Development of Beekeeping in
Developing Countries and Practical
Procedures– Case Study in Africa –JAICAF
Japan Association forInternational Collaboration ofAgriculture and Forestry

March 20091

Introduction
In our project of establishment of basic information base for the assistance ofdeveloping countries, the research study program for this year was devoted to
exploring the potential of beekeeping in Africa. We present this document as areport summarizing the information acquired through the studies made in Japan aswell as the field surveys carried out in Africa.

The term beekeeping reminds us of “honey” but it represents only a part ofgreat potential that honey bees can create.
Honey bees produce valuable products including honey without competingwith other activities of agriculture and forestry. Moreover, as an insect pollinating
efficiently the flowering plants, they pollinate vegetables and trees, playing animportant role in promoting agriculture and forestry.
As readers follow the contents of this report, they will be able to understandthat beekeeping holds a great potential to contribute to poverty reduction andenvironmental protection including forest conservation.

In preparing this report, we have been much privileged to receive informationfrom many persons in various areas ranging from Kenyan scientists to thoseengaged in business. Consequently, the document contains several duplications anddiscrepancies among different chapters. Readers may find certain parts perplexing
but the divergences occur due to different positions of writers. We have not dared tounify those differences in observations. This policy has been based on the belief that
it is desirable to provide readers with multiple views as alternative solutions that
could be applied selectively in effective endeavors by readers when they shall be
engaged in actual development programs in the future.
Only, this report takes up the potential of beeswax as one of the conclusions.
We would be very happy if the proposition can serve as a reference to readers.

It is our most earnest hope that this report shall be utilized to the advantage
of many of those who try to develop agriculture and rural areas in developing
countries, and eventually be able to contribute to the improvement of life of local
people.

We would like to express our utmost appreciation for those having contributed
articles, and personnel of various organizations having provided assistance incarrying out the field surveys, namely, agencies of the Republic of Kenya, diplomaticestablishments abroad, headquarters and Kenyan office of JICA, Nairobi office of
JETRO.
Finally, I would like to mention that this report has been prepared solely
under the responsibility of this association, and does not represent any views of theJapanese government or the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

March 2009

Hisao Azuma,
Chairperson,
Japan Association for International Collaboration of Agriculture and Forestry

Contributors(in order of articles contributed)

Jun Nakamura, Dr. (Chair person, Committee for the Higher Income Agriculture:
Beekeeping in Africa)
Professor in charge of the Honeybee Science Research Center,
Tamagawa University
Mary W. Gikungu, Dr.
Research Entomologist, Zoology Department,
National Museum of Kenya
Yoshiaki Kano
Director General, JICA Tokyo International Center
Kazuo Hanzawa, Dr.
Professor, Department of International Development Studies,
College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University
Mercy Gichora, Dr.
Principal Research Scientist, Corporate Affairs & Public Relations
Kenya Forest Research InstituteYasuyuki Morimoto, Dr.
Scientist, Ethnobotany-Genetic Diversity
Bioversity International（ex-International Plant Genetic Resource Institute: IPGRI）
Sub-Sahara Africa, Kenya office
Shinji Ogawa
Former long term expert ofIntensified Social Forestry Project in Semi-arid Areas in Kenya
Hiroto Fujiyosi
Director, Division of Apiculture, Yamada Bee Farm, Co., Ltd.
Ryoichi Udagawa
Managing Director, Tree of Life, Co., Ltd.

Table of contents

Chapter 1

Apiculture .............................................. Dr. Jun Nakamura ........

Chapter 2

Honey bees and beekeeping resources in Africa............................................ Dr. Mary Gikungu .........

Chapter 3
3-1

1

8

Apiculture in Kenya

Natural conditions and agriculture and forestry in Kenya
Yoshiaki Kano, Dr. Kazuo Hanzawa........ 20

3-2

Current status and historical aspects of Kenya‟s beekeeping
Dr. Mercy Gichora .......... 24

3-3

Practices of traditional beekeeping – cases observed in district of Kitui- Kamba in Eastern Province of Kenya ...... Dr. Yasuyuki Morimoto . 45

3-4

Development of apiculture in Kenya, roles and issuesof respective sectors .................................... Shinji Ogawa

Chapter 4.............. 59

Community development and apiculture

4-1

Rural development and apiculture ............. Dr. Jun Nakamura ........ 70

4-2

Apiculture and environmental conservation

Chapter 5
5-1

Shinji Ogawa ......... 80

Industrialization and high quality production

Products of beekeeping – 8 gifts of honey bees
Hiroto Fujiyoshi, Dr. Jun Nakamura ........ 86

5-2

High quality production .............................. Dr. Jun Nakamura ........ 96

Chapter 6

Potential for community trade

6-1

Business model of community trade ............ Ryoichi Udagawa ........... 98

6-2

Practical procedures in import & export business ofhoney bee products ..................................... Hiroto Fujiyoshi............. 117

Appendix

Websites for technical information on apicultural development
and beekeeping ...................................... ....................................... 134

Chapter 1

Apiculture

Apiculture is an activity in which man rears honey bees and acquires theirproducts. So long as a honey bee is an animal, the apiculture is generally treated asa form of animal husbandry in a broader sense of the word, and consequently inmany countries and regions it is supervised specifically by the administrative
structure which controls livestock industry within the larger sector of agriculture.
However, when honey bees are exploited as wild living things inhabiting forests, orwhen they are principally used for pollinating horticultural crops, the agency incharge of the forest management or that supervising horticultural affaires may
become the administrative entity for controlling the matters of honey bees.
Moreover, when the apiculture is taken up as strategic element in ruraldevelopment programs, an agency in charge of development, on its own or incollaboration with agencies associated with agriculture, may promote beekeeping.
Thus the existence of various possible ways of approaching the development of
apiculture that are different depending on what the honey bees are taken for orwhat is expected of them, is a characteristic of the apiculture.
When we talk about honey bees, we generally refer to a particular species,
European honey bees, Apis mellifera.

Even if they are collectively called under thecommon name of European honey bees, the products they produce, particularly the
propolis (or bee glue) the quality of which depends greatly on source plants, vary
widely, being greatly influenced by the vegetation of a particular locality, and hencecannot be considered to be the same to one another.

It is a matter of fact that,

because the honey produced by the European honey bees introduced into the tropics
in general possesses properties different from those of products from other regions,
it is difficult to treat the honeys from various parts of the tropics as a uniform
product.

Furthermore, when the bees are looked at from the viewpoint ofextension of apiculture, because, considering the requirement of sustainability, theutilization of bees as a regional resource is often regarded as the fundamental
project element, different regions of the world adopt different subspecies of Apis as
those utilizable in apiaries: African subspecies of European honey bee, Apis

mellifera (counting up to 10 subspecies) in Africa; subspecies of domesticatedEastern honey bee, Apis cerana, (4 subspecies) in Asian countries. From this1context, there emerge two distinct views as to the handling of honey bee products in
the international market: the one to advocate the unification of the definition ofhoney, and the other to be affirmative of the differences among regions and due tospecies of honey bees.

1) Stages of domestication
Furthermore, there are various stages in beekeeping. Human experience of
beekeeping started from the earliest times in which presumably the honey bees
coming to existence 5 million years ago were already the object of exploitation for
their product by the ancestors of mankind who appeared 1.8 million years ago, in amanner similar to the one by which chimpanzees today lick honey off tree twigs byinserting them into wild bee hives. Later development with higher levels oftechnology by putting the honey in containers for transportation and storage would
eventually complete the so-called honey-hunting. From evidences such as rockpaintings of the Stone Age caves depicting honey hunting, it is certain that suchtypes of honey hunting were in those days practiced widely across the Old World
where honey bees were distributed. The development of tools and techniques forhoney hunting has continued since then and the honey hunting itself is stillpracticed nowadays principally for collecting the honey produced by the Gianthoney bee, A. dorsata, (distributed widely from Southeast Asia to South Asia) whichis capable of producing a large quantity of honey.

The products delivered by honeyhunting include honey, beeswax, and larvae and pupae of honey bee, commonly
called “infant bees”.

Because the honey is extracted more often by crushing entire

honeycombs taken out from hives, generally the product quality is inferior.

Sincehoney bees run away from hives (depending on the methods used, they may be
exterminated), the same hives cannot be reused. Consequently, nowadays thehoney hunting is considered to be the most critical factor to reduce the local
populations of honey bees, and therefore in many regions more often than not theactivity is controlled except for the case where it is practiced for ecotourism
purposes.
The human race is believed to have settled down about ten thousand years

2ago when presumably it started to invent the methods to ensure the harvest ofhoney to a certain extent.

Actually the records on the ancient Egypt show that theso-called traditional beekeeping originated there, and based on this the date of thefirst domestication of honey bees has been assumed to be around 5,000 years ago.
However, at that time, apiaries had already been established in the form where acluster of a large number of cylindrical beehives constructed of clay was laid out ona specific lot. The similar devices were widely distributed across the Middle andNear East.
The type of traditional beekeeping that is still today found remaining in many
parts of the world and had preceded the above-mentioned type with a cluster ofartificial beehives is considered for a certainty to have been practiced since thetimes going well further back into the human history. In this respect, thetraditional beekeeping practice using hollow log beehives currently found widely in
Africa is considered to belong to a more ancient class among traditional beekeeping
techniques, although no evidence as record exists to prove it.
Such practice of utilization of traditional beehives consists of processes offirstly waiting for the arrival of a migrant colony followed by the destruction of thehive after the elapse of a certain period to extract the honey. The products are
similar to those obtained by honey hunting. Only, because the target honey bee
species is one which essentially gathers propolis, it also has been counted since
early as one of the products. Actually there are traces which suggest that propolis
was used in the embalming of Egyptian mummies.
The utilization of traditional beehives enables a large number of honey bees toestablish their habitat in close proximity to the living environment of humans,
which would stabilize the honey production commensurate with expectation to acertain extent.
The beekeeping using traditional beehives also continues to be practiced evenat the present time, and diverse types of beehives exist not only in Africa but also
throughout the world. Since traditional types of beekeeping concentrate honey beesin the areas close to human living environment, we may be able to suppose thatthey possess also the effect to promote the utilization of honey bees for the purpose3

of pollinating agricultural crops on arable lands. However, the significance in thissense is rarely appreciated, and honey bees are essentially deemed as the means of
producing honey. Among cases of traditional beekeeping, particularly in the areas
where it is difficult to acquire honey bee populations, the improvement of
harvesting methods allowing the reutilization of bee colonies is in progress, and theeffort can be interpreted as the factor creating a situation in which honey beecolonies with a high density are present close to humans and, albeit indirectly,
serving to facilitate the pollination of crops. At this stage, the beekeeping may not
be considered to have reached the level of domestication, but it still represents a
condition where human race is utilizing honey bees in a more efficient manner.

2) Arrival of modern apiculture
The modern beekeeping, the basic system of which emerged about 200 years
ago, was perfected to assume a form resembling that of present-day in North
America where the European honey bee was being reared by immigrants from
Europe. In Africa which was supposed to have the longest history of traditionalbeekeeping, the honey hunting and the beekeeping making use of traditional
beehives were maintained, and no innovation by modern technology had appeared.
The fundamental concept of modern apiculture is the reutilization of bee colonies
for which it was called for to develop a method of honey harvesting with a lesser
load on them. European honey bees construct a beehive consisting of multiple
honeycombs within a closed cavity where they rear brood in the central part andstore honey in the fringe portion. In the traditional beehives of hollow log, since
honey is stored in the upper part and brood is kept below it, the attempt to collecthoney necessarily leads to the loss of brood. Moreover, because the entire beehive
is taken out and crushed to extract honey, bees have to start anew by rebuilding
combs. In modern beekeeping, a beehive consists of two stages, which enables theuse of the principle that the lower stage is devoted for rearing brood (brood-box) andthe upper one for storing honey (honey-super). Moreover, by the arrangement thatthe comb frames in the upper stage are made in a smaller size and thanks to theadoption of “separation” of honey by means of a centrifuge, the emptied honeycombs
can be easily returned to bees, thus enabling to minimize the impact due to honey4extraction. Only, while the traditional beekeeping always produces beeswax as a
byproduct of honey harvesting, in the modern system no byproducts other thanhoney cannot be obtained in an ordinary process of honey extraction.
The structure of beehives allowing the inspection and management ofmultiple frames of honeycomb individually has enabled beekeepers to carry out
various management tasks including division of a colony, addition of empty frames
for harvesting honey or inversely thinning out surplus frames to build a morecompact colony.

Thanks also to this structure of beehives the trading of live honeybees themselves has become possible, and the beehives of a standardized size areeasily mounted on transportation vehicles, allowing the movement of bee colonies
for purposes other than honey harvesting, for instance, the conveyance of colonies
exclusively used for pollination to the vicinity of target crops. In short, modern
beehives currently in use are very versatile in their function from the viewpoint ofefficient utilization of honey bees.
Consequently, beekeepers are using a type of beehives that represents a kindof the greatest common divisor for the majority of beekeepers, but it is also
recognizable that an individual beekeeper may not be making use of all thefunctions available on his equipment.
In modern beekeeping the honey has become a product easily to be harvested
whenever it is needed, and hence it has become possible to produce a particularkind of honey collected from a specifically targeted source and stored inhoneycombs in a short term. Beekeepers have become able to produce a honeybearing a specific flower name, and the honey products have been diversified andthe control of their quality has become possible to a certain extent.

Similarly the

products which are particular but valueless unless they are fresh, like royal jelly,
have come to be produced in a great quantity. Regarding propolis, it has become
easy to modify the construction of beehives so that it can be produced as theprincipal product and not as a byproduct. On the other hand, regarding the
beeswax, new honeycombs are rarely harvested along with the extraction of honey,
and consequently the products derived from aged honeycombs used for a long
period predominate the merchandise in markets, causing problems related toquality. Thus the modern beekeeping can be deemed as a technology that, while it‟s5

primary pursuit concerns the production of honey, has evolved also around theefforts to obtain other articles, the secondary and the tertiary products with higher
added value.
Moreover, beekeeping for the exclusive purpose of pollination is also practiced
and this also essentially falls under the category of modern beekeeping technology
which needs the techniques including the division of colonies and the introductionof queen bees. In other words, the modern beekeeping could be identified as a styleof beekeeping that can meet the diverse requirements arising from thediversification of objectives of honey bee utilization.

3) Potential of beekeeping
As described in preceding sections, while the beekeeping on its own is an
economic activity to produce health-conscious foods, it also can become an
indispensable tool in areas trying to increase the capacity of food self-sufficiency,
because it can contribute greatly to the increase of food production through thefunction of pollination of food crops.

Although the modern beekeeping technology

with high efficiency can meet the needs for the improvement of product quality andfor the expansion of market for processed products, and further for the increase offood production, the traditional beekeeping technology also still holds sufficient
potential value.
Under such context, even if the level of development may differ among
different types of technology, because the presence of honey bees as thefundamental element constitutes the core of all aspects of beekeeping, it isrecognized that the beekeeping holds a high potential irrespective of technology
system.
In other words, in the promotion of a project of beekeeping the specificobjective of which is well defined, a situation may arise that the introduction ofbeehives of multiple functions or that of modern technology as a system capable ofsatisfying diverse requirements, by holding up too high an objective, entails a taskrather too burdensome. Under such a circumstance, it is very likely that a
traditional type of beekeeping based on a traditional technology system may be able6

to achieve a considerably great part of the expected results. The present document
essentially assumes the situation that efforts will be made to raise the standard ofliving of rural residents in developing countries or to realize high revenues throughthe enhancement of product value. In view of such an implication, an intellectual
approach should be indispensable to adapt the beekeeping technology of a highlevel to that of a level actually needed or to that of an acceptable level. When anintermediate technology is sought under a circumstance where already a new
advanced technology system has been established, generally a proven system ofpractical level of the age coming slightly before tends to be chosen and introduced.
In the case of beekeeping however, owing to the high adaptability of honey bees, a
new type of intermediate technology system can be created, and there are manycases where beekeepers have been successful in constructing various progressive
types of intermediate technology system.

This kind of situation of the matter

could really be said to be the most important potential that the beekeeping
possesses.

7Chapter 2
2-1

Honey bees and beekeeping resources in Africa

Honeybee races in Africa
A summary of honeybee classification and distribution has been well

documented by Hepburn and Radloff (1997). A recent review of Apis mellifera shows
22 honeybee races worldwide and 10 valid geographical races in Africa (Engel 1999).
Ruttner (1988, 1992), also reported the same number of honeybee races in Africa
based on morphometric studies. The races include Apis mellifera adansonii, A. m.

scutellata, A. m. littorea, A. m. monticola, A. m. unicolor, A. m. lamarkii, A. m.
major, A. m. yementica, A. m. major, A. m. capensis and A. m. intermissa. These
subspecies have been found to have specific behavioral and morphologicalcharacteristics (Ruttner & Kauhausen 1984; Hepburn & Radloff 1997). However,
the tropical African races form their own group distinguishable by multivariable
analysis (Ruttner & Kauhausen 1984).
While as a lot of research on honeybee races has been conducted on behavior,taxonomy and distribution, very little has been done in Africa. The existing
information

indicatesthat

throughout

Africahoneybee

races

are

quite

unpredictable in their defensive behavior and this has caused a lot of fear inbeekeeping due to the number of deaths reported on people and domestic animals.
For example, in Uganda, honeybees at higher altitudes in the western part of thecountry have been found to be more aggressive than those found in other areas of
the country (Corner 1984). Further, a clear correlation has been found between
climate and morphometric characters in tropical Africa. This has been shown by beeraces in East Africa with striking differences in size across a distance of 250 km
between the coast of Indian Ocean and the tropical rain forest of Kilimanjaro. In
this region, the smallest race occurs in the hottest areas, and the largest at higher
altitude with low temperatures (Ruttner & Kauhausen 1984).
Current studies have revealed lack of homogeneity in races that were initiallythought to belong to certain localities. For instance, intermissa a northwestern racein Africa has two morphoclusters that have been revealed by multivariate methodsof analysis (Lebdi-Grissa et al. 1991; Hepburn & Radloff 1997). So the earlier view8that a subspecies or race is based on the recognition of distinct population andshould be different from the neighboring populations is still debatable.
The current literature shows evidently that each of the African honeybee
sub-species differs morphologically and behaviorally (Hepburn & Radloff 1997) andtheir variation has some implications for bee-keeping practice. For instance, A. m.

lamarckii found in lower Nile valley is a small relatively defensive race and has
black with yellow abdominal bands while A. m. intermissa is found from Libyan
Desert to the Atlantic coast. This race is black, produces much propolis and stings
readily. The most studied and commonly used race in beekeeping development
programmes is A.m. scutellata. This race spreads from Ethiopia to South Africa.
In tropical Africa, significant geographical variability in honeybee races isquite evident in spite of lack of physical barriers.

According to Fletcher (1978), themechanism that brings about isolation is the selective adaptation of races of bees tocertain biotopes. The variation in African tropical bees therefore show a clear
diversification and isolation by ecological factors and the correlation between
adaptive characteristics and environmental factors is much more evident in tropical
Africa than in other parts of the world. The observed spatial variability between thesubspecies enhances preservation of gene pools for beekeeping industry in East
Africa. Further, the hybrids or intermediates produced occupy transitional zones
reflecting intermediate ecological zones.

1) Natural enemies and pests
Predation and pest infestations are major problems in African beekeeping
industry in Africa. The predators include mammals, birds, reptiles, beetles, ants
and wasps and flies (Hepburn & Radloff 1997). Among these predators, thehoneybudgers (Mellivora capensis), honey guide birds (Indicator indicator) anddifferent species of ants are the most common. However, the recent reports indicatethat man is the most significant predator to honeybees in Africa followed byhoneybudgers (Crane 1990). This is because most honey gatherers use crude
methods such as use of fire to harvest and extract the honey from natural colonies
thus destroying entire colonies.

9

Further, wax production has been identified as the most destructive action tohoneybee nests. Recent reports show that about 1927 colonies are destroyed per
metric ton of wax harvested per annum using traditional methods in the natural
habitats in Africa (Hepburn & Radloff 1997). Among the insect community, wax
moths (Galleria mellonella and Achroia grisella) have been found to cause a lot ofdamage and absconding to African bees (Fletcher 1978).

In many areas in

sub-Saharan Africa, wax moths have been reported to cause serious comb damage(Corner 1984).
Other harmful bee pests include Varroa mite and unfortunately it has beenfound in South Africa and Nigeria. The parasitic mite Tropilaelaps clareae has been
identified as big threat to bees in the tropics. This mite breeds on bee brood andcauses considerable damage to the honeybees‟ colonies especially due to associatedvirus infections. Some of the Microporidians causing infections in honey bees
include: Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae. The soiled combs are the primary sourceof infection. The most important bacteria that may cause diseases in honeybees
include: opportunistic Melissococcus pluton which causes European foul brood andthe fatal Paenibacillus larvae causing American foul brood. European foul brood is aserious disease of honeybees causing loss of production and some times colonies.
Most of these arrive into African countries from imported honey.
While a lot of information has been documented on honeybee pathogens inmany countries of the world, very little is known about them in many countries ofAfrica including East Africa. The general lack of data on honeybee pathogens in
Africa is attributed to lack of local expertise (Hepburn & Radloff 1997). In modern
beekeeping, wax combs are likely to transmit pathogens as wax combs are shifted
between colonies. These pathogens include virus, fungi, protozoa and bacteria.

2) Beekeeping resources
Sound utilization of honeybees for economic development cannot take place inthe absence of information and knowledge of important beekeeping resources.
Unfortunately, most beekeepers have little information on important basic bee
resources as such food plants and water. According to Hepburn & Radloff (1997),

10detailed studies of honeybee-plant relationship are still patchy. However, some data
exist on important bee plants in Africa e.g. Lobreau-Callen and Viry 1993. Hepburn& Radloff 1995. The best summaries of the most important bee plants have been
documented by Crane (1984), and Hepburn & Radloff (1997).

Sustainablebeekeeping in Africa can only be achieved through understanding and conservationof the most resourceful plants for the bees in terms of nectar, pollen and resin.
Knowledge on bee-plants that are important to bees in different localities andseasons is still very scarce. This implies a need for documentation of important
plant species through biotic survey and palynological analysis of honey.
The major bee plants in Africa are trees that are also used by local
communities for charcoal production and timber. With time most of the resources
tree species have been reduced to small populations that cannot sustain the beecolonies.

