Contents: 340g Jar

Traditonal Beekeeping

Beekeeping in North West Province is still carried out entirely by traditional methods, despite repeated attempts by well meaning development projects to introduce so called modern Western methods.

The traditional methods have always proved to be the most productive for the beekeepers and the modern methods have been abandoned when the projects finish.

The beekeepers make their hives from cylinders of tree bark secured with pegs. As they are quick to make it is easy for a beekeeper to own 3 – 400 hives or more. The hives are placed high up in trees away from marauding honey badgers and red army ants.

Three are many wild swarms of bees moving about the forest and the hives are quickly occupied. The bees start building their honeycombs and after a few months the hive is full of honey and ready for cropping. The beekeeper climbs back up the tree and gently takes out the honeycombs without disturbing the colony of dangerous African “killer” bees.

The beekeepers work with the bees rather than against them so that the colony is not provoked and stays in their hive to multiply, divide by swarming and occupy more hives for the next year.

North West Bee Products

Back in the early 80s beekeeping was dying in NW Zambia. For many generations the forest people had relied on beekeeping for a cash income from the sale of beeswax which was exported in great quantities. The market for beeswax began to decline due to competition with cheap synthetic waxes.

However beekeeping had the potential to provide a sustainable income for the younger generations if only a way could be found to market large quantities of honey.

A huge meeting of beekeepers from far and wide was called in 1987 and the problems were discussed for days and days, each village headman rising to make an impassioned speech describing the problems in his village and seeking a way forward. Eventually it was decided to set up an independent company run by the beekeepers and local people without any influence from central governmentexperts.

NWBP organised the beekeepers into groups in each of 350 villages, trained them in the hygienic handling of honey and issued them with buckets and honey presses.

When the honey harvest was gathered NWBP dispatched four wheel drive trucks to negotiate the long sandy tracks leading to isolated villages where the only source of income is honey.

The honey was purchased in buckets and transported back to Kabompo where it was graded and packed into 300kg drums for export. This system, started in 1987 is still in use today except now the beekeepers are an entirely new generation with many more young people, men and women keen to join in every village.

Fairtrade

NWBP has been inspected by FLO, the international organisation accredited to determine which organisations qualify to be registered as fair-trade producers. The inspector looks at two main factors, the benefits which the organisation brings to the masses of the local population and the extent to which the organisation is democratically controlled. Importers must pay the producer organisation a standard fairtrade price, provide advance payments etc.

In the case of NWBP it was clear that vast numbers of people were benefiting in every village, in many cases honey sales were the only way that people could get cash for essential needs that we take for granted: salt, soap, blankets hospital fees and school fees.