit of the honey
Kikandwa Environmental Association beekeepers use both top-bar and local style hives. Corrugated iron sheets are placed over the hives to prevent rain damage 8