This situation is more prominent in dry land areas where tree species

like Acacia are utilized by local communities for building and charcoal production.
Thus most of the problems encountered in such areas in regard to poor honeyproduction are related to lack of enough food sources and prolonged droughts. With
the continuous increase in land pressure due to population growth, less and lessland is becoming available for bee forage. The worst hit areas are highly productive
arable agricultural areas where land use intensity is high. In such areas, the land israrely left fallow and it is ever tilled for crop cultivation. On the other hand, large
scale farmers in Africa are equally impacting the honeybee bee floral resources
negatively. This is due to clearance of large tracts of natural vegetation as well as
use of chemicals such pesticides and herbicides.
Because of current threats to bee flora, the beekeepers in Africa have to comeup with alternative measures to conserve the important bee-plants within theirfarms and in the surrounding natural habitats. The beekeepers should be
encouraged to plant multipurpose tree species that are not only nectar and pollen
sources but also good trees in terms of timber and of medicinal value. While a lotemphasis has been put on woody species, the role of herbs and shrubs remains
poorly understood and appreciated by most beekeepers in Africa. Most of theseherbs are multipurpose and flower throughout the year. For example, the genus

Leucas is widespread in Africa and flowers early in the growing season

11(Ngethe1984). Example plants of species in this genus include Leucas glabrata, L.

micrantha and L. pododiskos. Several other plant species in the family Labiatae are
traditionally used to scent new hives and attract swarms e.g. Ocimum

kilimanscharicum and Plectranthus species.
In the dry areas, most of the bee plants such as Grewia spp die off during thedry season but local communities should be encouraged to conserve drought
resistant plants such as Acacia spp and Sanseviera spp. In such areas honeyproduction is best produced by bee races that have the ability to utilize the short
lived resources followed by migration to richer areas in term of food. However, withcareful management of local colonies the degree of absconding and migration can be
minimized. In order to increase understanding and conservation of the mostimportant bee flora, the following activities should be undertaken:


Establishment of inventories of the most important bee plants in different
localities. This information can be acquired using combined effort of fieldsurveys and interviewing beekeepers using structured questionnaires.



Establishment of nurseries of the most important plant species in ecologicalzonePublication of local guides, CDs and pamphlets on most important plants
species to bees.

Publication of local floral calendars for each ecological zone. They can bepresented in both English and in local languages.



Botanical maps showing the distribution of most important plant species.

Preservation of natural habitats including riparian vegetation along rivers
and roadsides.



Planting of permanent bee forage either annuals or perennials designed to
attract bees over many weeks or months. Candidate bee pasture plants
should be rich in nectar and pollen, easy to grow, cost-effective, non-invasive,
long- blooming, and not bloom at the same time with crops in order avoid
competition for pollinators.

12Management of pasture land for beesCapacity building on identification of bee flora and other importantresources such as resin providing plants.
Proper management of pasture land can also promote proliferation of local bee

plants. The older the pasture, the more likely it is to have suitable plant
species.

This

means

it

is

best

to

keep

pasturesmore-or-lesspermanent. Temporary pastures, such as those grown in crop rotation, have very
low plant diversity even though the cover crop (as sweet potato) may be a rich bee
resource during the dry season (Gikungu 2006). It is important to not allow
overgrazing because it promotes invasion of fast-growing grasses that crowd out
nectar-yielding herbaceous plants.
In planning a bee pasture, beekeepers may choose a collection of plants that
produce an unbroken succession of bloom throughout the season. Local beekeepers,
extension agents, and horticulturists are good sources of information about theimportant bee plants in an area and their historic bloom times. Despite the fact thatsome annuals provide quick and relatively abundant bee forage, perennial herbs
and shrubs are superior bee forage plants and deserve special attention bybeekeepers as well as conservationists. Compared to annuals, perennials are
generally richer nectar sources. Because of their longevity, perennials provide bee
populations a more-or-less dependable food source year after year. This partly
explains why the number of plant species is high in undisturbed habitats.
Holistic conservation and management of bee flora therefore requires
management of suitable habitats. Bees prefer thrive best in open, sunny habitats
with an abundance and diversity of flowering food plants rather than in flower-poor,shaded woodlands (Gikungu 2006). Open habitats rich in native flora attract morebees because honeybees are floral density dependent. Undisturbed areas offer richfloral patches for the bees although studies have shown that honeybees survive inpersistent manner in disturbed sites as well. However, heavily wooded areas in theforest ecosystem are not always suitable for the honeybees although the bees areable to forage on high canopies. The only exception is those areas withnectar-producing understory and margin plants such as Polia condensata, Justicia

13flava and Desmodium species that are found in tropical rain forests of Africa.
Induced opening of canopies in selected portions of African tropical forests isnecessary for increased diversity and density of important bee-plants which also
support the non-social bees. Other important plant species that are so importantto the bees along the forest edges include Impatiens spp, Caesalpinea decapetalaand Leucus species (Gikungu 2006).
Other important beekeeping resources that are still missing in many Africancountries include the following:

Equipments, smokers, extractors, stainless storage containers, etc.

Trained extension officers in beekeepingBooks and training manuals for beginners and trainers of trainer (TOT)

Field guide of bee plants including honey-dew producing plants

Floral calendars of different eco-regions

Migratory beekeeping policies and apiary regulations



Rules and regulations on pesticides

Apiary inspection services



Checklist of authorized queen breeders. So far the well known commercial
queen breeders are found in Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Libya and Egypt.

Infrastructure and honey collecting centers or market places with proper
storage facilities

Websites

Increased regional beekeeping colleges

References
1) Corner, J. (1984). Apiculture and bee management problems in African countries.
Pro. 3 International Conference on Apiculture in Tropical Climates. Pp 41-44.
2) Crane, E. (1990). Bees and Beekeeping. Heinemann, Oxford, UK.

143) DuPraw, E. J. (1964). Non-Linnean taxonomy. Nature 202: 849-852.
4) DuPraw, E. J. (1965). Non-Linnean taxonomy and the systematics of honeybees.
Systematic Zoology 14:1-24.
5) Engel, M.S. (1999). The taxonomy of recent and fossil honeybees (Hymenoptera:
Apidae; Apis). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 8: 165-196.
6) Fletcher, D.J.C. (1978c). The African bee, Apis mellifera adansonii, in Africa.
Annual Review of Entomology 23: 151-171.
7) Gikungu, M. (2006).

Bee diversity and some aspects of their ecologicalinteractions with plants in a successional tropical community. PhD thesis. Bonn
University, Germany.
8) Hepburn, H. R & Radloff, S. E. (1995). First approximation to a phenology of thehoneybees ( Apis mellifera) and the flora of Africa. Oecologia 101: 265-273.
9) Hepburn, H. R, Radloff S.E. (1997). Biogeographical correlates of population
variance in the honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) of Africa. Apidologie 28: 243-258.
10) Latreille, P. A. (1804). Notice des especes d'abeilles vivant en grande société, etformant des cellules hexagonales, ou des abeillés proprement dites. Ann. Mus.
Hist. Nat., Paris 5 : 161-178.
11) Lebdi-Grissa K, M'Sadda K, Cornuet J. M, Fresnaye J. (1991). Influence desd'abeilles étrangères introduites en Tunisie sur la lace tunisienne Apis mellifère

intermissa. Revue de l'Agriculture 44: 632-636.
12) Lobreau-Callen D. & Viry, A. (1993). Miel et vegetation du Togo. Palynosciences
2: 209-222.
13) Ngethe, J. C. (1984). Apiculture and bee management problems in Africancountries. Pro. 3 International Conference on Apiculture in Tropical Climates.
Pp 205-208.
14) Ntenga, G. (1968). The honeybees of Tanzania. Am.Bee J. 108 (1): 10-12.
15) Ruttner, F. & Kauhausen (1984). Honeybees of tropical Africa: Ecological
Diversification and isolation. Proc. 3 International Conference on Apiculture in

15

Tropical Climates. Pp 45-51.
16) Ruttner, F. (1975). African races of honeybees. Proceedings of the Twenty-fifthInternational Beekeeping Congress, Bucharest, Romania, pp 325-344.
17) Ruttner, F. (1981). Taxonomy of Honeybees of Tropical Africa. Proceedings of theTwenty-fifth International Beekeeping Congress, Bucharest, Romania, pp271-277.
18) Ruttner, F. (1988). Biogeography and Taxonomy of Honeybees. Springer-Verlag,
Berlin, Germany.
19) Ruttner, F. (1992). Naturgeschichte der Honigbienen. Ehrenwirth, Muchem,
Germany20) Rashad, S.E., El-Sarrag, M.S.A., Saeed, A. H. A., Hussein, M. A.

(1984).

Beekeeping in Sudan. Two morphometric studies on Sudanese honeybees. Proc.
3 International Conference on Apiculture in Tropical Climates. Pp 45-51.
21) Smith, F. G. (1961). The races of honeybees in Africa. Bee world 42. (10):255-260.

A list of common bee plants in tropical Africa

Acacia mellifera

Acacia albida

Acacia dudgeoni

Acacia gourmaensis

Acacia Senegal

Acacia nilotica

Acacia polyacantha

Acacia tortilis

Acanthus pubescens

Achrospernum scimperi

Adansonia digitata

Ageratum conyzoides

Albizzia lebeck

Anacardium excelsum

Anacardium occidentale

Annona senelalensis

Anogeiss leiocarpus

Asparagus officinalis

Aspilia mossambicensis

Asystasia gangetica

Avicennia marina

Azadirachta indica

Begonia meyeri-johannis

Bidens pilosa

16

Botriocline amplifolia

Botriocline fusca

Brachystegia bentham

Brachystegia spiciformis

Caesalpinia decapitate

Carica papaya

Cassia(Senna) siamea

Ceiba pentandra

Chaemaecrista hildebrandtii

Citrus aurantium

Citrus bergamia

Citrus deliciosa

Citrus grandis

Citrus limon

Citrus medica

Citrus paradici

Citrus reticulate

Citrus sinensis

Cocos nucifera

Coffea arabica

Coffea eugeniodes

Cola nitida

Commelina africana

Combretum spp

Combretum paniculatum

Cucurbita maxima

Crassocephalum muotusum

Crassocephalum crepidiodes

Crassocephalum vitellinum

Crotalia brevidens

Croton megalocarpus

Croton macrostachyus

Dalbergia sissoo

Desmodium spp

Dialium elgleranum(excelsum)

Digitaria scabra

Diospyros batocana

Diospyros mespiliformis

Diospyros virginiana

Durio zibethinus

Dyschoriste radicans

Desmodium spp

Dombeya torrida

Dombeya burgissiae

Ehretia acuminate

Elaeis guineensis

Emilia discifolia

Eragrostis tenuifolia

Eriobotrya japonica

Eucalyptus alba

Eucalptus albens

Eucalyptus cadambae

Eucalyptus camaldulensis

Eucalyptus citriodora

Eucalyptus cladocalyx

Eucalyptus maculata

Eucalyptus melliodora

Eucalyptus paniculata

Eucalyptus robusta

Eucalyptus saligna

Eucalyptus torrelliana

Eucalyptus tereticornis

Euphoria longana

Butyrospermum parkii

Galinsoga parviflora

Geniosporum rotundifolium

17

Gleditsia triacanthos

Gliridia sepium

Gmelina arborea

Gossypium hirsutum

Grevillea robusta

Grewia mollis

Guizotia spp
Cleome gynandra (Gynandropsis gynandra)
Harungana madagascariensis

Haematoxylon campechianum

Helianthus annuus

Hibiscus spp

Hymenae stilbocarpa

Hypoestes solant

Hypoestes trifolia

Impatiens batoni

Impatients glandulifera (Himalayan Balsam)
Inga edulis (vera)

Ipomoea batata

Ipomoea wightii

Julbernardia globiflora

Justicia flava

Justicia striata

Khaya senegalensis

Kyllinga spp

Maesa lanceolata

Madhuca longifolia

Mangifera indica

Melicoccus bijugatus

Melicoccus lepidopetalus

Mimusops elengi

Moringa oleifera

Musa spp

Nepeta spp

Nephelium lappaceum

Nephelium litchi (Litchi chinensis)

Nyssa ogeche

Ocimum kilimandischaricum

Ocimum gratissium

Parkia bicolor

Parkia biglobosa

Parkia clappertoniana

Parkinsonia aculeata

Pavonia urens

Passiflora endulis

Persea america

Phaseolus vulgaris

Phaseolus aureus

Pithecellobium ducle

Plectranthus edulis

Plectranthus sylvestris

Plectranthus parvus

Plectranthus laxiflorus

Plectranthus albus

Plectranthus assurgen

Pongamia pinnata

Prosopis juliflora

Prosopis cineraria

Prosopis glandulosa

Prosopis pallida

Prosopis pubescens

Protea spp

Psidium guajava

18

Pterocarya erinacea

Rhamnidium glabrum

Racinus cummunis

Robinia pseudacacia

Roystonea regia

Salix spp

Schinus terebinthinfolius

Sclerocarya birrea subsp. caffra

Sesamum indicum

Spathodea campanulata

Spondias mombin

Syzygium aromaticum

Syzygium cordatum

Syzygium cuminti

Syzygium jambos

Tamarindus indica

Terminaria ivorensis

Terminaria superba

Tithonia diversifolia

Toona ciliata

Trifolium spp

Urena lobata

Vaccinium spp

Vernonia amplifolia

Vernonia lasiopus

Vernonia syringiforia

Vitex agnus-castus

Vitex doniana

Zea mays

Zehneria scabra

Zizyphus Mauritania

Zizyphus mucronata

Zizyphus spina-christii

19

Chapter 3

Beekeeping in Kenya

3-1

Natural conditions and agriculture and forestry in Kenya

3-1-1

Natural conditions and the present state of land use

Kenya has a land area of 569,249 km2 which is 1.5 times as large as that ofJapan and a population of 37million people is living there (2007).
17% of the land area is covered by the areas suitable for agricultural
production with an annual rainfall of more than 850 mm.

These areas are

situated at an elevation higher than 1500 m where about 70 % of the people live.
Most people are engaged in cultivation of food crops (maize, wheat, potato, beans)and dairy farming. These areas include forested land which occupies 2.4 % of thenational land. In particular, those areas with an annual rainfall exceeding 1,200
mm, occupying 12 % of the national land, are fertile and cultivated with export
crops including tea, coffee, pyrethrum, vegetables, and flowers. These crops arecultivated not only on farms of smallholders, but also on large-scale farms handed
over from former white plantation owners.
32% of the national land is covered with the areas called semi-arid zone withan annual rainfall ranging from 610 mm to 850 mm. In the semi-arid zone,
subsistence cultivation of such crops as maize, millet, sorghum, and beans ispracticed. In addition to crop production, animal husbandry rearing cattle, goat,and sheep is playing an important role from the viewpoint of asset. Moreover,shrubs are utilized as firewood or for charcoal making. In semi-arid zone, about
20 % of people live.
50 % of national land is covered with the areas called arid zone with anannual rainfall of less than 610 mm where because of low rainfall with irregularoccurrences, agriculture is difficult to practice and hence animal husbandry by20nomadism is practiced. About 10 % of people live in this zone. Since 1970, Kenyan
government has tried actively to develop the arid and semiarid zones which havedifficult climatic conditions and also a population afflicted with poverty, callingthem ASAL (Arid and semi-arid lands), but the reality shows that little significant
success has been achieved so far in this regard.
The agricultural land area under irrigation is about 100,000 ha, accounting
for only 3.5 % of the total arable land area of 3 million ha, and because theagriculture is mostly practiced under rainfed conditions, the reduction of
production is remarkable in drought years. In irrigated lands, vegetables andflowers for export, rice, coffee, citrus fruits, maize, cotton and banana are
cultivated.
As described above, Kenya consists of several ecological areas under natural
conditions of rich diversity ranging from arid zone to wet temperate zone.

3-1-2

Current status of agriculture

The agricultural structure in which commodities including coffee, tea,
pyrethrum and sisal occupy the leading position in production has not changed in
the past 5 years. Despite certain degrees of fluctuation in production due tooccasional droughts, the overall tendency during the past 10 years has not changed.
However the situation still persists that the domestic production of essential foodcrops such as wheat, rice, maize and sugar cannot meet the demand and the deficits
have to be balanced by import.
On the other hand, if one looks at the trend of export in the past 10 years, one
notices that the exports of horticultural crops like cut flowers or vegetables haveincreased rapidly and taken over the top position previously occupied by traditional
export crops of Kenya like coffee and tea. In 2007 in terms of monetary value aswell horticultural crops became the top export crops. These principal export crops,
coffee, tea, cut flowers and vegetables, are grown on fertile arable lands located in
the areas with an annual rainfall exceeding 1200 mm and at elevation higher than21

1500 m. In the arid and semi-arid areas however, farmers principally grows crops
consumed at home and hence presenting few opportunities for earning cash income,which tends to create the situation that the economic disparity is expanding
between agriculturally fit areas and arid/semi-arid areas.

3-1-3

Status of livelihood in semi-arid areas

This section shall analyze the social circumstances in districts of Mbeere District
and Tharaka District situated in semi-arid land based on the “Report of preliminary
study and evaluation on Intensified Social Forestry Project in Semi-arid Areas in
Kenya”, and furthermore shall try to reconstruct the status of livelihood of people insemi-arid areas, as a target population of beekeeping development, based on thereport of a survey conducted in Kwavonza Division of Kitui District, “Sustainable
Tree-Growing : A case study of Kwavonza,1997”.
Because the land is often exposed to droughts, agricultural productivity is
unstable, making it difficult for farm households to secure foods solely fromself-sustenance production.
Generally speaking, rural households in semi-arid regions have a family
consisting of 7 to 9 persons, owning land of from 4 ha to 8 ha, out of which 2 to 3 haof land is cultivated to acquire food essentially for home consumption such as maize,
beans, cowpea, pigeon pea, green gram, sorghum and millets, and remaining lots
are used as pastures or bushes for collecting firewood and for grazing livestock, i.e.,cattle, sheep, goat, etc., as asset for emergency purposes. However, since the meansof earning cash income are lacking, although people try to raise income byfabricating and selling products including ropes and baskets braided from sisal
hemp, tree seedlings, charcoal, firewood, honey, by exploiting resources found in theenvironment, the cash income is not sufficient. Consequently, it is a reality that, forthe portion of 80 % of cash income, they have to depend on wages earned during
agricultural off-seasons, remittance from children, and wages of work away fromhome. The current situation in semi-arid regions could be summarized that because

22the production of agricultural crops is greatly affected by the impact of droughts,
the livelihood is unstable, and furthermore since the cash income is limited, people
are obliged to endure the livelihood of the lowest limit.

Therefore, this ecologicalzone can be identified as the very region where promising sources of earning income
including beekeeping are urgently being sought after.

References
1) Kenya Land Alliance （2002）:Land use in Kenya ,31p
2) Encyclopedia of Earth （2008）：Water profile of Kenya
3) Ministry of Finance, Kenya (2008): Kenya Economic Survey 2008
4) JICA（2004）：Report of preliminary study and evaluation on Intensified Social
Forestry Project in Semi-arid Areas in Kenya
5) Naoto Noda and Ian Ferguson(1997): Sustainable Tree-Growing :A case study ofKwavonza,
6)

Bulletin No.9.The University of Melbourne

Japan Association for International Collaboration of Agriculture and Forestry(1996): Agriculture and forestry in Kenya

23

3-2

Current status and historical aspects of Kenya‟s beekeeping

3-2-1

History of beekeeping in Kenya

There are over 20,000 species of bees in the world all of which belong to thesuperfamily Apoidea. Most of them lead solitary lives. A few bees however are social,leading a community life in a colony (Jones 1999). Social bees make honey which istheir food store but Apinae (honey bees) and Meliponinae (stingless bees) are theonly two sub-families that produce more than they need, making it worthwhile tokeep them for honey production. Apis is furthermore the only genus in the Apinae
subfamily among whose species Apis mellifera is of greatest economic importance.
The two dominant African races of A. mellifera are A. m. scutellata in East Africa
from Ethiopia to Southern Africa and A. m. adansonii which predominates in West
Africa. Both species are smaller compared to the European honey bee and theircolonies produce more swarms.
As in many other countries in the world where honey bees (A. mellifera)
naturally occur, some Kenyan communities have had a long history of harvestinghoney from the wild or in traditionally managed colonies. The most well known ofthese communities include those living in and around key forests found on Mt.
Elgon, Mt. Kenya, Aberdare ranges and Mau Escarpment. Others live in the plains
as pastoralists and gather honey from extensive woodlands. Honey has always been
the most important hive product in all cases. By 1982, the tropics produced 13% ofhoney in the world market, the subtropics 30%, mostly from Argentina, China and
Mexico while temperate regions produced 57% (Bradbear, 1985).

