They’re the Bees Knees
Category : zambia
We’re pleased to report back on the success of our Bees Knees project. We hope this will be a sustainable environment-friendly way of providing some income for the Women’s Group and the four schools that are taking part.
It all started in 2018 when we liaised with Phillip Nsakilwa (a beekeeping trainer in Monze) to go down to Siavonga for three days to train interested parties from Bbakasa, Kabbila, Kawila and Matuwa schools and the Miyombo Womens Cooperative.
Everyone was very enthusiastic if a little nervous at first. He showed them the whole process of setting up and looking after hives. He also demonstrated how to extract the honey from the honeycomb.
We provided each group with two top bar hives and bee suits.
Phillip returned in August to check how they were getting on. There were some teething problems but he gave them advice on overcoming these.
At Kawila they gave one of the hives to community members to look after and kept the other for the school. This year they are finally seeing the benefits.
The Womens Cooperative reported a lot of bees around their hives. They looked to see if there was any honey and filled three large buckets with the honeycomb. They have started to extract the honey. They have 30 litres so far. They also have people eager to buy it from them.