On the 1st and the 2nd of July 2017 Nick from the Beekeeping Development (T) Limited visited the Mwadu bee keeping group in Majengo village. The purpose of his visit was to assess the setup of the hives by the beekeeping group.
During the visit he did the following activities on Saturday:
First, he met with all Mwadu group members and they had discussion on ways of handling bee hives, he picked out the representatives who visited his workshop in Arusha back in March 2017 singling out Rashid, Patrick and Nuhu who were the representatives of the group. He demonstrated on the ways of taking care of a bee hive specifically its maintenance.
Then they went to the field to see how the hives were placed. And here they found that among the 20 hives that they had hung only 3 had bees. When the KiliTech made a visit to the village in June 2017, there were no bees in the hives. She suggested that bee stands should be erected to seat the hives properly. Rashidi explained that two bee hives had bees but were attacked by ants and the drove the bees away. Therefore the need of proper bees stand is imminent and cannot be delayed. Nick opened 4 hives and found in each of these hives a lot of ants, these ants had already built a nest inside and continued to grow. He suggested that the group goes through all the hives but time was not enough as he used it to explain on what to be done.
They following day which was Sunday, Nick used his time to explain to the entire groups on how to manage and handle bee hives. It was bee hive management training session, he spent three hours explaining and doing by action what it means to maintain a bee hive. He pulled apart a bee hive and put together a bee hive in demonstration and asked the group members to take turns in doing what he had done.
Recommendations;
He recommended the following things to be done:
Grease and lubricant oil should be placed and rubbed on the hive stand to prevent the ants from going into the hive (Mr. Nicholas recommend 5kg of grease which is sold at TSH 10,000 per kg, and 10 liters of oil which is sold @ TSH 3,000 per litre) making a total of TSH 80,000/=
All hives need to be placed on their own stands, making it easy to extend once the bee hive grows. There were two recommendations of the stand type that can be used:
The first recommendation is to make the bee stands using bricks using bricks. However this suggestion will require Mwadu group to have secured the title deed of the land where they build these stands because they are permanent. Building these stands you will require the following things:
- 10 bricks per stand @ 300 per brick – TSH 3,000 multiply by 23 hives you will need 230 bricks @ TSH 69,000/=.
- 15 bags of cement @ TSH 16,000 = TSH 240,000/=
- Transport of the material is – 50,000/=
Total TSH 359,000/=
These however are permanent and cannot be moved.
The second suggestion is to have pole stands and will cost 50,000/= per pole multiply by 23 hives = TSH 1,150,000. Transportation cost is TSH 60,000/= The advantage with these poles is that they are mobile and can be dug out incase there is a need to move the hives.
3. Mwadu group are working to secure the title deed of land and they have a verbal agreement with the village to use the piece of land, which is 1 acre to continue with their activities. Nick suggested that they dig a borehole and get a water pump and begin a sunflower garden as soon as possible.
4. He also suggested they build a wall that will protect the hives from intruders.
5. There is a need of hive management intensive training, Mr. Nicholas recommended the group to come ARUSHA for such training or send someone with hive site skills management training in the village. (5 days training in Arusha or at Majengo)
The good news is that after cleaning the hives as recommended by Nick, three hives got bees and the group is so excited at the prospect of having six hives full of bees they believe that it is just a matter of time before all the hives are filled with bees.
Nick’s expenses:
Fuel to and from the village for two days: 150,000/=
Thadei’s fuel to the village (he asked for reimbursement): 80,000/=
Total: 230,000/=
Source: Thadei Msumanje, KiliTech, Country Director of Operations
Prepare by: Nashon N. Chacha, KiliTech, Senior Project Manager.