Explore Bee Farming For Sustainable Income

Bee farming is one of the agribusi­nesses with great potential to cre­ate wealth along the value chain. You can generate a stream of income by pro­ducing, processing, pack­aging and marketing honey. The business can be done on full time or part-time basis. Honey is an essen­tial commodity health-wise . In this era of prevalence of diabetes and other sug­ar-related ailments, honey becomes a better substitute to table sugars, prompting a high demand by many who cherish healthy life. Conse­quently, anyone who ven­tures into bee farming will in no time be celebrating a good choice of investment. The business is all about maintaining honeybee colonies to produce honey and other products such as beeswax from the hives. It is the production of honey by keeping bees and it is often called apiculture.

What Is Honey?

Honey is a delicious and natural sweet substance produced by honey-bees from the nectar of plants, secretions of insects or ex­cretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants. It is a mixture of sugars especially glucose and fructose, water, vita­mins, proteins, minerals, amino acids and pollen. Honey can be colourless, light dark or complete dark. Its taste, flavour or sweetness depends on the source of the nectar.

Food

Honey is regarded as a complete food because of the high amino acid and antioxidant content. It contains other food values such as vitamins including B6, riboflavin, thiamin, niacin and acid. It also contains minerals such as iron, copper, calcium, sodi­um chlorine, magnesium, phosphate, among others.

Medicinal Properties

Honey is anti-bacte­ria and used in the treat­ment of wounds, stubborn coughs, lowering of high blood pressure and other ailments. It has preventive and curative effects for sev­eral ailments such as mea­sles and gastro-intestinal disturbances etc. Honey is an essential ingredient in the manufacture of cough syrups, jelly and other pharmaceutical prepara­tions. Bye-Products

Beeswax is the Bye-Prod­ucts of honey. This can be used in the manufacture of polish, cosmetics, shaving creams, cream soap, can­dles etc.

Starting Bee Farming

Bee farming is best done in the rural areas, with vast land and vegetation, and away from hustling and bustling of the cities. There are some steps to take in setting up bee farms. First, acquire a place suitable for bee farming. Next get your bee hives, a structure or box to house the colony of bees. It should have a lid to prevent rain from enter­ing inside. Also, get your­self hive stands on which the beehives frames would be hung inside to prevent them from resting on the ground. The hives could be of different sizes and the frames could be con­structed from woods or plastics. The wax is set in position with wires cross­ing the frames. To avoid bee stings, you need a bee suit with a veil to protect you whenever you are visiting the apiary. Other hive tools you need are bee brush for cleaning of the propolis, burr comb for re­moving bees from wrong places. You also need thick long gloves to protect your hands and alms from the stings of the bees.

Situate your bee farm (apiary) where there is no noise or other disturbanc­es. It should be sited near sources of nectars (flower­ing plants), about a radius of one kilometre. It should also be close to source of drinking water. On no ac­count should the apiary be in ant-infested or water­logged areas.

Predators such as ter­mites, ants, wax moth and small hives beetles should be kept away from the bees.

Catching The Bees

How do you get the bees? You can catch the swarm from the wild and get it into the hive box. A swarm moves with the queen bee that lays eggs which hatch into bees. When a bee colo­ny becomes too large, it has to divide because the bees cannot survive in a small space. Also when a colony has two bees queens, it is imperative that it divides to form a swarm and move away to another location or a new home. Your task is to get as many of the bees along with the queen bee into the hive box. You can do that by cutting the branch of a plant where the swarm is hanging and low­er it into the beehive box. The bees will then locate the frames and hang on top of them. Then ensure that you do not disturb them for about a week to enable them settle and build their combs to start raising brood. The simpler meth­od of getting the bees is to buy from a bee farm and put them into the beehive box in the same manner.

Harvesting And Pro­cessing

The maturity of the honeycomb depends on the flowering period of forage plants and flow of the honey. Only the combs with capped honey should be harvested. Avoid those with broods. Then extract the honey by floating, pressing and centrifuging methods. The extracted honey is then stored in sealed and airtight contain­ers to avoid fermentation. The honey will ferment if the water content is more than 19 per cent.Training Go for training. You can be trained by attending seminars and workshops on honey production or associating with bee farm­ers to get knowledge. Re­lying on trial and error might land you in financial trouble. Bee farming is a sweet business. Explore it. To your success. You can drop me a line.