1) Attempts at modernization
The beekeeping industry in Kenya first received the attention of the Britishcolonial government in 1950s (Min. of Agriculture 1967). A memorandum wassigned then for the development of the bee industry, establishing the position of a24

full-time bee officer and instructors. Four key outputs were expected out of thisinitiative, namely:

provision of marketing facilities particularly in areas where trade in bee
products was not already properly developed

improvement ofquality and total quantity of wax produced

introduction of more suitable equipment to modernise operations, including
double chamber hives and fireless smokers to reduce fire risks, thereby
minimizing fatalities of bees when harvesting honey and increasing honeyquality

3-2-2

development of honey refineries for extraction

Demand and supply of bee products in Kenya

From the start, it was apparent that any large scale development of thebeekeeping industry would depend on sales to the beer industry. Limited markets
existed for refined honey which sold at higher prices and helped to offset cooperative
overheads. Another opportunity that was to be explored was the marketing of
Kenyan honey abroad for its strong flavor, a characteristic European consumers
found attractive. The local beer hall trader extracted wax as a byproduct of making
the drink and was not inclined to use pure honey in the process as he made evenhigher profit margins by blending honey with sugar. For this reason he made great
profit margins and discarded the wax as waste.
The possibility was explored to increase honey production by working withmaster growers. In this scheme, individuals with no previous bee keeping
experience were encouraged to start doing so and then sell their honey directly toagents or shops in urban centres. They were further expected to contract other25

producers in their neighborhoods who would supply them with additional honey,
further stimulating growth in the industry. The plans of the colonial government
were to encourage production of honey locally to the extent that would make it
unnecessary to import it.
Initially, two refineries were set up at Makueni and Tharaka (Marimanti) as
pilot sites from where success would be duplicated at the Coast, in Baringo andSamburu. Refineries paid cash for honey and sold it to village shops and beer halls
in Nairobi. By the late 1950s, new problems began to present themselves, mostly inmismanagement of the honey processing plants and beeswax cooperatives.
Operations came to a halt in most of these concerns by 1960. Wamba refinery closed
in 1964. In spite of all these misfortunes, these efforts proved that a sufficientamount of honey could be produced and exports of beeswax increased to a new level.
Consideration was given to establishing a bee keeping section in the Ministry ofAgriculture along lines of what was happening in neighboring Tanzania.
Based on an estimate that the industry was worth close to one million sterlingpounds, OXFAM granted Kenya 8000 sterling pounds as external assistancethrough Freedom from Hunger. This was to facilitate a pilot project to assess what
could be done to develop the bee industry further over a period of two years (Min. ofAgriculture 1967). It would support construction of a laboratory to facilitate quality
testing of samples of wax and honey. A larger project would be considered if the pilot
phase proved worthwhile.
To harmonize the quality of hive products in Kenya, standards have been set
at national level for table honey (KS 05 – 344) and beeswax (KS 05 – 1279) that are
intended to guide beekeepers on the permissible harvesting and processing
procedures to follow (Odwori and Aleke, 1997). These standards not only demandthat honey be graded by undertaking technical tests at the source but also insist
that only plastic or stainless steel containers should be used for storage. Quality
standards are nevertheless a new concept for traditional beekeepers who normallydeal in crude honey. Much of what they produce is absorbed by a beer industry forwhich pollen and brood, technically regarded as impurities in honey, give added
value to the brewing process (Min. of Agric., 1967; Vorwohl, 1976; Clauss and Zimba
1989). Quality standards are therefore for the benefit of those who wish to penetrate

26

external and export markets in which quality of a different nature is strictly
enforced. Concerned about the fate of honey produced in Africa for trade on theworld market, Wix (1989) and Wainright (1989) have suggested practical ways to
produce good quality honey, which include educating beekeepers on the types ofcombs to harvest and improved processing methods to follow.

1) Marketing of beehive products
OXFAM spent much time and effort in developing better markets for hive
products in Kenya. Industry was encouraged to use local wax and refineries were
set up in several districts, packing and distributing brands of local honey. Exports ofhoney to the United Kingdom and Europe were investigated but not foundpromising. Kenyan bees wax was found easy to bleach and had good prospects for
substituting imports. By 1959, honey refining plants were established at Makueni,
Gorgor, Kakamega, Wamba and Kitui. Cooperatives trading in beeswax existed in
Taveta, Kipsigis and Makueni. In Elgeyo-Marakwet, Baringo and West Sute County
Councils beeswax industries were established while small wax refining plants werealready set up in Kabarnet, Kapenguria and Eldama Ravine. At the expiry of the
OXFAM exploratory project in 1970, the Government of Kenya requested fortechnical assistabnce from the Canadian Government to help set up a bee keeping
section in the Ministry of Agriculture (Kigatiira, 1979).
The Tanzania model after which the Kenya industry was to be molded
guaranteed cash for the purchase of honey and beeswax from the village producer.
The state also controlled the international markets and further guaranteedfinancial stability of the commodity market and the cooperatives. Once thestructure existed to finance the programme at the village level the potential to
speed development was enhanced by:

improvement of harvesting techniques from traditional beekeeping andstimulation of crop supplementation from wild colonies as well as
increasing interest in modern frame methods.

27

those beekeepers showing the most promise were provided with extension
services with instruction provided at the village level while the most keen
were routed to beekeeping institutes for periods of full time education.

a few of the farmers already possessing a diploma certificate were selected
for attachments in the UK for highly selective areas of work of a special
nature.

This programme attempted to provide experience that was not readily
obtainable in Tanzania so that improved methods for handling and processing bee
products would not only be stimulated but the potential to develop modern systemsof operation of a more commercial nature would be enhanced (Wix and Lyatuu,
1981).

3-2-3

Beekeeping practices and equipment in Kenya

In the most basic traditional set up, honey gatherers endured much stinging
as they robbed bees of their honey in the wild. They usually did so at night and used
live torches as smokers, working hurriedly and without protective clothing. The
result was that they burnt and killed many bees in the process and there wasalways danger of setting vegetation on fire in this quest for honey. By the stage
when hives were introduced, they were simply made from a hollow log, bark or clay.
The hive was not destroyed during harvesting but the equipment used in harvestinghoney was just as in robbing. The crude product of comb and honey crushed
together was mostly consumed as food or fermented into a traditional beer. In this
scenario, all wax was lost ( FAO, 1986).
This was the situation in Kenya by the time a Canadian funded beekeeping
project was initiated in 1971. There was little or no table honey in local shop outlets
except that which was imported from Australia. Most of the honey produced in East
Africa by then was unfit for use on the general markets but was well suited formaking beer. The most surprising finding was that this beer industry consumed thebulk of honey at above normal prices. In modernizing operations, it was desirable to28

move from this stage to a situation whereby the bee colony would be preserved andnot driven off during honey collection.
The Canadian funded project was not keen to drastically change traditionalbeekeeping directly from log or bark hives to modern hives (Townsend, 1971).
Instead, a transitional approach was adopted as this was proven to have worked
elsewhere.

This project therefore recommended, among other things, training of

budding Kenyan apiculturalists locally and in Canada; research on bee habitats,honey flows and honey characteristics; development of intermediate hives and bee
houses; selection of more gentle queens and the setting up of honey and wax
collection centres in all areas where beekeeping showed promise. To further support
the venture, it was recommended to set up demonstration and training centres forevery District concerned. The approach taken was to begin the program in two or
three best areas, and from the experience gathered, extend to other areas aspersonnel were trained. Further promotion was to be undertaken in the mass mediausing radio and by distributing pamphlets widely. This approach proved very
successful in Swaziland where beekeeping was popularized through a weekly Home
Economics radio programme (Motsa et al. 1989).
Having taken such a decision, the program opted to move the industry forward
gradually by building infrastructure, educating men and women and training them;
designing equipment and producing it and supporting the beekeeping effort withresearch. Looking back, there was no better approach to modernization of the bee
industry in Kenya than the one taken by this project. Failure or even a serious
delay in any of these pre-requisites could have compromised, perhaps irremediably,
the future success of the programme. According to FAO (1986), anticipated gains at
the end of the first phase of such a project phase would lead to domestication of bees
to the extent that colonies could be preserved after honey collection; hives would not
be destroyed and the colony would be little disturbed after honey collection; hives
could be opened to obtain combs and subsequently re-used; colonies would beavailable for a following crop after harvesting honey. Only capped honey would be
crushed and strained, thereby improving quantity and quality collected. This wouldin turn produce honey of acceptable standards in village markets while wax would
be collected for use or sale. The technical improvement involved in the process was29the design of a hive more rationally conceived than the original one in use. It washowever expected that it would take great effort to bring the traditional beekeeper
to adopt such a hive since it is never an easy matter to overcome the authority of
tradition. Step by step, it would be necessary to demonstrate that family income
would increase as a result of adopting by beekeepers of such transitional hives,
whose principles are closer to modern rather than traditional hives. An early
decision by the project team was to respond to interest expressed by individuals andgroups, rather than to sell the programme and its purpose aggressively (Kigatiira,1979).

1) Modern beekeeping methods
The approach recommended and the principle behind operating a modern hive
is to make it possible to move individual combs for inspection or honey collection,then replace them without damage to the colony. It follows the discovery in the 17th
century that if rounded bars, baited with honey or beeswax, are placed at the top ofa hive whose sides slope inward toward the base, bees do not attach their combs to
its sides or bottom. Instead they build comb straight downward from the bars. Sucha hive takes between 20 and 33 “movable combs”. To keep bees from building
unwanted comb between vertical combs, or to the sides of the hive, the spacing of
top bars is of primary importance: it must give the correct bee space which isprecisely 32mm for tropical A. mellifera. In transitional hives which constitute a
stage between primitive and modern beekeeping, long top bars provide all the
support combs need under normal circumstances. An exception is where hives must
be moved, as happens in migratory bee keeping, for then combs may break unlessthey receive additional support incorporated in the design of the top bar. Such hiveequipment is further enhanced with in-built queen excluders that confine the queen
bee to a brood area while giving workers access to the hive area beyond. This makes
it possible to harvest honey and beeswax by simply removing the combs containing
fully capped honey, but no pollen or brood (FAO 1986).

2) The Kenya Top Bar Hive

30

This transitional wooden hive was developed during the Canadian funded bee
project in Kenya in the 1970s and was named the Kenya Top Bar Hive (KTBH). See
Fig. 3.

Fig. 3: Dimensions of various parts of the Kenya Top Bar Hive according to original
specifications (mm).
Drawing by Stephanie Townsend (FAO 1986).

A queen excluder is placed vertically in the centre of this hive and a feeder,
made in the shape of a comb and suspended from a top bar, can be used if required.
It is recommended to build the hive out of well seasoned timber so that all parts fit
well and the top bars give a complete cover for the hive. At both ends of the hive, ahanging block is fitted about 10 cm from the top to which wires are attached. A

31

framed iron sheet cover is loosely fitted above the bars to keep out rain. The hive isfurther protected from ants by applying blobs of grease at intervals along the lengthof wire. These wires are used to suspend a hive above the ground at a working
height of about 1m so that badgers cannot reach it. The best alternative is tosuspend the hives from solid poles – at least 150mm (6 inches) in cross section – orfrom trees. Ten holes are drilled on one of the ends of the hive (at 25 – 35mm above
the floor) to give bees entrance while keeping out larger beetles.

3) Best Management Practices for Honey bee Colonies in KTBH
It is recommended that transitional hives are sited a little distance fromhuman dwellings as African bees can be aggressive. The site should be quiet – awayfrom areas where children play or where there is continual noise. Bees need asupply of fresh water, which can be a nearby river, pond or even a dripping tap! The
apiary should be kept tidy, with the grass cut short and any stones removed thatwould cause the beekeeper to stumble while working (Jones 1999).
Top bar hives are best placed near food sources and cash crops that needpollination while observing about 150m between the productive area and thelocation of hives. This allows people to tend the crops in a manner that does notmake bee colonies feel threatened by their presence. Hives need shelter from strong
winds and benefit from shade to keep out strong sunlight. To prevent disease
outbreaks, marshy locations and land liable to flooding are not suitable sites for
placing hives. Humid conditions also prevent honey from maturing and should be
avoided. Finally, bees do not do well under conditions where they encounter smoke,fire, vandalism or neighbors who interfere with them.
Beekeepers in the tropics can take advantage of the fact that top-bar hives are
relatively cheap and simple to make. This allows them to manage bees in a more
efficient way than with traditional fixed-comb hives (Jones 1999). Top bar hives
have numerous advantages which include the following:

Only top bars need to be made to precise dimensions. This means that hives
can be made out of relatively cheap local materials and with simple tools.

32The size of the hive can be varied to suit local conditions.



Every comb is accessible without removing the others. The technique ofhandling one bar at a time causes

less disturbance to the colony andgreatly reduces the number of bees flying around while the hive is open.
The brood can be inspected easily, giving the beekeeper good control overmanagement of the bee colony.



Honey combs can be inspected regularly in order to determine when they
are ready for harvesting without disturbing the brood. The honey that isharvested is usually of high quality as it is capped and not contaminatedwith brood or pollen.

Good quality beeswax is obtained.



It is not necessary to lift any other parts except the top bars and this makes
the hive suitable for use by those who cannot lift heavy weights.

Height at which the hive is suspended can be customized. This places all
top bars at the same level which is chosen to suit the individual operating
the hive.



Wires suspend the hive above the ground and away from predators.



These hives promote, preserve and increase the bee population which inturn benefits the economy through increased pollination, honey and wax
production.

4) Basic routines
When a hive is occupied and bees are busy, it is best for a beekeeper to visit in
the evening wearing light colored clothes that are protective of the face and eyes.
True beekeeping only takes place when some understanding is established of thebee and its ways. This makes it possible to predict behaviour and apply
management techniques (Jones 1999).
When working in the apiary, one should be as quiet but also as quick as

33

possible, using smooth movements and removing only a few bars to create a gap at
the empty end of an open hive. This creates a space which is smoked gently before
removing and replacing the remaining bars, one at a time. Bars are returned in thesame order and bees should not be squashed or they will release a smell that setsother bees on the attack. All top bars should be pushed together as they are replaced
and no gap remains as the lid is put back in place. Only a few hives should beworked at a time and one should not remain longer than 45 minutes in an apiary inorder not to agitate the colonies.

5) Training in beekeeping
Before doing something right, beekeepers need to observe it done right. This
principle of psychomotor learning presupposes that observing is not just seeing, but
is a way of looking that must be learned (Mulder 1986). Training beekeepers inmodern beekeeping methods requires them to find their own personal style inworking with bees. Thus the teacher need not be imitated as long as an objective oftraining is met. In this way, every participant is given time to acquire their own
beekeeping style while identifying themselves with a person who acts the way
they want to learn. Beekeeping training, if it is to be effective, best takes the form of
vocational education. No wonder traditional beekeepers best learnt it on the job!
Beekeeping training cannot be replicated from one place to another because
every country, area and location has different starting points which need to be
identified in advance (Mulder 1986). The main question must be “is there a need forbeekeeping training and if so, who is asking for it?”. Once a target group has been
constituted, it can be homogeneous or heterogeneous depending on what members
have in common. It is not desirable that a group is too heterogeneous, for example,
comprised of men and women, literate and semi-illiterate people, children mixed
with adults and so on. Other factors to take into consideration are that a group of
women might prefer to be under female trainers while the opposite may be true ofmen. The training planners can decide on the level of homogeneity of the groups
they will work with, sometimes splitting a larger group into more homogeneousgroups to their advantage, for example, a children‟s group, an adult group, a group34

of people with prior experience with bees, a group of participants with similar levelof education, the close vicinity of dwelling places of trainees relative to training
venue and existing social structures within or beyond the group. In general, local
people train one another more effectively than a foreigner training them. The
trainers‟ or teachers‟ qualifications are gauged against their level of education, theirbeekeeping experience and such social qualities as ability to communicate in thelocal language. One trainer might possess all these qualities but more likely thannot, a number of trainers will jointly cover these needs. In this case, activities are
split up between the trainers so that one of them is responsible for the educational
process while another who is familiar with the social structures takes over the
beekeeping activities. Participants may call upon trainers to help them at any time
and they need to be willing to do so. Trainers thus might find themselves required togive follow up care after training. They need to be motivated and willing to help
participants and to communicate with them beyond the training meetings (Mulder
1986).
This matter of training is discussed here because it has been a bottleneck tomodern beekeeping in Kenya since the 1970s. It is therefore time to evaluate theapproaches taken in order to determine areas for further improvement. Every
trainer and every participant wants to get good results from training. They lookforward to a pleasant training experience and optimal learning climate during acourse. Every training opportunity therefore needs to be continuously evaluated toknow whether it is good or not while in progress and at its conclusion. It is not the
number of participants or number of courses that should count but rather, whether
training produced successful beekeepers or not.
Gichora (2003) found that beekeepers in Baringo District of Kenya had
continued to practice traditional methods of beekeeping despite the introduction ofmodern beekeeping methods in Kenya nearly thirty years before her study. The
Tugen people could count on one another to keep traditional beekeeping practices
alive since all of them had either received instruction from a family member or a
local beekeeper. It is how they learnt to manage colonies in traditional hives. 92% of
224 beekeepers interviewed had not received any training in modern methods. In
exceptional cases, 4.5% of respondents in this household survey had encountered35

extension agents of modern beekeeping and learnt to keep bees in modern hives
during a short course. The amazing finding was that people exposed to such shortcourses did not internalize the training and continued to depend on extension
agents to manage bee colonies for them afterwards, or else they reverted to
traditional management of modern hives!
The poor extension service available to beekeepers in Kenya is characteristicof the developing world where traditional beekeeping remains pre-dominant in spiteof the numerous efforts made by governments to modernize the bee industry. To
attain the full potential of beekeeping in Kenya, training and more training is still
called for in order to convert beekeepers from beekeeping to apiculture. Where
possible, true modern apiculture will eventually be attained but in more cases thannot, adopting intermediate technology will minimize destruction of colonies atharvest time thereby giving rise to stronger colonies capable of producing more of abetter quality honey.
An exposition on beekeeping in Kenya would not be complete without
mentioning the need to maximize quantity and quality of hive products by using themost productive bee species and races for our region, the optimum use of bee forage,
strict and continuing control of bees and pests, the adoption of satisfactory
processing methods and most fundamental of all, research in all these aspects toadapt beekeeping to each ecological zone. Among experts, it calls for humility toaccept that no one hive type, bee race, forage variety or management system isideally suited to all contexts.

In particular, the wide variety of climates andvegetation in the tropics and sub-tropics makes it vital to approach each new
ecological situation without bias and pre-conceptions (FAO, 1986).

3-2-4Role of beekeeping in the home and local economy

In Kenya, the local bee race is nomadic and aggressive. The climate can vary
widely so bees are found in habitats ranging from forests to deserts. In all situations,bees flourish in areas where there is sufficient pollen, nectar, shelter and water to36

fulfil the needs of the colony. They only experience difficulties related to the weather
in rainforests where humidity and the rain keep them sheltering most of the time
(Jones 1999).

1) Pollination
Bees have co-evolved with plants and they play an important role in croppollination. Even those plants capable of self-pollination still give better yields ifpollinated by insects. Other plants are completely dependent on insect pollination
and will not otherwise yield any seed. Pollination by bees is particularly successful
because they are consistent foragers that work on one flower type at a time. This
characteristic has made bees particularly relevant to modern agriculture, in whichvast areas of a crop are grown as monocultures. Where such crops require bee
pollination, it is easy to introduce hives in the area, even if it is required to bringthem in seasonally only when needed. This means that as modern agriculture takes
on a more commercial approach, then honey bees are bound to become even more
important and any given area will have a wide capacity to support bees dependingon the season. Kenya therefore needs to take advantage of this flexibility of beecolony management and embrace migratory beekeeping as a way of providing
pollinators where they are most needed to give good crop harvests.
In the case study of Baringo District of Kenya by Gichora (2003), thepollination services enterprise had not yet taken root in a region where traditionalbeekeeping was long established. With modernization of agriculture and beekeeping,
it is nevertheless an area that holds much promise and into which Kenya
beekeepers are encouraged to venture. Farmers can help by selecting and using
pesticides with great care and never applying them when flowers are open. Any
foraging insects working on open bloom at such a time are killed, unlessapplications are carefully synchronized to take place when flowers are closed orwhen there is no wind to drift spray onto other flowering plants or beehives. This is
usually early or late in the day. Farmers are also encouraged to manage thelandscape in such a way that wild flowers are available to support wild foraging
insects when cultivated crops are not flowering. Increasing the planting of37

nectar-bearing bushes and trees further supports beekeeping. All these supportive
actions will ensure that the hive products derived from bee hives are of acceptable
standards and not contaminated with chemicals.

2) Honey production
Honey is a food that requires to be processed and stored in very hygienic
conditions. When all is said and done, the Kenyan market operates on a table honeydeficit that requires the importation of high quality honey from external sources.
This is attributed to the fact that honey is produced mostly for the local market
which accepts a mixture of honey, brood and pollen as medicine, a sweetener in thefood industry and for beer brewing. Even then, honey is still not available inadequate quantities and it is often sold in an adulterated form by middlemen who
wish to stretch their profits.
The standard for pure honey that has been set by the Kenya Bureau ofStandards (KEBS) does not accept honey that is contaminated with smoke particles
or burnt during processing. To venture into the global market would require
producers to adhere to international standards. Furthermore, they would need tosupply guaranteed volumes from year to year which may be difficult for anindividual farmer to do but is something honey cooperatives can achieve. This takes
us back to the model of production promoted by the Canadian Government-funded
beekeeping project of the 1970s. Beekeepers therefore have little option but to adopt
transitional hives and modern harvesting procedures then take only capped honeycombs out of the hive, not those bearing brood and pollen. It further requires
equipment in quality processing which increases investment and overall costs ofproduction. Beekeepers can share costs by coming together in cooperatives andselling honey to a common refinery which they have equipped. To give good returns
on investment, honey should thus fetch a premium price.
Countries with long established history of modern honey production find there
are many ways to present honey to give a variety to consumers. In addition to pureliquid honey, „honey on the comb‟ is sold while on a frame or in sections placed inglass jars with extracted honey surrounding the comb. This last combination is38

called “chunk honey” and fetches a higher price than conventionally packed liquid
honey (Killion 1992). Developing countries like Kenya that promote beekeepingwith the main aim being to diversify family income need also to promote otherproducts for which there are no traditional markets, ensuring nothing goes to waste.
This is the approach taken by Tanzania where the potential to enhance village
beekeeping and stimulate improved methods of handling and processing of bee
products is well differentiated from the potential to develop modern systems ofoperations of a more commercial nature that play a major role in export trade (Wixand Lyatuu 1981). Tanzania has gone further than Kenya to recognize theimportance of quality standards of bee products as well as the value of government
control of the export market. After production skills have been sharpened, moreemphasis is given to developing marketing and business expertise in order to movelocal products to the global arena.

3) Wax production
In traditional Kenyan beekeeping, honey is the main hive product while wax is
at its best, a waste product - spat out by people after chewing the honey comb or
discarded by filtering after making beer (Gichora 2003). This situation has notchanged much over the last fifty years despite government projects emphasizing thevalue of beeswax. The low volumes in which it is traded imply that current openings
in this commodity lie in the hobby market and that channels have yet to be
developed to make it penetrate the industrial market at home and abroad. There
are still avenues waiting to be explored in the use of local wax in the cosmetics
industry, for making candles for religious services, for making beeswax comb
foundation or for waterproofing materials. Minor opportunities lie in its use formaking certain adhesives, children‟s crayons, candy and chewing gum, inks, and formaintaining musical instruments and sports equipment (Schmidt and Buchmann1992).

4) Other minor hive products
Kenya does not produce these products at present but there is potential to do39

so as modern beekeeping practices evolve into apiculture. See Appendix(P.44).
Jones (1999) lists among these products pollen, which is not stored inexcessive quantities by bees, but which can be trapped by a restrictive device placedat the entrance to collect it from foraging workers who return to the hive. Pollen is anutritional product incorporated in human food supplements to correct unbalanced
or deficient diets. It has also been claimed to have curative properties and so isincorporated in traditional medicines and food supplements. Pollen in particularisscientifically

proventobeeffectiveintreating

prostrate

cancer.

Environmentalists analyse it to monitor environmental pollution by determining
the level of contaminants it contains.
Propolis has been traded by specialists for waterproofing, stopping leaks, as anadhesive, in bow string preparation and as a medicine. Extracts of propolis findtheir way into the cosmetics and food industry where it is used as a preservative or
as anti-fungal additive. It can also be applied to bait hives to attract swarms.
Processing propolis is tedious and requires specialized skills to obtain a standard
product of controlled quality.

5) More specialist hive products
In a model suggested to rejuvenate the beekeeping industry in Kenya (seeAppendix,P.44), Gichora (2003) proposed that all possible hive products should beconsidered to make beekeeping a viable economic activity in Kenya. This translates
into a need for high level training of beekeepers to further exploit their colonies forroyal jelly, bee venom and bee brood. The Nairobi-based International Centre forInsect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE ) has demonstrated it is possible!
Queens and package bees would be the ultimate hive product after goodmanagement is achieved in colonies nearing their swarming strength. Queens arenormally reared to substitute old failing ones and to maintain control ofcharacteristics of a good colony. Package bees are used to care for the queens who
are due to be transported to a new destination.

40

3-2-5Conclusion

This review of history of beekeeping practices in Kenya confirms that a lot
remains to be done to salvage the ailing beekeeping industry from collapse.
Fortunately, the Ministry of Livestock is currently meeting stakeholders to gather
views that will help to shape policy and guide future direction. I am confident that
this effort will yield favorable results, especially if further advice is sought fromneighboring countries like Ethiopia and Tanzania who are third world leaders in
the trade of hive products. A more vibrant and holistic approach to beekeeping thatincorporates practical training of beekeepers will go a long way in lifting the profileof the industry. This will pave way for it to make a higher contribution to thecountry‟s economic development, especially from pollination of food and cash crops.
Kenya‟s vision for a middle-income, just and equitable society by 2030 inspires hopethat all the infrastructural developments needed to ensure beekeeping are
invigorated and thrives will be put in place in the foreseeable future.

References1)

Bradbear, N. (1985). Promoting Beekeeping in Developing Countries. In: Proc
30th APIMONDIA Int Apic Cong Nagoya, Japan. pp 405 – 407

2)

Clauss, B. and Zimba, R. (1989). Beekeeping development on the base of theexisting traditional practices (Zambia - North-Western Province). In: Proc. 4 int.
Conf. Apic. trop. Climates, Cairo, (1988): pp 168-170 IBRA London UK.

3) Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations, Agricultural
Industries Division. (1986). Tropical and Subtropical Apiculture. FAO
Agricultural Services Bulletin No. 68 Rome, Italy. xiii, 283 pgs.
4) Gichora, M. (2003). Towards Realization of Kenya‟s Full Beekeeping Potential:
A Case Study of Baringo District. PhD Thesis. University of Bonn, ZEF Ecology
and Development Series No. 6. Cuvillier Verlag Goettingen. 157 pgs.
5)

Jones, R. (1999). Beekeeping as a Business. Commonwealth Secretariat. IBRA.

41

70 pgs.
6) Kigatiira K. I. (1979). Beekeeping Development Programmes in Kenya.
Beekeeping in Rural Development. Commonwealth Secretariat. pp 49 – 52.
7)

Killion, E. E. (1992). The Production of Comb and Bulk Comb Honey. In:
Graham, J. M. (Ed.). The Hive and the Honey Bee. Dadant & Sons Inc.,
Hamilton. pp 705 – 722.

8)

Lim, J. S. (1994). Beekeeping Development Activities supported by the Foodand Agriculture Organization of The United Nations. In: Proc 5th Int Conf on
Apic Trop Clim. International Bee Research Association. pp 145 – 148.

9)

Ministry of Agriculture and OXFAM. (1967). Kenya Beekeeping Pilot Project. 12
pgs.

10) Motsa, C; Gau, K. and Bechtel, P. (1989). Training for self reliance: Developmentof the Swaziland Beekeeping Project. In: Proc. 4 int. Conf. Apic. trop. Climates,
Cairo, 1988: pp 192 – 194. IBRA London UK.
11) Mulder, V. (1986). Beekeeping Training in Developing Countries. Agricultural
University Wageningen The Netherlands. 44 pgs.
12) Nightingale J. M. (1976). Traditional beekeeping among Kenya tribes, andmethods proposed for improvement and modernization. Apiculture in Tropical
Climates pp 15-22. IBRA.
13) Odwori, I. and Aleke, M. (1997). The role of Kenya Bureau of Standards instandardization and quality control of honey and beeswax. In: Proc. Marketingof Hive Products Workshop, National Beekeeping Station, Nairobi, Kenya, 9thApril 1997.Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Kenya. pp 60 –70.
14) Office of the Prime Minister, Kenya. (2008). Kenya Vision 2030 First Medium
Term Plan (2008 - 2012). Government of Kenya. 201 pgs.
15) Schmidt, J. O and Buchmann, S. L. (1992). Other Products of the Hive. In:
Graham, J. M. (Ed.). The Hive and the Honey Bee. Dadant & Sons Inc.,
Hamilton. pp 927 – 9884216) Townsend, G. F. (1969). Beekeeping Possibilities and Requirements in East
Africa. University of Guelph. 6 pgs.
17) Vorwhohl, G. (1976). Honeys from tropical Africa: Microscopical analysis andquality problems. Apiculture in tropical climates, IBRA, London. pp 93 – 101.
18) Wainwright, D. (1989). Beekeeping at the Integrated Rural Development
Programme, Kabompo, Zambia. In: Proc. 4 int. Conf. Apic. trop.Climates, Cairo,
1988: 360-366 IBRA London UK.
19) Wix, P. (1989). Opportunities for transfer technology in the honey processing
industry In: Proc. 4 int. Conf. Apic. trop. Climates, Cairo, 1988: pp 290-294.
IBRA London UK20) Wix, P. and Lyatuu, P. (1981). Development of Beekeeping Economy in Tanzania.
In: Proc 30th APIMONDIA Int Apic Cong Acapulco Mexico. APIMONDIA
Publishing House, Bucharest. pp 215 – 220.

43

44

3-3

Practices of traditional beekeeping – cases observed in districtof Kitui- Kamba in Eastern Province of Kenya

For total days of 2 months during the period from June to December 1996, thisreporter had an opportunity to study the traditional agricultural systems of Kamba
people in the district of Kitui of Eastern Province of Kenya. Since at that time thereporter also studied the practices of traditional beekeeping which provided people with
important sources of nutrients and valuable means of earning cash income, the reporter
would like to present here the outline.

3-3-1

Practices of traditional beekeeping

1) Procedures to fabricate a beehive cylinder (hollow log)
Normally bee logs take a form of hollow cylinder with dimensions 1 to 1.5 m inlength, 25 to 40 cm in outside diameter, and around 3 cm in wall thickness. The
length is determined by multiplying a basic approximate measure including the
distance between the tip of the middle finger and the elbow of a workman, and theentire length of machete on the market (45 to 70 cm), and adjusted to around 2 to
2.5 times of it.

Regarding the outside diameter, there is no fixed rule but it isbelieved that even a large log cannot be settled by honey bees easily. The tree
selected for making bee logs is one of those from which 4 to 5 bee logs can be cut out.
As to the shape of material tree, straight bee logs are mainly used but certain bee
logs are fabricated in conformity to the variable shapes of original trees, so that one
may be curved or of a unique shape fitted with 3 to 5 openings by making an
ingenious use of positions of branches. Normally the opening on the end with larger
outside diameter is made to serve as one for the maneuver of harvesting. The felledtree is let dry sufficiently for about 3 months to one year (to the extent that barkgets dry enough to be peeled off easily). By this process, they can prevent thecracking of cylinder walls after being hollowed out or the damage by insects45

(beetles) which bore holes on bee logs. Dried log is hollowed out from the end which
is used as the opening for harvesting. When the work of hollowing out is finished, 2
disk-formed lids to cover the openings on both ends are carved out from the samelog for beehive. On the cylinder wall two recesses are carved on the diametrical
positions, and on the lid 2 bosses are similarly carved on the periphery to fit snugly
into the recesses. Furthermore, on the lid sometimes several holes with a diameterof around 1 cm are bored as entrances for honey bees. On the bee log a marking(uvano) to indicate the owner is branded at a position opposite to the opening for
harvesting and visible to observers on the ground. As tools for branding, heatedwires or metal pieces are used.
Furthermore, before putting the bee log in place, beekeepers treat the innerwall by rubbing it with leaves of an aromatic plant of mint family, Ocimum sp.
(mutaa: a kind of basil ) or sun-dried old honeycombs (masoso) to put scent to the log.
Honey bees are believed to have a nature to like these scents. It takes about a week
to complete all the processes of fabrication. Bee logs are never sold on the market,
and most of them are custom-made products by the hand of wood carving craftsmen.

2) Mounting of bee log
Since in the Makueni District lying to the southwest of Kitui District, where
people can witness around September the colonies of honey bees (those making
hives) flying from the Kitui District in pursuing the sun moving southward, it isassumed that the period from August to September is the best season for mountingof new bee logs. The placement of bee logs is limited to a location to satisfy several
requirements as follows:i) sufficiently distanced away from residences, ii) close towater sources, iii) with abundance of honey sources, iv) accessible even when heavy
rainfall occurs. In the selection of type of trees for mounting, following
characteristics are considered. i) ever green trees branching out large boughs,
capable of protecting hives from wind and rain, i) high enough to assure security tohumans and animals on the ground, ii) without thorns, iii) presence of sufficientnumber of branches to facilitate the work including harvesting (particularly for bee
logs of fixed type), iv) branches are supple and easy to break, v) few depressions and46

protrusions on the surface of trunk and boughs to discourage the climbing by
animals seeking honey（Table 3-3-１：trees suitable for mounting bee logs）. One treeaccommodates about 1 to 10 bee logs with an average number of 2 to 5. Bee logs aremounted on trees by either one of two ways. One is the traditional type of fixed beelog, and the other is the type of suspended log (improved type).

3) Management of bee logs
Although emplaced bee logs have been treated with scents preferred by honeybees, the essential fact is just that beekeepers have to wait for bees coming to settle
them. If they are not settled for a long time, the inside of cavity walls is newly
treated with the scent by rubbing it with leaves of plant of mint family, Ocimum

americanum (mutaa：honey basil) or Ocimum gratissimum (yenye). Furthermore,
when, in spite of the presence of honey bees, honeycombs are not made large, it isbelieved that the activities of bees are stimulated by washing the lid on the opening
for harvesting with a solution of juice obtained by squeezing the leaves of a speciesof solanaceous plant, Solanum incanum (ngondu).
Traditional beekeeping in Kitui is practiced through the application of a series
of inventions and techniques including exploration of suitable habitats for honeybees, provision of bee logs that create spaces similar to natural ones, and moreover
the enterprising exploitation of attractant plants. On the other hand, it isessentially based on the patience to wait for the settlement of wild honey bees inbee logs without aggressive intervention in natural process of reproduction of honeybees or in the management of honey bee colonies.
In the past, in the domain of development assistance, such a traditional
system of management has been treated as one equivalent to primitive honeyhunting. However, the traditional management system is based on theaccumulation of traditional experience and hereditary knowledge realized by local
people who have succeeded in sustainable production in harmony with local naturalenvironment. In the future, the system of that nature would have to be verified andevaluated in higher scientific terms from the view point of adaptation in the face ofclimate change or from that of sustainable production.

474) Species of honey bees
All types of traditional beekeeping of Kamba exploit wild honey bee species.
Traditional beekeepers classify them into groups as follows according tomorphological characteristics including size, appearance and color of body hairs,
appearance and color of wings, location of construction of beehives. The home rangeof honey bees is assumed to be within a radius of about 3 to 5 km around a bee log.
i. saki：the most common honey bee in Kitui. Small but with ferocious
nature. Yellow stripe present in the abdomen. Body size is small but it
makes a bigger hive compared with that of group 2 nzingu.
ii. nzingu：rather larger in size with milder nature compared to saki.
Black-tinted as a whole.
iii. ikalamata：further larger than the group 2 nzingu. Bearing reddish
brown and yellowish hair. Particularly legs are covered with thick hairs.
Wings do not rest while reposing.
iv. wuli：characterized by reddish body. Larger than group 1 saki.
v. Queen bee: very big, laying eggs, only one is found in the center of abeehive.
vi. Ngiru（a species of stingless bees）: black and very small bee. Smaller
than fly, follows about humans in seeking for water during the dry season.
It makes nests only on natural tree trunks, which makes it very difficult
to locate them, yielding only small quantity of honey but honey ofexcellent quality can be obtained.
vii. mbuo（a species of stingless bees）:

a bee that constructs subterraneannests. It is small in size, bears yellow hairs and shows black belt-likelines on body.

5) Harvesting time48

Wood carving craftsmen say that the yield of honey depends on the following
factors:i) Nectar plants as sources of honey,ii) Number of bee logs settled by honey bees,iii) Number of bees in a bee log.
In Kitui District, honey harvesting is concentrated during the months fromFebruary to May. The months of January and February are the time when the rainyseason is already over and fair weather prevails mostly, and many plants, including
not only crop plants sown in the rainy season like maize and melons but also wild
plants like acacias, blossom out. At this time, activities of bees are also lively and we
can frequently observe them moving around busily to collect water, nectar andpollens from various places around the house like wells and henhouses. In thesmaller rainy season lasting from March to mid-May beekeepers can expect lots ofhoney. The honey collected at this time is white, smooth and tasty. At this time
when the activities of honey bees are most vigorous the farm work is also busy byoverlapping the harvesting of crops grown during the great rainy season and thecultivation of crops for the small rainy season. The period from June to October isthe great dry season (cool season) that is followed by the great rainy season lastingfrom late October to early December. During these seasons, honey bees consume
stored honey and reproduce. Although such plants as mango and Melia volkensii(mukau) , species of family Meliaceae, bloom before the onset of the great rainyseason in October, the yield is too low to be compared to that obtained during theseason from February to May. Honey can be harvested 4 to 5 times in a year when
the yield is abundant, or 1 to 2 times in a lean year.
The yield varies greatly depending on the years and the bee logs. Annually
about 5 to 20 kg of honey can be collected per bee log. It is said that recently it takes
longer than before until log beehives are filled with honey. Beekeepers haveanalyzed this problem and concluded that the delay is attributed to 2 factors: i)
reduction of rainfall, ii) recent reduction of wild trees, sources of nectar, as a resultof the expansion of cultivated land and the indiscriminate deforestation, namely,
the intensified tendency that honey bees have to rely on cultivated crops as nectar

49

sources. Another problem also concerns constraints posed by humans where thefelling of trees suitable for emplacement of bee logs, for charcoal making, leads to
not only the reduction of trees and environment needed for installation of bee logs
but also to the damage by more frequent incidence of absconding of bees due tosmoke emitted by charcoal making.

6) Method of collection
Collection of honey is normally carried out by a pair of persons, an adult(normally in charge of honey collection) and a child (assistant). It is said that thehoney collector is either naked from the waist up or covered by wearing a tatteredshirt with holes under working clothes so that bees may not get under the garment.
Firstly, during the daytime of harvesting day the honey collector identifies thebeehives to work on. The optimum harvesting time of each log beehive isdetermined by the degree of swarming of bees outside it. Collection starts when itgets cool after sunset to avoid the attack of honey bees. Upon arrival at the site,collectors make fire and ignite a torch made of a bundle of twigs of a tree calledumui to generate smoke. Honey in all the log beehives mounted on a tree has to bealways harvested on the same day. The collector introduces the smoke from torch
into the log beehive through the opening for harvesting to drive away honey bees tothe other side of the cavity. When the activity of honey bees becomes subdued
sufficiently, the lid on the opening for harvesting is removed and a new blow ofsmoke is introduced, and honeycombs are cut away carefully one by one with a knife
and put into harvesting buckets.

Since the smoke used for fumigation

contaminates the honey with aroma, it is an important element to select the type oftrees used for making the torch.
As a criterion of the extent of harvesting honeycombs, about one third of thelength of bee log or, even in case of harvesting a large amount, up to a half of it(around 50 cm) out of the total length of honeycomb should be harvested, leaving
the remaining portion undisturbed, before replacing the lid. Care should be taken sothat the collector may not harvest the whole honeycomb but limit the extent of
harvesting, in order not to damage the queen and the brood, and within the50uppermost extent which still assures that no absconding may take place.

It isbelieved that another harvest can be expected in 1 to 2 months if the activities ofhoney bees are vigorous. When a certain colony contains a large brood populationand has very active and defensive work bees, it may not allow harvesting. In such acase, harvesting is carried out after subduing the activity level of the colony bylowering the hive temperature by means of a preparatory treatment of sprinklingwater on the bee log and the surrounding area.
Harvested honey and honeycombs are brought home and crushed by means ofsticks to extract honey.

7) Types of honey and prices
Honey is classified into 3 types according to the differences in color and use byattaching a specific name to each type.
i. mutikulu / mutitiiku: honey with dark colors of yellow and reddish brown.
It can be collected from black beehives called ngee. Since the honey of thistype sometimes tastes slightly bitter, it is not liked for licking as it is.
Because of the abundant presence of pollens, people run a risk of getting
stomach trouble if freshly harvested honey is taken too much.
Consequently the honey of this type is used for brewing local beer.
ii. wavuva / uki wa nzuki：white honey with smooth taste. It can be
harvested from white and brittle parts of honeycombs. It is suitable for
consumption without processing.
iii. Honey with a bitter taste (Table 3-3-1 Undesirable nectar plants): if
honey tastes bitter, it is returned to the hive. When a season passes,
sweet honey of good quality will be able to be harvested from the samehive.
In the market of Kalundu in the Kitui city, honey of the type of mutikulu istraded at a price level ranging from 75 to 100 shillings (US$ 1 = 79 Kenya shillings
as of February, 2009) per kilogram, and that of wavuva, at from 140 to 160 shillings
per kilogram. In Kangundo, a suburban town of Nairobi lying about 50 km away51

from the capital, types of unprocessed harvested honey containing impurities aretraded at a price level ranging from 100 to 120 shillings per kilogram, and types ofprocessed honey without impurities, at a level from 160 to 200 shillings per
kilogram (1996).

Incidentally, sugar was sold for about 40 to 50 shillings per

kilogram in the city of Kitui (1996).

8) Use of honey
Honey is not only a favorite treat for children but also valued highly as
medicines for various ailments (stomachache, cold, cough, sore throat). Moreover it
is used as a preservative to store meat for a long period. It is also used as a raw
material for brewing honey beer called uki.

Honey and honey beer are

indispensable items for wedding ceremony and as bride price or for feasting at local
meetings.

9) Use of beeswax (masoso)
Beeswax is melted by boiling in a pan, then poured onto cloth, and thensqueezed to remove impurities.

When the liquid cools off, the, wax will besolidified on the surface of water. A lot of wax can be obtained from the type of hive
called ngee from which honey of mutikulu type can be collected. Derived wax is used
to make soap and for repairing broken (cracked) jerrycans. Moreover, sun dried
honeycombs are finely torn apart and mixed with dung of donkeys to prepare amaterial to be used frequently for fumigating field crops to control worms calledkivooi infesting flowers of pigeon pea. However, while the yield of beeswax isrelatively low - 1 kg of wax is obtained from a beehive producing 3 kg of honey – theprice on the market is low and brings little profit, and hence it is not used so
extensively. Mr. B living in Museve, a village lying 7 km to the north of Kitui City,
whom the reporter interviewed, told that he sold wax for the price of about 30 to 40
shillings per kilogram to a middleman as he was visiting the village regularly.

Inthe market of Kalundu locatted at the city center of Kitui, beeswax is traded at a
price level ranging from 50 to 70 shillings per kilogram. It is traded at the pricelevel of about 700 shillings per 5 kilograms in Nairobi (as of 1996). In 2008 in the52market of Kalundu, 1 kg of crude beeswax fetched about 90 shillings, while therefined one was sold for about 150 shillings.

10) Expectation for young generations
In December 2008, the reporter had an opportunity to visit the beekeepers, Mr.
B in Museve for the first time after 12 years of absence. At present a grandson of 20
years old has taken over the beekeeping activity, managing 6 bee logs. It is said thatout of these 6 bee logs, about 60 kg of honey per year can be harvested in favorable
years. He used to manage 35 bee logs 12 years ago. He cited several reasons for the
reduction of number of bee logs as follows: i) his legs became disabled and was notable to make new bee logs, ii) until recently, the grandson was attending school andnot able to assist him in harvesting work, which prevented him from carrying out
this job as much as he wished to do, iii) children were afraid of honey bees and notinterested in practice of beekeeping, iv) there were certain farmers who refused theinstallation of bee logs, being reluctant to approve it because of inconveniences
caused for general farming activities, v) because of increased tendency offragmentation of land holding, the number of places suitable for installation of bee
logs had been reduced, and vi) the availability of trees desirable for making bee logs
and as nectar sources had been reduced. In fact, the environment (nectar plants,
wood for bee logs, places for installing bee logs) desirable for practicing traditionalbeekeeping is changing, and the quantity of honey to be collected throughtraditional beekeeping systems is on the decrease. The price of honey free from
impurities ranged from 200 to 250 shillings per kilogram, and that of beeswax was
almost unchanged from the level prevailing 12 years ago in 1996. He even told astory that beeswax in fact was currently discarded as waste because of too low
purchase prices.
In Kitui also, efforts are in progress to extend modern beekeeping by using
Kenya top bar hive (KTBH), aiming, by focusing on rural community groups, at
contributing to the improvement of livelihood of farmers. However, cases of these
activities brought about by external organizations more often than not hit a setback
after the assistance is terminated. Regarding this prospect of modernization, the53

wood carving craftsmen who accepted reporter‟s interviews responded in negative
terms, citing reasons for not being able to convert to a system employing KTBH, asfollows: it is based on an absolutely different management method and techniques;wood carving craftsmen are old aged (unable to participate in training); in thebeekeeping practice employing KTBH, beehives are installed at a level close to theground surface, and hence present great dangers to grazing animals and children
caring them, etc. Moreover, they maintain that there is an issue to consider in social
context that because beekeeping is a traditional industry which each generation ofcertain families of a community inherits from its predecessor, if people of thecommunity together organize a group to practice beekeeping, the aspects of
distribution and management of profit would present a significant problem. On theother hand, wood carving craftsmen recognize the importance of transmitting to
generations of their children and grandchildren the technology of traditionalbeekeeping, hoping that their descendants will continue to practice the trade.
However, due to the depopulation of rural areas, they now have less time to be able
to spend together with children to transfer their expertise and enthusiasm to them.
Moreover, there is a situation that, because the main use of honey is brewing local
beer (illegally brewed alcohol beverage), beekeeping is an occupation lacking
attraction as a decent industry. These factors have created the reality that younger
generations are motivated to leave beekeeping, rather than to succeed to theoccupation of their predecessors.

In the near future, if one contemplates a development project in this sector
through intervention by the external initiative, instead of relying solely on themethodology tried for nearly 30 years so far in which the productivity enhancement
and the promotion of improved techniques have been the main tactics, a new
approach would be called for. Firstly it is needed to assess clearly what kinds ofresource farmers possess and through what kinds of way of thinking and method
they manage and utilize those resources. Based on such information, the analysis
has to be made to determine the possible social concept about the new system ofmanagement and utilization in the traditional beekeeping development. Throughthese processes, the strategy of intervention needed for the construction of new54

systems for resource management would be able to be evaluated and identified
ultimately from the viewpoints of farmers.

Table 3-1-1 Trees used for traditional beekeeping in Kitui District, Kenya
Species

FamilyEnglish nameLocal nameTrees suitable for mounting bee logs
Acacia mellifera
Acacia tortilis
Adansonia digitata
Commiphora baluensis
Commiphora sp.
Cordia africana
Croton megalocarpus
Delonix elata
Ficus thonningii
Kigelia africana
Lannea schweinfurthii
Mangifera indica
Sterculia stenocarpa, S.africana,Tamarindus indica
Terminalia brownii
Brachylaena huillensis?
?
?

Mimosaceae Black thorn
Mimosaceae Umbrella thorn
Bombacaceae Baobab
Burseraceae Burseraceae Boraginaceae Large-leafed cordia
Euphorbiaceae Broad-leafed croton
Caesalpinoide Moraceae
Wild fig
Bignoniaceae Sausage tree
Anacardiaceae Anacardiaceae Mango
Sterculiaceae African star chestnut
Leguminosae Tamarind
Combretaceae Red pot terminalia
Compositae
Silver oak-

kthiiamwaa
muambaitula
mukuu
muingamuthulu
mukamekiumo
kiatinekyuasikiembekyusyamuthumulakiuukukiuukukyumbilili
muanga(e)ImulaTrees suitable for fabricating bee logs
Acacia seyal
Acacia sp.
Acacia xanthophloea
Acokanthera oppositifolia?
Commiphora baluensis

Mimosaceae
Mimosaceae
Mimosaceae
Apocynaceae
Burseraceae

mweya
muewa
musewakikweoitula

White thorn
Yellow bark acacia
Arrow-poison tree-

isavyuEucalyptus sp.
Ficus sycomorus

Burseraceae Boraginaceae Large-leafed cordia
Papilionoideae Red-hot poker, Coral
Tree
Myrtaceae
Gum treeMoraceae
Sycamore fig

Lannea alata

Anacardiaceae -mukweoNewtonia hildebrandtii
Terminalia brownii?

Mimosaceae Newtonia
Combretaceae Red pot terminalia-

mukamekiuukuCommiphora sp.
Cordia africana
Erythrina abyssinica

55

muingamuvutimusanduku

mukuyumuhunia ndia?

Species

FamilyEnglish nameLocal nameTrees suitable for pegs
Acacia mellifera
Antidesma venosum

Mimosaceae Black thorn
Euphorbiaceae Tassel berrykithiia

Dalbergia melanoxylon?

Leguminosae-

African blackwood-

muvingomulineliti/mulinditi

Trees suitable for hooks
Premna resinosa
Grewia bicolor
Commiphora baluensis

Labiatae
Tiliaceae
Burseraceae

White raisin-

mukaakaamulawaitula

Trees suitable for ropes
Commiphora baluensis
Acacia brevispica

Burseraceae
Mimosaceae

Prickly thorn

itula

Trees used for repairing of bee logs
Commiphora baluensis
Sansevieria sp.
Vitex payos?

Burseraceae Dracaenaceae Verbenaceae Black plum
-

itula
mbwau
muu

Trees suitable for putting scent to bee logs
Ocimum gratissimum
Ocimum americanum
Solanum incanum-

Lamiaceae
Lamiaceae
Solanaceae-

African basil
Hoary BasilNightshade

yenye
mutaa

BeewaxmasosoNectar plants
Acacia brevispica
Acacia gerrardii

Mimosaceae
Mimosaceae

Prickly thorn
Grey-haired acacia

mukusyiAcacia mellifera

Mimosaceae

Black thorn

kithiia

Acacia nilotica
Acacia senegal

Mimosaceae
Mimosaceae

Egyptian thorn
Gum arabic

musemeliking'gole

Acacia seyal
Acacia tortilis

Mimosaceae
Mimosaceae

White thorn
Umbrella thorn

mweya
mwaa

Azanza garckeana
Cajanus cajan
Coix lacryma-jobi
Cordia africana
Cynodon dactylon
Cyphostemma adenocaule

Malvaceae
Tree Hibiscus
Fabaceae
Pegion pea
PoaceaeJob's tears
Boraginaceae Large-leafed cordia
Cucurbitaceae Cucumber
Poaceae
Bermuda grass
Vitaceae
-

mutoo
nzuu
nzalangilya

Eragrostis superba
Eucalyptus sp.
Hyparrhenia sp.
Indigofera triata, I.lupatana

Poaceae
Myrtaceae
PoaceaeFabaceae

mbeetwamusanduku
ndande56

Wilman lovegrass
Gum tree-mukalamukusyiuswe

ngondumuthi

muingaikoka
kyuungu

lunguyuSpecies

FamilyEnglish nameLocal name

Nectar plants
Mangifera indica
Melia volkensii
Melinis minutiflora
Pennisetum glaucum
Piliostigma thonningii
Sorghum bicolor
Tamarindus indica
Vigna sp.
Lablab sp.
Zea mays?

Anacardiaceae Mango
Meliaceae
Melia tree
PoaceaeMolasses grass
PoaceaePurple majesty
Caesalpiniacea Camel-footPoaceae
Sorghum
Leguminosae Tamarind
Papilionaceae Cowpea
Leguminosae Lablab bean
PoaceaeMaize-kiembeAcokanthera schimperi
Agave sisalana
Aloe secundiflora
Aspilia mossambicensis
Maytenus sp. (M.putterlickioides?)Synadenium sp.
Vernonia lasiopus

Apocynaceae Arrow-poison tree
Agavaceae
Sisal
Aloaceae
Aloe
Compositae
Celastraceae Euphorbiaceae Compositae-

kivaiikongekilumamuti
muthunzikyathamuvathaMeliaceae
Melia tree
Burseraceae
Papilionoideae Red-hot poker, Coral
Tree

mukau
mutungati
muvuti

Agavaceae
Sisal
Compositae
Phyllanthaceae Chinese waterberry
Tiliaceae
Malvaceae
Hibiscus
Verbenaceae Lantana
Meliaceae
Melia tree
Labiatae
Dracaenaceae Capparaceae Poaceae
Napier grassikongewuti
mukuluu

Material trees for harvesting buckets
Melia volkensii
Commiphora sp.
Erythrina abyssinica

Trees suitable for smoking torches
Agave sisalana
Aspilia mossambicensis
Flueggea virosa
Grewia tembensis
Hibiscus sp. ?
Lantana camara
Melia volkensii
Premna resinosa
Sansevieria sp.
Capparis tomentosa
Pennisetum purpureum

mukau

kithinamwee
mukolokolo
muvya
muthumulambembamuonde?

mutuvamulyambila
musimolomukau
mukaakaa
mbwau
itandaa boo?
kithaleReferences
１) Christopher K.Ruffo, Ann Birnie, Bo Tengnas. (2002). Edible wild plants of
Tanzania. Technical handbook No.27. Regional Land Management Unit (RELMA).
English press, Nairobi, Kenya
２）Najma Dharani. (2002). Field guide to common trees and shrubs of East Africa.
Struik publishers, Cape town, South Africa

57３）Patrick Maundu. (1999). Traditional Food Plants of Kenya. Kenya Resource
Center for Indigenous Knowledge (KENRIK), National Museums of Kenya. Nairobi,
Kenya.
４）Patrick Maundu and Bo Tengnas: Edi. (2005). Useful trees and shrubs for Kenya.
World Agroforestry Center. Nairobi, Kenya
５）Sanae Takami. (1996). Beekeeping witnessed in Kenya, Honey Bee Science17(2): 81-84
６ ） Mitsuo Ichikawa, (1980). Beekeeping in Suiey - Drobo in East Africa,
Anthropology Quarterly, 11-2, pp. 117-152

58

3-4

Development of apiculture in Kenya, roles and issues ofrespective sectors

Since currently in Kenya, the market-determined price of honey iscomparatively high, and the view that demand exceeds supply has been expressedin many quarters in the past few years, many aid organizations of the West andNGOs have started to implement various rural development projects integrating
beekeeping as the core component. Beekeeping is considered to be the most suitable
undertaking as side business for improving the livelihood of farmers, because, if it is
run on an appropriate location, it requires only a minimum level of day-to-day
management, does not interfere with the occupation of a farmer, can be carried out
with surplus labor, and furthermore the product is more profitable than ordinary
agricultural crops. However, beekeeping is reputed to be a kind of business that iseasy to start but hard to sustain. This is because of the fact that while it can be
introduced relatively easily thanks to the package of equipment combined with ashort-term training, the required level of expertise for maintenance andmanagement, when it is considered in a long perspective, is high and difficult toprovide assistance. Furthermore, it is so because it is needed to make an excessively
high level of investment for an individual or for a group of farmers, in order toproduce products of marketable quality. This section describes the analysis ofmethod of approach concerning the projects of development of beekeeping in thedomains of training, extension, cargo collection and marketing, in order to define an
ideal form of apiculture development.

3-4-1

Questions in apiculture development

1) Problems and desirable solutions associated with training and technical guidance
In order to identify clearly the timing at which problems arise from theviewpoints of provision of technical guidance in the effort to introduce and extend

59apiculture as a new development project, the overall course of apiculture has beenclassified for descriptive purposes into the following 4 stages.
A.

Introduction stage
When a new beehive is to be introduced anew, it is needed to provide atechnical guidance (about a half day) on installation and management before
and after the introduction. Since day-to-day management is relatively simple, itneeds little technical support. In most cases, the beehives are introduced after
would-be beekeepers have received technical training or sufficient amount of
explanation which naturally accompanies the purchase of new beehives.
Therefore problems at this stage emerge relatively rarely.

B．Development stage
Beekeepers are required to learn various kinds of tasks needed at thisstage through repeated practices along with successive stages of development ofbee colonies, including the timing of transfer of a colony from a swarm-catcher,the judgment as to whether a particular colony is to be maintained or not bymonitoring the development speed of it, and the judgment of the timing tomount a honey super. Since many of those tasks contain elements requiring
judgment based on experience, the knowledge and skills learned throughtraining received immediately before and after the introduction are notsufficient, the present reporter considers that this stage should be the time when
beginners feel most frequently the necessity of technical guidance.
C．Harvesting stage
When a beekeeper has to carry out harvesting for the first times, it isneeded to provide him with correct training for the procedures of harvesting. If
equipment has been purchased from a trader, or beekeeping is run as contract
production, this process is automatically guided by the trader, and hence would
present little of serious problems.

60

D．Maintenance and management stage
This stage concerns the phase in which, after the bee colonies actually havebeen established and started to produce honey, they are maintained andcontinue and expand the production and harvest.

It seems that at this stage

various kinds of difficulties arise often including maintenance during the dry
season, insect pests and predators, etc.

In view of these factors, one can well understand how inadequate thecurrently standard 2-week course of training on apiculture is, and would realize
anew that the continuous monitoring and guidance is essential for the effective
technical assistance in apiculture. The situation that the extension agents withknowledge and experience with apiculture are only few and their services of support
become unavailable because of their change may readily lead to discouragement tofarmers or projects that intend to introduce apiculture as a new element.

In aproject intending to develop apiculture with a perspective longer than several years,
it appears that there is a definite need to train a specialized technical expert by
spending time or to make sure to find persons capable of providing technicalsupport at all times.
What the reporter would like to emphasize concerning this matter is thenecessity to foster experts on the national level. While a large number of projects
associated with apiculture are going to be implemented and human resources
trained by short-term programs will increase in the future, it is feared that the
manpower really capable of providing support services when serious problems occur
in the long term operation of apiculture is very much lacking in Kenya. The
government agencies are essentially responsible for fostering such permanently
available manpower by spending sufficient time. The actual circumstances thatprivate enterprises and organizations are fostering manpower and providing
technical services to support the development efforts should be considered as
exceptional ones.
In this regard, it would have to be considered to establish a special course ofabout 1 to 2 years devoted to apiculture at the National Beekeeping Station to foster61

and assign at least 1 apiculture expert per district, even though the fields forpractical exercise are to be found on local sites. The present state in which thenumber of extension agents specialized in apiculture of the level of expert is notcommensurate with the number of beekeepers and with the level of emerging needs
would not allow the just appreciation of potential of apiculture development in
Kenya.

3-4-2

1)

Questions in apiculture extension and promotion

Issues in the conversion process from traditional beekeeping to modern

apiculture
If one looks at the matter from the viewpoint of improvement of productivity
and quality, the trend of conversion from traditional beekeeping system to themodern one using the Langstroth beehive may be in a sense an inevitable process.
However, our field surveys have revealed that, until the ultimate stage is reached,
there are several hurdles to overcome which are hindering its extension against
general expectation. The situation is diagrammatically represented in the following
figure:62

Traditional
Beekeeping
SystemHurdle 1
Expensive
Hives

Local madeMicrofinance

CheaperBee Hives

Inexpensive
Hives

No frame?
No bar?
Box type?
With super-boxes?

Possible risk of failure
Incapable of payment

Hurdle 2
MicrofinanceBeekeeping system Specialisation by
integrated with
only a few farmers
expensive harvesting
equipment

Bee Suits
Traditional night harvesting?
Smorkers
Use of traditional smorker?

Hurdle 3

Difficulty & Unfamiliarity Training/Capacity
Buildingwith frames/bars composed
hive management

High cost for training andhuman resources development

Improved Traditional
Beekeeping System

Intermediate
Beekeeping System(KTBH)

Modern Beekeeping
System(Langstroth Hive)

Alternative
Intermediate
Beekeeping System

Fig. Possible hurdles existing in the conversion process fromtraditional beekeeping to modern apiculture and solutions forthem.

(1) Hurdle１：Costly hive
First of all, the fact that a hive costs about 3,800 to 4,500 shillings, too higha price in comparison with the level of income of ordinary farmers, is the mostimportant hurdle, very often making it impossible for most of ordinary farmers
to purchase it independently. In order to overcome this hurdle, in aid programs,
funds of donor agencies are invested or a certain credit arrangement using adevice of microfinance is made to allow farmers to purchase the hive. However,considering that it is doubtful whether every farmer having introduced it is able
to realize predicted yield and profit, it cannot be denied that these kinds of63

measures run a considerable risk. Inversely, would not it be rather advisable topromote more a policy to introduce the hive at a lower cost by fabricating it onone‟s own?

Although there remained a problem of quality, the reporter cameacross a certain farmer in Mwingi District who had managed to have the hive
fabricated by asking a local carpenter to make it at a cost about half as much asthat of commercial products.
(2) Hurdle 2：Technology system integrated with costly harvesting equipment
Modern apiculture is a technology system which requires beekeepers tolearn the use of not only the hive but also other expensive special pieces ofequipment including bee suits and smokers which farmers have to purchase.
Regarding this matter also, donor agencies may pay for the equipment to be
introduced, but such a scheme to donate these kinds of equipment, at least one
unit of which essentially has to be owned individually by a farmer or a group ofneighborhood farmers, will necessitate considerable expenditure of funds. It
would be also necessary further to explore and teach to beekeepers an approach
to use alternative articles of equipment which may be fabricated locally or moreeasily available.
(3) Hurdle 3 ： Unfamiliarity and difficulty with the management of beehives
composed of frames and bars
Regarding this aspect of modern apiculture system, the training would
solve the problem to a certain extent, but it may be a fairly difficult task forbeekeepers to learn fully this part of the system through the existing standard
2-week training program. Moreover, it may also involve a considerable amountof cost to have them trained for a series of processes.
Regarding also the system of Kenya top bar hive (KTBH) which has been
introduced as inexpensive equipment, although the cost is roughly half as muchas that of Langstroth hive, it still is not a cheap article to buy for farmers.
Moreover, it essentially possesses a technology system common with that ofLangstroth hive, presenting the same constraints cited for (2) and (3) as above.
This fact may explain the reason why the KTBH has not been extended as
widely as it has been expected to.

64

2)

Necessity of alternative intermediate technology
Isn‟t it possible to consider more simple intermediate technology? For instance,

we may be able to try a system like the traditional one found in Japan in which
there is neither frame nor bar and only a honey-super provides the harvest. If anintermediate technology is applicable, beekeepers that possess only the traditional
system may be able to switch over to it without incurring much cost.

3) Issues concerning the improvement of traditional beekeeping
Another possible solution is the improvement of traditional beekeeping system.
While it is reputed to have disadvantages like the risk of work, low qualities, andlow profitability, aren‟t there any remedial measures?

The reporter actually has

found out through the surveys for this time several solutions as follows:（１）Solutions for the risk of work
In the most common traditional beekeeping, hives are mounted on trees.
This position may have been chosen with reason to evade the damage by wild
animals and the theft by humans, but it is said that the work becomes very risky
and casualties are frequently caused. Moreover, the necessity for climbing trees
limits the possibility to make beekeeping a side business for women1. Theremay be an alternative orientation to pursue in which the custom of
emplacement of bee hives on trees should be changed gradually to one in which
they may be placed in the field or under short trees, just as certain groups of
farmers that were witnessed in the survey for this time are practicing it.

1 Many ethnic groups in Kenya have nurtured a traditional belief that it is a taboo for women to touch beehives.

65

A hive suspended under short trees to facilitate management(2)

Problem of low quality
In the traditional beekeeping, since normally the whole honeycomb iscollected 2 , the comb material, pollens and brood are also mixed in honey,
creating an unfavorable condition for selling the product as honey. A techniquewhich appeared as a practicable solution for overcoming this problem at thelevel of producers/beekeepers is the queen-extruder net as applied for the
traditional type of log beehive.

The idea has originated from somewhere else

but it is apparently being accepted rather widely in the Districts of Kitui andMwingi.

As shown in the picture, the device is composed of a wire nettingwith meshes of an appropriate size, and placed in the center of a log beehive forapplication.

2 It is reported that skilled traditional beekeepers, in harvesting honeycombs, preserve carefully the reproductive
parts of honeycombs and put them back to hives.

66

Queen-extruder net for the traditional type of log beehive

Other devices that are interesting as ideas for improvement at the level ofcollection and processing plants include an attachment called “comb holder”(Mwingi Honey Marketplace) to be mounted on a centrifuge when disconnected
combs collected from traditional hives are centrifuged, and a type of press (SiteEnterprise Promotion) which makes it possible to extract honey without
resorting to a centrifuge.

Particularly the press which has been devised by Site

Enterprise Promotion, although it would need further improvement, can be
fabricated by local craftsmen, and moreover would be suited for the application
at small-scale processing plants.

Attachment for pretreatment of crude products from traditional
beehives before centrifuging（Comb Holder）

67

Mannually operated appliance to squeeze crude products fromtraditional beehives(3) Measures to ameliorate the constraint of low profit
Unlike the system based on Langstroth beehive which can harvest only
honey without wasting other structural components, the system with traditional
beehive has a shortcoming that, as it harvests honey together with the wholehoneycomb, it removes other hive materials as well simultaneously.

However,such a shortcoming could turn out to be rather an advantage, now that the priceof beeswax is increasing. Assuming that about 20 kg of crude products collectedfrom traditional log beehives (normally 4 to 5 logs), are able to give about 16 kg
of honey and around 3.2kg3 of beeswax, the monetary value is compared withthat from the system of Langstroth hives as shown in the table below. It isrevealed that the profitability becomes higher by about 30 % if honey and wax
are combined together than honey only, because currently the price of beeswax
is higher than honey. It can be expected that the profitability as a whole will
improve by combining the implementation of measures for improving quality as
mentioned in the preceding section and the commercialization of beeswax.

3 Based on interviews with Site Enterprise Promotion

68

Table of comparison of profitability4
Product

Production（kg）

Honey（Langstroth system）

Honey (traditional log hive
system)Beeswax

Unit pricePrice（shilling） （shilling）

20.0

110

2,200

16.0

90

1,440

3.2

200

640

Total of traditional log hive

2,080

system

4 Selling prices are based on those at Mwingi Honey Marketplace

69Chapter 4

4-1

Community development and apiculture

Rural development and apiculture1) Significance of apiculture
Apiculture is primarily appreciated for the excellent properties of honey as its
immediate product that can be preserved for a long time as food and is of highly
nutritious at the same time, and for several advantages contributing directly to theimprovement of life of farmers practicing beekeeping, because it can be used as a
medicinal substance for applying it externally as well as for adding sugar ingredientin drinking water.

Secondly beekeeping is preferred for the assurance of income

from side business that it provides for farmers, because the surplus honey has been
already commercialized generally in many regions and hence it is able to be soldeasily and profitably to a certain extent without little marketing effort so long as
the amount is limited. Beeswax, readily available as a byproduct, can be used as
raw materials for various products such as the base of hand cream, and also can beconverted into candles by simple processes. These processed products can either
be used by farmers for their own daily needs or be exchanged for cash similarly as in
the case of honey.
Another significance of apiculture is the role of honey bees as pollinators inagricultural fields. Even if pollinators are not particularly needed generally whereabundant natural pollinators are present, it has been recognized that, by using
managed pollinators, not only the rate of fruiting increases but also, in the case ofoil crops, the weight of seeds increases and their quality such as oil content isenhanced.

While the gramineous crops which are grown in many regions to getstaple foods are wind-pollinated and require no intervention by honey bees, in the
production of fruits, other seed crops, and seeds of vegetables, the role of honey bees
is important, and the productivity improvement by assisted pollination on the partof plant sector will translate into enhanced cash income for farmers just as the
direct product of the insect.

702) Significance of apiculture in developing countries
In developing countries, the migration of rural people to urban areas
constitutes the main cause of impoverishment there and hence the factor enabling
the production for ready cash earning has an aspect to prevent the exodus of
population.

In this regard, the apiculture can be seen as a type of economic

activity likely to produce an immediate result for regional development.

Moreover,in a development project aiming at regional development and affirmative ofsustainable development, it would be unjustified to contemplate purchasing costly
hives and introducing imported honey bee species. Consequently, hives will have to
be made locally and wild colonies found locally are to be exploited, if such ones areavailable. Regarding the fabrication of hives, although high precision woodworking
skills are essential in order to build a multifunctional hive of high quality, if
objectives are clearly defined in accordance with respective local conditions, it is notalways necessary to introduce multifunctional beehives. The scheme will also
provide opportunities for local carpenters to undertake new jobs of building honeybee hives. Furthermore the scheme will lead to another phase of enhancement ofliving level of local communities by self-help effort of farmers, through teaching tothem the skills of carpentry of a level necessary for fabricating beehives which may
eventually be applied also for repairing their houses by themselves.

If the beehive

to be fabricated can be of a type of single function or of a simple type allowing acertain extent of lesser requirements, the fabrication is not so difficult wherecarpenters with skills of a level enough to build ordinary houses are found.
Apiculture development without introduction of imported honey bee colonies
assumes as prerequisites that wild honey bees as local resources are indigenously
present and that the traditional beekeeping technology exists among local
inhabitants. It starts with the step of capturing wild honey bees which basically
could be the immediate application of techniques for traditional beekeeping
depending on spontaneous settlement of wild colonies for starting the process.
Therefore, in general, the apiculture development project in such areas takes a formof intermediate system between the traditional beekeeping and the modern
apiculture. This approach is an excellent type of technology transfer from the71viewpoints not only of the inheritance of traditions but also of the technicalcontinuity in which existing technology systems can be exploited to be further
developed to create a new technology system as a new advanced stage.

The

progressive approach has also an advantageous aspect that farmers can readily
accept a new technology system while preserving self-esteem by seeing the respect
paid to their traditions.
On the other hand, the introduction of imported honey bee species entails
many negative aspects. Firstly, it inevitably presents the fact that the honey bees asa fundamental production capital are costly, and secondarily there arises a problem
that, since they are foreign organisms, it is necessary to consider also the impact on
the local ecosystem.

Furthermore, when the number of introduced colonies issmall, the cross breeding between closely related strains develops which, dependingon cases, may lead to genetic degeneration. Consequently, even after the apiculture
system has been established, new honeybee lines have to be imported continuously.
The exploitation of indigenous honey bees will also lead not only to the economic
sustainability of local residents but also to the sustainability of ecosystemsurrounding the living environment.
Regarding beehive equipment, in Africa a type of hive equipped with top bars
which is economical for fabrication as well as can realize the basic concept ofmodern beehive, namely, independent manipulation of individual honeycombs, hasbeen developed (it is called Kenya top bar hive (KTBH), because it has beendeveloped in Kenya). The hive comprises only top bars instead of movable frames tohold individual honeycombs in a modern beehive. The main body of the hive has aparticular profile in which the cross section takes a trapezoidal form so thathoneycombs constructed by bees shall not be connected to hive walls, and ahoneycomb attached to each of top bars hangs down from it and takes a semicircularform. With this type of hives, since each unit of honeycombs in a hive can behandled independently, beekeepers can take out only those filled with honey for
extraction or easily divide the colony in the propagation season. It is also possible toutilize a queen excluder to confine the queen bee to one part of the hive, in order toincrease the number of honeycombs for filling honey. Unlike the system using
movable frames, because a top bar hive does not use the comb foundation, the72

centrifuge for honey extraction destroys honeycombs. Furthermore, because it
allows also the honey extraction by means of the traditional method of compression,in many cases broken pieces of honeycombs can be harvested as beeswax.
Incidentally, the job of transferring a bee colony having settled in the
traditional hive to a modern hive is called colony relocation operation, the stepwhich is not found in the normal modern beekeeping system that starts with anexisting hive containing an already settled colony.

Consequently, few experts

working in apiculture have experience of the practice of this operation. On thecontrary, in local communities, the operation is essential for the enhancement of
profitability out of the traditional beekeeping as well as for raising the technicallevel of apiculture as a substantial economic sector, and hence it is an importantquestion how to fill this technical gap. However, this technology has thecharacteristics of intermediate technology that has evolved and been createdsimultaneously and independently in multiples of versions in conformity withfactors of beekeeping specific to each region, including nature of honey bees, thetype of traditional hives, or the shape of introduced hives. Basically, it would becalled for to accumulate and systematize these different versions of technology.

3）Secondary impact of apiculture development
There are other aspects of impact of apiculture development. As describe
above, when a beekeeper needs to acquire wild honey bee colonies, he has to knowthat their habitat is more often found in forests where tree hollows are available ascavities for nesting. However, in the area where clearing of land is progressing,
generally more often than not the density of inhabitation of wild bee colonies tends
to be low, depressing the probability of acquiring honey bee colonies which would
come flying.

Therefore, it is advisable to incorporate apiculture as a component

when a rural development project through improvement of environment
encompassing an entire region is planned. Because, if the project donor expresses aview to advocate the representation right for honey bees at the meeting of villagers,
the structure of conflicting interests among villagers would be able to be looked atfrom a more objective viewpoint.

Through this approach, it would be highly likely

73that residents will understand that all factors constituting their living environment
do not exist independently to each other but they are closely related, as observed in
the causal relationship that the presence of honey bees leads to the increase of crop
production and that the forest to be preserved for the benefit of honey bees also
serves as the important water source of the village. Furthermore, villagers shall bereadily motivated to understand better the environment around them and to show
an interest in the subject matter of preservation of environment, by asking them tocite names of plants from which honey bees collect nectar and pollens, and to makea calendar according to the time of flowering of various plants.

Likewise, it would

be expected to make impact also on farming in general where farmers will learn topredict to a certain extent climate change of a particular year judging from yearlyshift of flowering time of plants.

4) Advantage of apiculture in rural development
The advantages which apiculture presents for rural development indeveloping countries are summarized as follows:i. Since apiculture exploits resources available in an unclaimed spacewithin a radius of a few kilometers from a hive, all that a beekeeper
needs to have is a space sufficiently large to place the hive. In short,
apiculture does not require land, and even a landless farmer can benefit
from it.
ii. Regarding honey bees, also wild colonies can be exploited. Althoughessentially hives have to be prepared, costly modern beehives are notnecessarily required. Hence farmers without much money also can start
the activity.
iii. In apiculture, farmers are not required to carry out daily routine
management tasks such as feeding bees. If the harvesting can be carriedout, similarly as the traditional beekeeping, only after a certain amountof honey has been accumulated, even those farmers having little time tospare can start the activity.

74

iv. Most of operations in beekeeping are work on light duty, and hence any
person irrespective of age and gender can perform them. They are carriedout in the vicinity of dwellings, and therefore the business can be
introduced without imposing many burdens on household affaires orhindering school attendance.
v. In the space utilized by honey bees, no competition with other organisms
takes place. When a new crop is to be introduced for an extension project
in developing countries, it is normally required to replace certain kinds ofcrops that have been cultivated so far on the land where the new crop
shall be grown.

In the process of evaluating the appropriateness of

introduced crop on the land, there is also a likelihood of loss of certain
existing things, presenting a great measure of general risk.

In the caseof introduction of honey bees, no competition for land or for water takes
place, and hence existing conditions can be maintained as they are andstill apiculture can be introduced as a supplementary element.
vi. In terms of resource utilization, honey bees pose no competition withother organisms. In certain of development projects, goats are introduced
as a key element. However goats inflict a great measure of damage by
grazing on the undergrowth of forest to an extent which makes it
impossible to restore the vegetation. In cases of domestic animals, theaddition of new animals inevitably increases the load on the environment
surrounding a community. In this respect, honey bees impose no load on
the vegetation nor pose any competition with other animals for food.
vii. Honey has been recognized as a safe and healthy food with a long historyof consumption all over the world. Because of its excellent quality forconservation, it can easily establish the position as a regular food forfamilies and as a household medicine.

In case of selling surplus honey,

people in the community often understand its value and there is nodifficulty in finding purchasers.
viii. While there are needs to solve certain types of technical problems, inprinciple, the production of products other than honey, including beeswax,

75

propolis and furthermore royal jelly, is possible in any regions, each ofthese constituting a highly profitable product.
ix. Thanks to the pollination effected by honey bees, the yield increase andthe improvement of quality of local agricultural products as well as thepollination in ecosystem are enhanced and maintained.
x. Through the activities of rearing honey bees, people will cultivateinterests in the environment of the region where they live, raising thelevel of awareness for the participation in a project of livelihood
improvement, and become capable of judging objectively the priority ofeach element of the project.
In order to benefit from these advantages in an actual project of apiculture
development however, there are a certain number of hurdles to overcome. Firstly
the very short period allocated for the standard training program presents a
problem. The nature of beekeeping necessitates carrying out various management
processes occurring throughout a year. Therefore, although basic techniques ofbeekeeping can be taught in a short period, many essential processes falling on aparticular season of the year often cannot be transferred in the fixed program.
Generally, the succession of beekeeping expertise takes place in the institution of
apprenticeship in many societies and, as a matter of fact, this poses a great
difficulty in the present effort of extension of apiculture. In an actual extension
project, the longer an expert remains on the local area, the higher the level ofattainment of project tends to become, and furthermore the bigger the achievement
may be, depending on the nature of technical expertise of the expert.

5) Problems and orientation of apiculture in the rural development
In this course of reasoning, what seems to be the point particularly importantis the question of what sort of thing can be expected as the goal of technology
transfer, signifying that the success of a project of apiculture development depends
greatly on the clarity of vision of the goal pursued. In other words, the question iswhether the parent project itself which incorporates apiculture component
possesses a clear vision about the region constituting the target of development aid.
76

Unfortunately, many of apiculture development projects limit their goals within theextent of technology transfer and the building of framework for technology transfer,
stopping far short of the ultimate goal of development and hence losing the realsignificance of apiculture development.

In the case of apiculture also, as describe

above, it is possible to undertake a project to extend new technology even in a region
needing developmental assistance, as long as relevant indicators prove that fromthe beginning there exist the traditional beekeeping system as well theenvironment providing a viable habitat for honey bees. In this case, there is a highlikelihood that honey can be produced and duly sold, but such a scenario alone does
not necessarily signify that the goal of apiculture development has been achieved.
Honey is a honey bee product easy to sell as long as containers are available
but many honey products find it difficult to establish a stable reputation. More often
than not they are liable to become victims of an irresponsible reputation. The
problem is not unique to honey, but locally produced commodities tend to receive a
low esteem in local markets of developing countries, and actually in the case honey,
many of marketed articles are considered there as “fake products” containing
additives like sugar. If the production increases as a result of the expansion of
apiculture, or prices start to fall due to the competition among suppliers, such areputation would instantly spread widely. It would create a great difficulty to regain
the consumers‟ confidence if it is lost once, so much so that if the products are
exposed to such an unfavorable reputation after the distribution channel has beenenlarged, it may sometimes happen that the entire aid project for ruraldevelopment would be doomed to collapse. The enthusiasm of participants in otherprojects supported by the same agency may also be liable to evaporate. In order toevade such an eventuality, it is important to arouse in the mind of participant
farmers the awareness of product quality.
There are also found many cases where project supporters live overseas andproducts are exported to foreign countries. In such a case as well, it would be adesirable situation that the farmers having introduced and producing products
know well about the products or have experience of consuming them and are
actually able to consume them at present. The awareness that they are producing
the finished products rather than a crude material should become an indispensable77

condition for improving the quality or for maintaining a high level of it.
Current apiculture development projects in Africa are carried out by
arrangement in which modern beehives are leased or sold on credit to farmers andthe rental cost or price is collected by means of produced honey. Although theutilization of surplus honey is left to farmers‟ disposal, the production techniqueitself cannot be said to be adapted to local conditions. The reasons for the disparity
are largely accounted for by the fact that beehives with too many functions areoffered and that the level of woodworking skills in fabrication is still low.
For example, the beeswax produced in Africa is highly appreciated asindustrial material on the world market. Hence it is possible to introduce apiculture
principally aiming at producing beeswax. For that purpose, the traditional type ofbeehive in which beeswax is obtained as a byproduct in the process of collecting
honey is better suited than the modern type of hive in which honeycombs are reused
repeatedly. In Kenya a certain type of intermediate technology like the one inwhich a queen excluder is mounted on the hollow log hive is coming to emerge. The
collection of beeswax is also in progress.
If honey is replaced by beeswax as product, the amount of production is
reduced to about one eighth in volume. If the production of beeswax of high quality
is possible, the problem of lower production volume can be compensated by
imposing higher prices to a certain extent. If one takes account of such a situation,
it might be necessary to envisage a future course of evolutionary development topromote apiculture principally aiming at the production of beeswax.
Regrettably in this sector the apiculture development tends to be undertaken
rather as a process to extend better beehives as the primary step, without a global
view of the ultimate goal. Moreover farmers as recipients of initiatives cannot be
motivated readily unless hives of a fine appearance are shown.
The effects to be generated by honey bees are diverse, and in order to exploit
them it is essential to have the density of colonies of wild honey bees in a region
raised by apiculture development. With a view of such a requirement, sometechnical aspects in rearing honey bees can be ignored to a certain extent. In view ofan existing circumstance that, on the one hand, the actors promoting apiculture78

development have undergone the experience in modern apiculture and tend to be
reluctant to slough off it, and on the other, farmers from recipient side tend to deny
traditional values and seek tools as new as possible, in reality it might be difficult to
try to promote the development through creating alternative intermediatetechnology.

79

4-2

Apiculture and environmental conservation

4-2-1

Natural resources and apiculture

Although the figure may differ depending on the level of development of aparticular country, in Kenya more than 90 % of beekeepers are practicing
traditional beekeeping. The proportion is likewise in neighboring countries as well,i.e., Ethiopia（99％5）, and Tanzania (95%6). Moreover, farmers and enterprises
practicing modern beekeeping also utilize wild honey bee colonies by seducing theswarms into their hives. Putting aside the question whether such honey bees should
be called wild organisms or domesticated animals, at any rate they constitutecolonies having derived from the natural ecosystem that are beyond the complete
management by beekeepers.
Furthermore, the regions in Kenya with flourishing beekeeping which are said
to have potential are found in the semi-arid areas of Eastern Province and Rift
Valley Province, and are mostly under natural conditions not suited for large-scale
farming7. In these regions, reflecting the unstable and scarce rainfalls, agriculture
itself is of small-scale and assumes a strong nature of self-sustenance, and therefore
the beekeeping there generally depends to a lesser extent on agricultural crops for
nectar sources. Furthermore, since most of the agricultural crops eligible as nectar
sources (coffee and fruit trees) have been introduced only in recent years ascommercial crops, many of them have not been utilized as nectar sources for
traditional beekeeping. Under such environment, beekeeping is practiced under acondition where natural vegetation, particularly trees, rather than agricultural
crops, are mostly exploited as principal nectar sources.
Consequently, in many countries in Africa, traditional view of beekeeping

5 International Trade Centre (ITC), Ethiopia 1986
6 Tanzania-The status of Tanzanian honey Trade- Domestic and International Markets
Mwakatobe, A.

and Mlingwa, C. Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, a paper presented at the Bees for Development Honey Trade

Workshop held in Dublin, Ireland in August 2005.
7 Or there could be an aspect that the very environment unfavorable for crop production might have obliged the prosperity for beekeeping.

80

considers that it depends on natural vegetation and forest, and in many regions
honey is treated as a forestry product8.

For example, in Tanzania the Bureau ofForestry and Apiculture is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Natural Resources
and Tourism, signifying that agencies in charge of forestry and apiculture areincluded in the same administrative organization, and an apiculture course(specialized 2-year course) is provided in the school of forestry. Essentially, it is idealthat a government agency in charge of management of nectar sources exercises
jurisdiction over the apiculture development itself, and in many instances that kindof system works best for developing the industry of apiculture.
If apiculture resources are classified into two elements, honey bees and nectar
sources, the apiculture in Kenya and similar countries in Africa could becharacterized as one which depends on natural resources and on natural ecosystem
for the both resources.

4-2-2

Apiculture and natural environment conservation

Generally speaking, once local people begin practicing apiculture, they become
accustomed to be conscious of their relation with apiculture resources surrounding
them through honey bees and the products. They begin to think about the question
from where honey bees settling hives originate, and to contemplate the relationshipbetween the abundance of stored honey and that of flowers coming to bloom.
In the areas where the acquisition of honey bees depends on wild colonies andthe nectar sources depend on natural vegetation, the basic elements of apiculture
derive from the richness of the nature that provides two resources. Therefore thecloser the relationship between life and apiculture becomes, the much higher theconsciousness of conservation of forest and natural vegetation is raised. This isbecause unless the swarms of honey bees are observed frequently, the settlement of

8 In the document “ NON-WOOD FOREST PRODUCTS IN AFRICA: A REGIONAL AND NATIONAL OVERVIEW, FAO, August 2001”, 19
countries out of the total of 55 countries studied, namely:、Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Comoros, Mauritius, Lesotho, Malawi,
Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Rwanda, Republic of Congo, Benin, Gambia, Mali; honey has been classified as theforestry product.

81

hives by wild bee colonies does not take place, and unless there is an abundance ofplants coming to bloom in the surrounding, honey production is poor.

Peopleeventually come to realize through experience that unless they conserve andmanage the natural ecosystem appropriately, apiculture itself would not be able tokeep on going any more.
As seen above, by aligning the objective of apiculture with the orientation ofconservation of natural environment, in such regions, the apiculture not only serves
for improving people‟s livelihood and for developing new industries but also comesto hold a particular significance for the conservation of the natural environment.
Hence, the apiculture development has made it possible to raise people‟s awarenessof the natural environment and to lead them to engage in the conservation
activities.
In the context as described above, phases of conservation of naturalenvironment could be summarized into the following 6 categories:

1) Conservation of natural forest and natural vegetation (breeding grounds of wild
honey bees)
Since apiculture depends on swarms of wild colonies, the necessity ofconservation of wild bee colonies as the source is recognized. As activities resulting
from the recognition, the conservation of natural vegetation, habitat of wild bee
colonies, for their breeding grounds can be cited.

In Kenya one can still now

observe the examples of such a type of traditional efforts toward the conservation ofnatural vegetation.

2) Conservation of natural forest and natural vegetation (conservation of nectar
sources)In the apiculture which depends on the natural vegetation for nectar sources,
the richness of natural vegetation assures the richness of the nectar source andsustains the honey production. The ecological structure like this can be recognized
most readily by beekeepers from the viewpoint of economics that the natural82

vegetation as nectar sources is equivalent to the production of honey, andconstitutes the most important element in the principle of conservation. When theactivities of apiculture is introduced and developed, the more heavily a region
depends on the natural environment for nectar sources, the higher can become thelevel of improvement of awareness of conservation of natural vegetation(recognition that it is important to respect the forest preserve and to protect theremaining vegetation, from the viewpoint of conservation of nectar sources), and thelevel of responsive actions of the residents there.

3) Restoration and rehabilitation of natural vegetation
Beekeepers who have got conscious of the reduction of natural nectar sources
will become cooperative for the cause of restoration of natural vegetation. Moreover,highly conscious farmers and those depending more on apiculture are able to takeresponsive actions to facilitate the restoration of vegetation suitable for apicultureon their properties and farmland, such as the exclusion of animals from such areas
in order to secure the nectar sources. The reporter witnessed in Kenya actual
examples of such exclusion of animals practiced by certain farmers among thosehaving adopted apiculture as an occupation for living.

4) Assistance for restoration of vegetation by enhanced pollination (pollinator
therapy)
The activity of apiculture on its own increases the number of individual honeybees, and hence promotes the pollination by their intermediary visits, increases theseed production by plants of nectar sources and thus assists the acceleration ofrestoration of vegetation. Moreover, regarding a causal relationship with animal
production, in areas where the grazing of goats constitutes an important occupation
for living, the pods of leguminous plants such as Acacia species are often utilized asimportant forage 9 during the dry season, the factor which cannot be ignored
because of the possible effect of insect pollination on productivity of pods.

9 In the vicinity of Kitui of Kenya, the pods of Acacia tortilis are sold as forage for animals during the dry season.

835) Reduced expansion of agricultural landIf sufficient cash income is generated by apiculture, the necessity for
dependence on agricultural crops is reduced, and hence the necessity for expansionof agricultural land by felling and clearing natural forests diminishes. Under thecurrent situation that the reduction of forests has become a continuous trend, thisfact can be considered as an important activity of conservation in a different
connotation.

6) Reduction of cutting down pressure (conversion from charcoal production)
Although it does not apply to all areas, in many parts of semi-arid regions in
Africa, because of insufficient rainfalls, the crop productivity is low and the interval
between rainy seasons is long.

Consequently, at the time before and immediately

after the beginning of the rainy season, farmers often run out of provisions and haveto purchase food by cash. Many local residents lacking other means of earning cash,
such as selling of animals, practice charcoal production around this time to raise the
cash for purchasing food by selling the product to urban areas.

If apiculture is

introduced and cash is earned by the activity before the rainy season, the reductionof forests cut down by charcoal production can be expected.
Furthermore, among tree species used for charcoal production, there are many
species which are particularly important as nectar sources, including Acacia

mellifera, A. tortilis, A. polyacantha, and A. seyal. If apiculture can be introduced
and developed in those areas where these species still remain, it is likely that many
local residents would come to convert their attitude toward the forest trees,
recognizing that they are the nectar sources and not the crude material for
producing charcoal. Such conversion signifies a direct change of paradigm of
exploitation of existing forest trees from utilization by cutting down to that byconservation.
Moreover, since certain Acacia species bloom before the beginning of the rainyseason, if the introduction of apiculture enables beekeepers to harvest and sell

84

honey at this time, they will have the means to earn cash coincidentally with thefinancially difficult time before and after the beginning of the rainy season,presenting another direct solution for the problem of charcoal production.

In sucha context, apiculture is a very important activity for the conservation of naturalenvironment.

85

Chapter 5

5-1

Industrialization and high quality production

Products of apiculture – 8 gifts from honey bees

Honey bees collect from plants nectar (mainly sugars) and pollen (nutrients otherthan sugar) as food, and resin and sap as materials to make propolis for building
hives. Furthermore, royal jelly, a secretion from worker bees, beeswax, bee venom,
and pupae of male bees as “infant bees” are utilized widely in the sector of
api-therapy (therapy by honey bees). In addition, the utilization of pheromone andpollination can be said to be the honey bee products. Excepting pheromone which is
not so commonly used, people often talk about 8 gifts from honey bees. Particularly
the fact that all these products serve for the health of humans is noteworthy.

1) Honey
Although proportion may differ depending on the plant species of nectar
sources, on average, honey contains water (20 %), glucose (35 %), fructose (40 %),and sucrose (a few %). Because the principal contents, glucose and fructose, do notneed to be decomposed in the body and can be absorbed through intestines within
about 20 minutes, the honey can be said to be an excellent food as energy source,
and is reputed to be beneficial for invalids and suited for consumption after physicalexercises.
Furthermore, mineral substances and organic acids contained as tracecomponents make up the specific characteristics of each variety of honey.

Thosehoneys with high contents of minerals tend to be generally in dark color, and thosewith high contents of organic acids tend to have a rich taste. The particular
combination of these components creates so-called peculiarity of taste.
Honey has been valued highly as a sweetener since early times in humanhistory, can be consumed as it is as table honey, and also as an ingredient for86

preparing candies, conserved fruits, juices, cakes and cooked foods. It has a long
history of a very wide range of utilization, including that as crude materials forprocessing mead, reputed to be the oldest wine in the world, and for making
cosmetics.
Moreover, honey possesses a strong antibacterial property which not only
makes itself resistant to decomposition but also has enabled it to be used asdisinfectant for dressing external wounds and as preservative for storage of foods.
Recently its strong medicinal effects for the treatment of grave skin diseases andexternal wounds have been reevaluated and medical appliances exclusively
designed for its use have been developed. This situation is called the restoration ofrights of honey in medical treatment.

Furthermore, researches are in progress inwhich scientists expect to identify various effects out of it, including those of
antiphlogistics, blood-forming medicines, and cellular stimulants, etc.

Indeveloping countries, honey is used as a household medicine for disinfecting slightexternal wounds or for supplementing carbohydrates by adding it to water supplied
for caring the diarrhea caused by infectious diseases of digestive organs. For those
purposes, even a very small-scale production of honey can be considered to be
sufficient for satisfying the needs at household level.

2) Royal jelly
Royal jelly is a special kind of food that young worker bees of the age between
3 days and 13 days after emergence give to the queen bee and the larvae destined to
become queen bees. The ingredients of royal jelly consist mainly of pollens gatheredfrom flowers by workers. It is secreted based on nutrients that have been digested
and decomposed in the body of workers, in which protein components are refined at
hypopharyngeal glands and lipids (fatty acids) at mandibular glands. Contained
sugars derive from those in honey sacs which have been mixed.
Although in natural conditions only a very small amount is produced, atechnique to produce a large amount has been developed by exploiting the nature ofhoney bees that worker bees are eager to make queen bees when they are left
without a queen bee or when they are isolated away from the space where the queen

87bee is present. Formerly a royal cell made of beeswax was used, but nowadays
mostly an artificial royal cell made of plastic (small cup with a diameter less than
10 mm) is used as a device to which a larva of worker bee (both queen bee andworker bees develop from fertilized eggs) of less than 3 days old after hatching istransferred (process is called “larva transfer”) so that worker bees may be induced
to nurse it just as they nurse a lava to make a queen. With this method, theintroduced larva is removed 48 to 72 hours later and the royal jelly deposited at thebottom of artificial royal cell is harvested. The amount of the royal jelly collectablefrom one royal cell is very limited with only about 300 mg. The amount and theextent of acceptance of artificial royal cell by worker bees are largely influenced by
the amount of pollens available at a particular time. A large amount of collected
pollens constitutes also a favorable condition for the production of royal jelly.
On average, royal jelly contains water (66 %), carbohydrates (15 %), protein(11 %), lipids (7 %), and minerals (1 %), making up a highly nutritious food with wellbalanced contents of all nutrients, unlike honey consisting mainly of carbohydrates.
In this regard, royal jelly can be used without processing as supplement food, andsince it is highly valued for its good effects on health based on the knowledge about
its physiologically active properties mainly related to protein contents, it is widelyused as an auxiliary crude material in manufacturing diverse kinds of health food,and furthermore is added to cosmetic products as an ingredient having moisturizing
effects.
While commercialized products are diverse, in Japan they are classified into 3
large groups, fresh royal jelly, dried royal jelly (lyophilized powder), and industriallyprocessed royal jelly. Commercial production of royal jelly has reached the level of asignificant sub-sector in apiculture in certain countries of the West and theSoutheast Asia, but veritable results in Africa are almost nonexistent.

3) Propolis
Propolis is a resinous mixture that honey bees gather from plants and use forfilling gaps in combs to protect the colony from the intrusion of external enemies
and ward off the cold. It is a sticky solid material deriving from exudates secreted88

by plants as defensive substances to protect new buds, new leaves and wounds
which are collected by honey bees and mixed with their own secretions, presenting
dark green to dark brown appearances.
Honey bees smear propolis on hive entrances, gaps between frames and hive
box, and back of cover, etc. to keep the interior of hive clean to maintain health.
That is to say, conceivably honey bees gather propolis in order to make theenvironment inside the hive suitable for their life by utilizing its stickiness andplasticity. Incidentally, the honey bee species which has the habit to gather the
propolis is only the European honey bee among 9 species existing in the world, andthe honey bees indigenous to
Asia including Japanese honey bee do not have the habit to utilize the propolis.
And within European species, differences are observed among sub-species
concerning the manner of utilization.
Propolis is known to have beneficial effects for human health maintenance,
containing, as useful ingredients, components derived from plants, particularlygroups of substances which present strong physiologically active effects, including
flavonoids, terpenoids, and derivatives of cinnamic acid, etc. Only, since all the
ingredients are derived from plants, they differ depending on the kinds of source
plants that honey bees utilize in making propolis, and therefore in spite of a verylarge number of research results available, it should be noted that those effects or
results reported cannot universally be attributable to all the propolis.
European honey bee species are known to utilize specific plant species assources of propolis. In Europe, the varieties of propolis derived from poplar, whitebirch, alder, and willow have been recognized since early times. While information
about the propolis produced in Africa is scarce, since the knowledge about the
propolis made by honey bees utilizing indigenous plants will sometimes leadretroactively to the discoveries of new useful plant resources in local regions, it ishighly advisable to be vigilant on this aspect of propolis in the areas where theextension of apiculture is possible.

894) Pollen
Honey bees visiting flowers make balls out of pollens on stamens, which they
put into pollen baskets on hind legs, transport to hives, store in comb cells and use
as food.

By eating the pollens, worker bees also produce royal jelly.

Beekeepers install pollen collectors in front of hive entrances so that pollens
can be collected by causing the pollens to be scraped off the hind legs when honeybees pass through holes only large enough to let them manage to get through.
Pollens as they are are moist and gather fungi, and hence have to be dried
immediately for conservation. The dried pollens also maintain the same granularform as that found on legs of honey bees, and many commercial products are offeredin this state without further processing.
Effective ingredients differ depending on kinds of flowers but generally arehighly nutritious ones, including amino acids of higher order (containing all theessential amino acids), vitamins, enzymes, glucose, fructose, etc. Pollens are said tobe difficult to digest in human digestive organs unless hard cellular membranes arebroken, and hence nowadays processed products with excellent efficiency fordigestion are also commercialized.
In Japan royal jelly is more likely than not more popular as a health food, but
in the West pollens are generally better known and often utilized as toppings on
cereals.

5) Beeswax
A honey bee hive is made of beeswax which is secreted by honeybees, and theindustrial product derived from it by melting it is particularly and commonly called“wax”. Beeswax is a resinous substance that honey bees synthesize in their bodyand secrete through 4 pairs of wax glands located on the ventral side of abdomen,
and the principal ingredients are cerotic acid and myricyl palmitate, essentiallysolid esters of high polymers.
In primitive type of beekeeping, it is produced as a byproduct of honeyproduction, and hence is basically a product with a long history of utilization just90

like honey. It is no more a byproduct of honey production, but it used to be consumed
in a large quantity as a crude material for manufacturing candles for religious
functions in churches. So much so that at a certain time the principal objective of
beekeeping was the production of beeswax.
Because of its hydrophobicity, it was smeared on ships or containers and also
used for repairing broken containers. It is still used widely as a crude material for
manufacturing candles in both the East and the West, being preferred for the meritthat they emit less soot and have a better aroma compared with candles made ofparaffin from petroleum. Currently it is also popularly used in the sector of
handicrafts as coating agents, and for batik and wax molds. Since humans cannot
digest beeswax, it has no significance in terms of nutritional value, but in foodprocessing industry its utility is significant as desiccants for diverse kinds of food,or as coating material for fabrication of medicines like sugar-coated pills.
Cosmetics industry is the largest market for beeswax, consuming it as base forcreams and lipsticks, exploiting the specific characteristics of beeswax that it works
for maintaining the form, increasing consistency, or making the main product readyto stick to objects. Other uses of beeswax include those for the base ofpharmaceutical ointments, suppositories, crude materials for manufacturing
traditional Chinese medicines, lubricants to reduce breaking of threads in textile
industry, confectionery ingredients, and materials for dentistry. Furthermore, thecrayons made from beeswax have merits that they produce clear colors, and becauseof high melting point they do not stain the hand easily.
Diverse areas of its use further extend to manufacturing of such products as
those for finishing leather goods, insulation, wax paper, musical instruments,
waxing materials for grafting, printing, fabrication of materials for casting molds,
oils for anticorrosion and waterproofing, various kinds of greases, etc. In particularbeeswax is used in diverse sectors of manufacturing industry as the agent tofacilitate the separation of molds from cast products, where there is no efficient
substitute to replace beeswax, the situation which is creating a strong demand evenin the manufacturing process of electronic parts in high technology.
Beeswax is derived from melted substances collected from honeycombs, bracecombs, and honey caps. Although often it is confused with propolis, it is a different

91

product with completely different ingredients. Since propolis is smeared also on
comb cells, aged honeycombs appear dark and the value of the beeswax made bymelting them is also low. On the contrary, the beeswax collected from brace combs
and honey caps contains few impurities, showing a shade of yellow, and produces
wax of good quality. Consequently, it is needed to melt separately the twocomponents when wax is made, to see to it that they are not mixed up.
Regardingthemethods

ofprocessing

wax,

there

is

the

one

by

heating-compressing with the heat generated by gas or firewood, and the other bysolar heat wax processing. The processing method by melting comb materials withsolar heat accumulated in a hand-made wooden box which is lined with aluminum
sheets on the inner wall and covered with a glass panel is recommendable in view ofthe location of Kenya rich with solar energy as well as from the viewpoint of ecology.
In this case, if melted material is passed through a wire netting of meshes of 2 to 3
mm, it will filter out gross impurities other than wax and enable the collection of
wax of good quality.

The state of product at this stage is called “wax”, and when it

is further refined and bleached, the white to yellow-tinted “bleached wax” isproduced. As bleaching process, there are 3 methods: the solar bleaching which uses
ultraviolet rays of sunlight, adsorption/filtering bleaching by such materials asactivated carbon, and chemical bleaching by a bleaching agent.
The main compounds constituting beeswax of European honey bees are: esters
combining higher fatty acids and higher alcohols with a content of approximately
70 %; free fatty acids (approx. 15 %); free alcohol (1 to 2 %); hydrocarbons (13 %);and a certain amount of glycerides. Other physical properties are: specific gravity,
around 0.85; melting point, 65℃; acid number, AV 5 to 22; iodine number, IV 5 to 15;
saponification number, SV 80 to 100. Beeswax produced in Africa is highly
appreciated for the reputation that it possesses better qualities usable for many
purposes, compared with the product from Asia.

6) Larvae of bees
Pupae of male honey bees (recently including larvae of queen bees as
byproduct of royal jelly production) are consumed as a delicacy food and a health92

food. It is said that they contain a very high level of amino acids (certain results ofanalyses show contents of around 40 %) and are rich with other nutrients, including
vitamins and minerals like phosphor, calcium, iron and zinc.
In China larvae of bees have been consumed as a food since early times andactually were described in the book of Materia Medica, “Shen-Nung Pen-Ts'ao”, ca.
500 A.D., in which they were classed as one of the superior medicines and noted as“they are effective for curing various ailments by removing causes, and habitualconsumption is beneficial for improving general health status physical as well as
spiritual of humans”.
As a health food, a capsulated freeze-dried product is sold commercially andthe demand for it is increasing recently.
Furthermore, dehydrated powder (powder of larvae of male bees) is known tobe effective for rearing ladybirds and lacewings as natural enemies applicable for
agricultural purposes.

7) Bee venom
Honey bees possess a stinger and use it as the only arm against harmful
enemies. Its venom contains amines like histamine, enzymes like melitin andphospholipase, and apamine as a nerve toxin. These venom components, as they are,are physiologically active substances effective for human body. In Japan sinceancient times a medical treatment utilizing honey bee stingers (with venom) has
been practiced as the bee stinger cure. In Germany and Rumania, by means of anapparatus which can extract bee venom only, it is used as a material for making
medicines like ointments.
Apitherapy, with the concept that bee products are to be used for humanhealth, originally in a narrower sense of the term, signified the cure with bee venom.
It is mainly effective for those illnesses which are difficult to cure by modern
medical treatments such as arthritis and rheumatism, establishing a place in thedomain of health care as an alternative method of treatment.
The risks associated with bee venom treatments essentially concerns the93allergic reaction to bee venom, and hence currently clinical researches are going on
to characterize general as well as harmful reactions to bee venom.
There are actual cases of application of apitherapy concept contributing to thehealth enhancement of local residents in developing countries: the representativesof the apitherapy committee of the International Conference of Apiculture haveestablished apitherapy sanatoria in Cuba and Burkina Faso to help people byutilizing not only the bee venom but also various products of honey bees.

8) Pollination
Although, strictly speaking, it is inappropriate to treat the element ofpollination as a product of apiculture, it constitutes an essential part in the efforts
of apiculture development in developing countries to have the importance of its
function well understood by the people concerned. Moreover, since, in the apiculture
sector, pollinator bees or the queen bees which are reared for breeding colonies ofpollinator bees are propagated and sold commercially, the colonies of honey beesand queen bees on their own can be regarded as products.
Because the visits of honey bees effect pollination of flowers of crop plants,
they are introduced in many countries for the production of fruits, vegetables andseeds of forage crops. In Japan, honey bees are utilized at a high rate in thehorticultural production in green houses like the cases of growing of strawberry andmelons in plastic houses. They are also used extensively in zones growing fruit trees
like cherry and apple where many honey bee hives are installed during the bloom.
The economic impact due to increased production of agricultural crops throughthe fruiting promoted by the pollination effected by visits of honey bees is very much
substantial and its magnitude is reputed to be larger than from 30 to 100 times asmuch as the scale of total combined production of apiculture including honey and allother products.
The development of beekeeping specialized in pollination of crops may befeasible also in developing countries, but regrettably it can be admitted that thecontribution by honey bees in the productivity improvement of agricultural crops is94not always understood well even in industrialized countries. Since the honey bee isan insect susceptible to pesticide effects, the utilization of honey bees essentiallyhas a potential to be a factor leading to the reduction of chemicals, but in reality
such a case is still rare. However, in the future the scenario will presumably take avery important position.
And above all the largest product of apiculture is the fact that, while on one
hand it provides products like honey, it is, on the other hand, contributing not only
to the conservation of ecosystem on agricultural lands but also to that of natural
ecosystem, without inflicting destruction on the global environment.

95

5-2

High quality production

In the present-day context, the production “with high quality” in apiculture is
not necessarily the output from a system of high technical level. In the case of honey,
impurities present are fewer in the honey obtained by compressing only the combs
filled with honey which beekeepers selectively take out from top bar hives than in
the one obtained by compressing the entire combs in hives collected by the method
resembling traditional honey hunting, and the impurities get still fewer in the
product harvested from modern bee hives with frames in which a centrifuge can beutilized for extraction. Regarding the production of mono-floral honey (that fromflowers of a single plant species) in which honey harvesting is repeated within ashort period, without modern beekeeping technology, the honey of high quality inthat sense cannot be obtained. On the other hand, in modern beekeeping theincidences of various diseases and parasitic mites often create problems. While inmany countries chemical agents are used for prevention and treatment, theproblems due to the residues of these substances do not occur in the case of
traditional beekeeping which can ill afford the application of these chemicals.
Regarding the production of beeswax, because combs are used for a long period,and miticides applied in hives easily infiltrate beeswax and accumulate in it,
presumably the products from traditional systems are superior in the level ofquality. The absence of contamination with chemicals or their residues is an
important essential quality of products from the viewpoint of quality, and in thisrespect it is an indicator of high quality. Considering that many products of honeyare classified as health foods and that non-food beeswax also is used extensively asa raw material for manufacturing foods and cosmetics, it is revealed that the factor
which impairs the quality most significantly is the residues of intentionally usedchemicals rather than simple impurities of no harm. Consequently it is known thatthe modernization of production techniques does not necessarily leads to the
production of products of high quality.
To be sure the technical level of apiculture in developing countries is often low
from the viewpoint of efficiency of investment, but if one applies the criteria of96

product quality, the project in such countries does not always stand at a
disadvantaged position. When one can evaluate relevantly the product that is theoutput of production activities, without questioning their external form, thebeekeeping aiming at high quality products in developing countries has great
potential.

97

Chapter 6

6-1

Business model of community trade

Community trade

In this chapter I would like to examine the question of “apiculture
development in developing countries”, from the angle of a marketer as well as fromthe viewpoint of marketing. Consequently, the manner of treatment of subject may
be somewhat fuzzy, which I would like to ask readers to tolerate and complement byreferring to other chapters and sections for detailed information.

Incidentally,

since the present reporter is a business person with the occupation of distribution,
it would be inevitable to take the view of pursuing business potential for which also
the understanding of readers is sincerely requested.

6-1-1

What is community trade?

It is only since the “Project of development of shea butter industry in West
Africa” implemented by JETRO in 2005 that I have been provided with anopportunity to participate in a project in the framework of official development
assistance (ODA). The objective of the project was to conduct field surveys covering
Nigeria and Ghana in order to draft a proposition concerning the potential of shea
butter industry.
As far as I am aware, business, let alone trade, has been and has had to besomething fair and equitable since ancient times when people practiced barter.
Accordingly, I tried to find a phrase better than commonly used “fair trade”, in theactivity report and at the debriefing session on the shea butter project, andproposed the new phrase, “community trade”.
＊ The time is passing. The point remarked in Fair Trade “From now on let‟s
trade with the spirit of reciprocity” is now developing to “Let‟s solve the98community problems through trade”.
It may have been otherwise in the remote antiquities when human existence
was based on hunting and gathering, but humans have always made livelihood byrunning one kind of “business” or another.

Considering the matter in this way, let‟sadvance the argument forward.
Here I am going to assess the state of market of Japan, one of the major
consuming and industrialized countries of the world, from the viewpoint ofmarketing. The reason for it is because business is the matter of balance between
supply and demand. In other word, unless there is demand, no supply can exist andis necessary. Although one uses the term “balance of demand-supply”, the fact isthat no supply is possible without demand. Key word is business. There is anotherimportant aspect. It is the verification of development stage of people. Because allthat matters is the fact that the human action taken vis-à-vis other person isbusiness.

6-1-2

Marketing analysis of the Japanese market

Japan has come behind the early industrialized countries in the West. It has
tried to westernize itself and has made single-minded efforts to catch up with andget ahead of Western countries. Heavy industries playing the role of locomotive
followed by light industries, and after passing through the high economic growth, it
has managed to enter the club of major industrialized countries of the world. Lately
people are certainly enjoying at least the material richness.

A view maintains thatmaterial richness is not what counts, but that is not our subject, so let‟s advanceforward…… It is simple to dismiss the material richness and end the argument, but
I think that the material wealth actually constitutes the fundamental motive toenable humans to develop. Very few people can live without wants like saints ormore perfectly like a legendary wizard, and the majority of people would be able tobecome developed only after experiencing the processes that Japanese people havegone through. So far, Japanese people have pursued material civilization revolving

99

around goods. Owing to a quality to be proud of and rarely found in the world, that
80 % of general public consider themselves as belonging to the middle class, they all
together have got wealthy, but all what they have done is a lifestyle seeking to havea set of goods. And now people want to rest a little and seek spiritual healing which
has become a fad.
What comes next? I suppose that the development revolving around material
goods cannot be expected so much. The developing stage continues further in the
future as well. Only the dimension of development would differ.

Shifting from thedimension of development so far, people would advance to other dimension to seek
the next process of development. No, it is also thought to have already started.

6-1-3

.

Analysis of business and distribution stages

In this section, I would like to consider the business out of the 2 factors
pointed out at the end of section 6-1-1.

・Supply and demand
As stated previously, business is the matter of demand and supply. Whatthey call the state of equilibrium between demand and supply is the market
which is generally referred to as a formed market.

・Stages of distribution and the structure of profits
Please observe the schema below.

Manufacturer (25~30) ――
wholesaler at consuming sites
consumers

wholesaler at production site

(50~55) ――

(100)

100

retailer(40~45) ――(60~65) ――

generalThis roughly shows a typical flow of distribution. Analysis of this flow can bemade as follows:
Elements are: manufacturer (production) – wholesaler at the production site(collection, shipping to wholesaler at consuming sites) - wholesaler at consuming
sites (collection and shipping to retailer)- retailer (display and vending). Of course,
prices differ depending on stages of distribution. In the example shown, cases withsundries were assumed and the details are as follows: a retailer purchases for 60 to
65 yen an article which general consumers buy for 100 yen, earning hence a grossmargin of 35 to 40 yen; both the wholesaler at production site and the one at
consuming site earn a margin of 10 to 15 yen because they deal with a large
quantity but only collect and deliver the merchandise; manufacturer makes aneffort to be able to realize profits at that price. The distribution industry has been
operating under such structure so far, but circumstances are changing rapidly. That
is what they call the notion of exclusion of wholesalers or that of non-utility ofwholesalers. Why? Here come the home delivery services. The rapid expansion ofhome delivery services has transformed drastically the stages of distribution. The
business logistics which used to depend uniquely on freight services by rail or long
hauling trucks have changed and been innovated. Goods are delivered to consumers
from producers on the following day of the order.

・Complex industry, new business model
Industrial activities are classified into different stages. They are so-called
primary industry (agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and mining), secondary
industry (manufacturing), and tertiary industry (marketing and services industry).
(Certain views also propose the fourth category for educational industry and thefifth for health industry.)
Many of goods and services are delivered to general consumers after passing
through these stages. These processes are called distribution, where a class oftertiary industry that is situated the closest to final consumers and practices

101retailing is mainly called the distribution industry, and the realizable added value
increases normally as the stage of industry advances from the primary through thesecondary to the tertiary. In those days when in Japan commodities were lacking
and heavy and big industries were at the height of their prosperity, the primarysector held a dominant position in the determining of prices, but nowadays whencommodities are abundant and light and small manufacturing and service
industries are flourishing, the power of pricing is shifting to the tertiary side.
Probably perceiving this trend, in the sector of apparel merchandising alreadya new type of operation has appeared and is thriving. (A type of operation implies a
new mechanism, a new framework and a new approach, without limiting the scopeof operation in a single specialized occupation like butcher, fishmonger, or grocery,which is typically represented by the cases of super markets and convenience
stores.)
The type of operation cited is called SPA (specialty store retailer of private
apparel), a mode of conducting business integrating vertically all processes
extending from manufacturing to retailing, that is, a new business model ofmanufacturing-retailing. The trendsetter enterprises are represented by GAP, etc.
Taking into consideration these phenomena together, it is deduced that the businessis best organized by seizing in a complex context all stages of industrial category,
namely, combining primary, secondary and tertiary industries together to integrate
all into a single entity (I propose to call it complex industry). In order to be on thewinning side, there is always an essential point.

6-1-4

Marketing for community trade

So far I have stated only generalities; now I would like to argue in more
specific terms.

・ Business in late participating and developing countries

102

Probably

there

shouldbe manyofthe industries

which

are

infinitesimally close to primary category. This situation is quite wellunderstandable and cannot be helped, but I would like to ask you to consider
them in a perspective of the complex industry as described in the preceding
section. Raw materials are available but their sales as they are will generate
only limited profits. The issue is how to add more value to them. Processing is
the key. Raw materials have to be processed from primary products tosecondary products. In addition, their qualities have to be raised to reach thelevel demanded by Japanese market. Because the grade of quality that is
accepted by Japanese market which is known to be the one of the mostselective for quality in the world can also be accepted by markets all over theworld.

・ Appeal to mind
Since about 20 years ago, I have always been conscious principally of theimportance of creation of matters, by concocting a motto “From material tomatter, then to mind”. It was inspired by an assumed principle of marketingthat human being will seek for matters once he become affluent with materials.
Fortunately, the world progressed in that direction, and the assumption has
not turned out to be irrelevant, and now I am strongly conscious of the next
phase that concerns mind. I am complacent of having added the words “then tomind” to the motto. The age of that phase is in sight; or rather I should saythat it has already started.

When I was looking at pieces of soap made in

Ghana in the shop, the brand which a shopper happened to choose was one
made in Ghana out of those displayed together with products made by theJapanese or the Americans. At that moment, I felt keenly that the productinteracted with the client in the sphere of mind.

That‟s it. To be sure, what is

important is the mind. The client is aware of the existence of producers.

Hereis hidden a clue. That does not suggest demanding compassion. It is a matterof a story. Those who are seriously exerting the best efforts can always findmany supporters.

This aspect of the matter is a great merit and has to be

utilized to the maximum advantage.

103

・ 4 most important elements of business
It is said that men, material, money, and information constitute the 4principal elements of business. Setting money aside, important are men,material and information. Let assume that men don‟t make much difference. I
think that men are all alike and the thing other men can do can be done byanyone. Anyone, if he is taught, understands, and tries to do a thing, he canaccomplish it. Only there could be the difference in speed of action or that ofwhether he accomplishes it skillfully or badly. If the factor of men works like
that, the rest which counts is material. How to make it, how to process it, whatkind of product to make, and how to combine available materials……it is thequestion of creative thinking.
The essence of marketing is “who delivers how what product to whom bymaking one feel how?” And information should not be neglected either. It isessential to know well the market, the sector, and the world.

6-1-5

Exploring the potential of beekeeping business

While it is said that the number of effects realizable by beekeeping is 8, that ofsuch effects treated as factors of business may be about 5. They are honey, royal jelly,
propolis, pollens and wax (beeswax). I believe that the wax is the very product thathas the potential to be able to make business in the international arena. Honey has
a saturated market, and hence it is difficult for it to enter the world market, unlessit has certain highly differentiating characteristics (such as particularity andcharacteristics of flowers of nectar sources).

Royal jelly, propolis and pollens also

have already established markets and would require equipment and technology ofan advanced level to process them into salable products. Under the circumstances,beeswax still holds a promise for profits.
Beeswax is employed in unexpected products like cosmetics, capsules for
medical purposes, CD, forming of foods, building materials for preventing sickhouse syndromes, etc., but, to go back to the real roots, since ancient times it has

104been used essentially for making candles throughout the world. Candles, namely,
beeswax candles! I found during the visit to Kenya this time that there were hardly
any cases of utilization of beeswax. Furthermore, even when beekeepers sell it towholesalers, the prices are reportedly at best one fifth of those for honey. In certain
cases, it was given out to merchants for nothing. What a waste, indeed!.
Incidentally I hear that about 2,800 ton of honey and 4 ton of beeswax are
harvested yearly in Japan. This means that in Kenya, the amount of beeswax of 10
times as much as the current production or more should be able to be produced. The
material is there!
There comes the business. The commercialization of material itself, i.e.
beeswax, has also a potential. According to the information provided by a Japanese
workshop of candles, the domestic products are sold for more than 1,500 yen per kg,
and imported beeswax from Tasmania costs between 2,000 and 2,600 yen per kg,
depending on degrees of refinement. Don‟t throw it away! It should be harvested
and sold. But simple sale of the material is not yet enough. Business should beconceived as a complex industry. Beeswax has to be harvested and made into
candles within a business unit. Because certain beekeepers are said to go tomarkets to buy candles, it could be expected that beekeepers can make them not
only for their own use but also for selling to cater to the demand of domestic market.
If the products are candles of 100 % pure beeswax, the world market is waiting for it.
The markets will be those of the West, and the Japanese one as well. Particularly inJapan in recent years, candles have become from seasonal merchandise catering toChristmastide demand to standard articles consumed throughout the year by thoseseeking healing experience and by young women. Besides, they can be mademanually, and more than anything else, required equipment is insignificant. Thinkin terms of complex industry model to add value to the product!

6-1-6

Making beeswax candles from beehives＊ Refined wax

105

Honey bees construct new combs not only on frames in a hive cavity but
also on external parts and in casually found gaps. Moreover, they close cellswith caps composed of wax when they are filled with plenty of honey forconservation. Harvesting of honey is carried out by removing those “honeycaps” with a knife and then centrifuging the entire honeycombs. Harvested
and refined materials from remnants and disused combs make “beeswax”.
From 1,000 g of combs, about 700 g of beeswax is produced.

＊ Method for obtaining beeswax suitable for making candles
Color of honeycomb;
Color of honeycombs varies depending on seasons, locations, and flowers.
The reason for the variation is due to the color of pollens dissolved in thenectar taken by honey bees.

Moreover, old honeycombs are turbid andblackish in color, and hence not suited for use as beeswax. Color and aroma
vary according to locations, kinds of flowers and seasons, but the variation is
also the characteristics of beeswax.

＊ Process of filtering
Beeswax has a high viscosity and is hence difficult to filter with cloth offine meshes. If the powdery remnants of honeycombs are present in candles,
they will block the flow of melted wax through a wick, and prevent smoothflaming.
Melting – remove gross scraps by filtering with a screen with meshesof the size of a tea strainer– the primary filtering with cloth like linen–

the secondary filtering with cloth of a type of gauze with a little bit finer
meshes–collection after waiting for the sedimentation of powdery

components like pollens–

hardening. (Alternatively harden the entire

material together with sediments and scrape them off after taking out thehardened mass out of the container.)106

＊ Method of melting
Cases of treating a small amount (around 5 kg) of refined wax＊ Apparatus for making wax by solar heat
Inexpensive apparatus which makes beeswax by the solar
heat outdoors by throwing in scraps of honeycombs at all time. If
it is covered with wire netting, contamination with rubbish is
relatively lessened.

Accumulated beeswax is melted as it is andfiltered.

＊ Boiling the material in a large quantity of water for melting
Impurities are dissolved and deposited in hot water, facilitating thefiltering.
However, after waiting for solidification to separate beeswax from the
mixture and dehydrate it, the process passes to further melting once more tofilter the product, necessitating the expenditure for more fuel and time.

＊ Cases of treating a large quantity
Honeycombs are put into a large pot and heated directly on a gas burnerand melted. Large quantities of rubbish and residue are produced and have to
be separated by squeezing by putting them in filter bags which are compressedby a pressing machine like the one shown in the picture
below.
Compressing can minimize the loss. Subsequent
filtering is carried out through the normal procedures, but
due to compressing, products contain a little bit more of107fine deposits.

＊ Basic materials for candle making
・Case of use of molds
Polycarbonate molds

Aluminum molds

Stainless steel molds

Ready-made molds are available with diameters of 2 inches (about 5 cm)
and upward, but those with smaller diameters have to be fabricated. Acrylic
pipes are available in increments by 10 mm.
・Wicks
A thick and strong type of wick that is called square braid wick isnormally used for making beeswax candles. Square braid wick is designed sothat it can suck up efficiently the wax of high viscosity by surface tension andalso tolerate the higher combustion temperature compared with that ofparaffin candles.
＜Combustion test of wicks＞
The thickness of wicks of candles varies depending on candle diametersand forms, or the properties of wax.
Since combustion varies depending on room temperatures and air
circulation due to air conditioning facilities, certain standard conditions aremaintained for repeated combustion tests to determine the optimum thicknessof wicks.

108

WicksCut wicks

Washers

・Washer
Washer is a device to keep a wick in place at the center. It enables a wickto burn until it comes to the end without falling down. It is used also for
extinguishing the flame safely. The limited bore of 2 mm cannot accommodate
wicks thicker than that specification.
・Mold lubricant
The interior surfaces of molds are smeared with lubricant to facilitate theseparation of cast products. Without applying this, candles cannot be extracted
from molds. Any kinds of vegetable oil (salad oil, for example) can be used.
・Additive oil
Combustion efficiency of beeswax candles improves by oxidation.
Assuming that the beeswax is used immediately after refining, it isrecommended to use additive oil, because the oxidation is accelerated by theaddition.
Moreover, it will lower the viscosity, making the beeswax more
malleable for processing.
Generally oils like that of macadamia are used, but local products canbe used as well unless they modify aroma. This can be dispensed with. In thatcase no extra cost will accrue, and besides the claim of 100 % pure beeswax canbe justified.

＊ Tools for candle making - When natural cooling at room temperature is assumed
・ Stand for melting and keeping warm of beeswax. Stand for pouring in. Stand109

for cooling and hardening.
・ Stand for trimming and conduction of wicks. Stand for packaging forcommercialization. Shelves for storage. (If possible, these tools are mostdesirably installed in another cool and shaded room. High room temperatures
soften beeswax, making it easily stick to fingers, and candles become fused one
another, making it difficult to finish the products.)
・ Molds, wicks, gas appliance, large hot plate, deep pan, shallow pan, large ladle(in stainless), beakers (1000 ml, 500ml. White enameled beakers are
preferable for enabling better visibility of colors and impurities.)・ Thermometer（100℃）, vegetable oil（mold lubricant）, tool to smear molds withoil, pincers.
・ Scissors, cutter blades, cooking timer, waste cloth (plenty) for cleaning pansand beakers
・ Work gloves, scraper, packing tape, etc.

＊

Candle making by using molds＜Determination of size＞
i)

Conforming to ready-made molds(specifications such as diameter andheight are fixed.)ii) Making molds (molds for pillar type products can be fabricated from pipes of110vinyl chloride or acrylics)＜Selection of the face of mold that will make the top face of product＞
i)

Selection of the bottom face of mold as the top face of product – the finishingof the top face of mold needs not be elaborate so much, because itcorresponds to the bottom face of product.

ii)

Selection of the top face of mold as the top face of product ― although themanner of fixation of wicks makes difference, if a rod is inserted, a candle
arousing a sense of handicrafts is produced.

＜Determining how to fix wicks＞
i)Fixing directly on mold
After introducing a wick into a mold, it is needed to close gaps by
puttying or sticking packing tape to prevent the leak of melted wax, aprocess requiring considerable time in mass production.

ii)

Installation of a metal rod.
A metal rod with a diameter corresponding to wick thickness isinstalled in advance on the mold before melted wax is poured into. It is
extracted after wax cools off and gets hardened. A wick with washer isinserted into the formed bore.

＜Fabrication procedures＞
Smear mold lubricant on interior surface. (A vegetable oil will do.)↓Install the wick impregnated with wax↓
Pour into the mold melted wax (about 80℃, variable depending on room
temperature, though)↓111

As the surface sags down, bore a hole there and pour in more wax (several
times depending on diameter and height).
↓
After hardening, extract product out of mold.
↓Wipe off oil from the surface, after trimming, pack the product.

When beeswax is melted, bees and insects, sometimes bears, swarm about.
Bears aside, screen doors are needed.
Because of high viscosity, once beeswax gathers dust, it does not come off. The
maintenance of workshop cleanliness is important.

＊ An example of suggested layout of candle workshop

Room for preparation for shipment
and storage of products●●

Room for melting and keeping warm
● of beeswax

Workshop＜Room for melting and keeping warm of beeswax＞
・Natural cooling under room temperature is assumed.
・In order not to raise room temperature, it is preferable to melt the wax
outdoors or in a different room (beware of insects when it is done outdoors.)
・Keeping warm could also be better accomplished in a different room rather
than in the workshop.

112

Workshop room is equipped with stand for pouring, that for cooling,
and that for fixing wicks. Candles extracted from molds are left on the standfor cooling for 24 hours to harden.
In the room for preparation for shipment and storage of products,
candles made on previous day are inspected, packed and put into storage
shelves. The surrounding of storage shelves is covered with black cloth withgood aeration to prevent exposure to ultraviolet rays. Beeswax is susceptible
to ultraviolet rays and if exposed, the quality deteriorates by loosing colors.
Cool and shaded environment is desirable.

6-1-7

Method for making taper candle by hand dipping

As methods for making candles, in addition to the previously descried one bymolding, there is one by manual rolling, but the most traditional and simple method
is that by hand dipping. This is the origin of candle making and has been practiced
since ancient times all over the world. This method requires only a few pieces ofequipment and little cost.
The method consists of simple repetitions of dipping of wicks in melted wax tolet them grow in size. Because it is handmade, the product assumes a natural
tapered form of the Western style which the method by molding cannot duplicate.
However, the commercialized holders of taper candles seem to be standardized, for
an unknown reason, internationally for the size of insertion slot to be fixed at 22mm, and hence it is needed to adapt the base to fit to this dimension. Besides, thedepth of containers for melting wax needs to be greater than the length of candles.
Because beeswax is relatively soft, if candles are kept in a horizontal position
during storage, they are liable to warp. It is recommended to make them in a pairforming a loop, so that they can be stored in a hanging position. The same
precaution would be needed in marketing processes.

113

I have attempted to make candles by using the beeswax acquired during thesurvey in Kenya by hand dipping procedures.

Seeing the results of actual

fabrication, the craftsman of workshop in Japan expressed a view that the beeswax
of Kenya was a genuine natural material of excellent quality, and asserted that thiswas a kind of product people would wish to buy, and gave his assurance that it
would sell without fail. Finished candles retained the strong aroma of honey andappeared to be a high grade product. Incidentally, for that trial fabrication, thedipping process was repeated 29 times and the base of candles was made to grow to
22 mm.
The top ends of a pair of wicks are fixed to a support bar and their lower ends
are connected to a heavy object. Suspended from the top support bar held by hands,
each pair of wicks is dipped once at a time into melted beeswax in the melting pot.
Wicks are immersed quickly but lifted relatively slowly. They are arranged andsuspended on a cooling and drying rack of simple construction as shown in the114

picture. Dipping is repeated in sequence. Drying for 24 hours will almost accomplish
hardening, but it would require about a week of drying for obtaining the productready for shipping.

6-1-8

Proposals for the apiculture development in Kenya

The above sections have only described a rough report of reporter‟s study ofthe subject matter, presenting facts, observations, and suggestions for further
development from the viewpoint of marketing vis-à-vis the keynote theme“Development of beekeeping in developing countries and practical procedures –Case study in Africa –“. Essential point is the need to gain the wealth throughconducting business, by following the steps of progressive development of humansociety. In order to accomplish the development, there would be no other choice but
to work and work really very hard. An old Japanese saying wisely put it in a phrase“Poverty is a stranger to industry” or “A hard worker will never know poverty”. I
really believe that the firstly important thing is to seek to earn income. The key toearning income is the added value. In our subject matter, the opportunity for added
value could be found in the materials and byproducts from among products of
apiculture that are not being exploited currently. No new costs will be required for
fixture, and the markets are ready to accept the products. I eagerly wish that people
would try it, the project of hand-made beeswax candles, by all means.
In order to succeed in the project, one of the essential 4 elements of business,
namely, the information is needed. Japan has been implementing many
development aid projects. I believe that Japan should emphasize the provision of115

information in the aid projects in future. Regarding the target level of assistance, it
is desirable to identify the relevant assistance measures and the relevant programsof provision of assistance equipment, by accurately assessing the present stage ofdevelopment of the beneficiary society, through the reflection on historical stages ofdevelopment that Japan experienced in the past.
In conclusion, I have gained insight on the matter in my own way. In any
efforts for accomplishing something, one has to have an appropriate partner orcounterpart. I came across one NGO called SITE. In my perception, theorganization seems to be ready for making a partner for starting a project ofcommunity trade. For this time, I have got little knowledge about the existence ofsimilar organizations, but there could be other ones. I am imagining a scenario tocreate a case of business based on the beekeeping that humans have been practicing
since 5,000 years ago, in order to exploit it for the development of local communities.
And I am thrilled at thinking of helping through it also the development of Kenya.

116

6-2

Practical procedures for export and import of honey bee
products

Not only in Kenya but also in any other countries, when one tries to export
honey bee products to Japan or other countries, the first problem concerns their
quality. Particularly when the product is imported for the first time, the inspection
at the exporting country is the most important step. In this section the practicalprocedures relevant to export and import are discussed, focusing on two
commodities, honey and beeswax.
Regarding Kenya, among honey bee products, the possibility of export andimport is believed to be limited only to honey and beeswax. Regarding the honeyalso, similarly to the cases of propolis and pollens, although it may have thepossibility of being established as brand products depending on future development,
the quality is greatly influenced by the difference in source plant species.
Other honey bee products, royal jelly and bee venom, are not produced
currently. Moreover, because the import of honey bees and queen bees as those of
breeding stock is prohibited, they are not taken into consideration.

1) Practice of inspection of honeyIf the commodity in question is honey, firstly it has to be inspected for “taste”,“aroma”, and “color” by one‟s own sensory organs, eye, nose, and tongue.
Because honey is a natural product, it is a normal situation that the quality
differs among different containers, and therefore a sensory test has to be conducted
for each of different containers.

In such a case, it is desirable to perform the test

after stirring well the contents to make them homogeneous as much as possible.
When a large number of products have to be tested, care has to be taken to wash themouth with water after spewing out the previously tasted sample every time a new
test is carried out. Unless this procedure is followed, the senses of taste and smell
are benumbed, becoming unable to distinguish differences in flavor and aroma.

117When a large number of containers contain honey of an identical color, an identicalaroma and an identical flavor, it does not mean that the quality is uniform, but it isthe evidence that the honey was processed in a large lot by blending in a tank. In
such a case, attention has to be paid as there is a likelihood that raw materials ofhoney with a low sugar content has been processed for condensation by heating.
The sensory test by tasting is undertaken for a small lot (generally of an oildrum). In the cases of monofloral honeys, while it is needed to remember the specificcharacteristics of honey from a particular kind of flower, because they are the sort ofcriteria that cannot be quantified numerically, the testing requires a great deal ofskill. In particular, since the most important element of honey is the flavors
pervading the whole mouth, and aromatic compounds are different depending on
kinds of flowers, the testers are required to distinguish subtle differences of thetaste.
Those honeys which smell of fermentation or taste sour due to fermentation
have to be excluded. The honeys of low sugar contents start alcoholic fermentation
due to the action of enzymes in honey, but there will be no problem for those inwhich the sugar content is proved to exceed 78 % by the reading of a sugarhydrometer. (Depending on the kinds of flowers, certain honeys are by nature
characterized by the presence of sourness in flavors.)Moreover, in the cases of honeys which smell of caramel and lack the flavors
otherwise pervading the whole mouth, it is likely that they have undergone aprocess of condensation by heating in the decompressed kettle. This is caused by thefact that the aromatic compounds making the honey to taste good are sucked out
together with water vapor in the process of decompression.
Regarding the testing of hue, since the color grade differs depending on theplants of nectar source, it is required to verify that the hue of examined honey is
within the range of color grade associated with a specific kind of flower.

In thosehoneys which have been stored for a long period, or have been treated with heat,
HMF (hydroxyl-methyl-furfural) content increases and the hue turns to brownish
color.
The above paragraphs have described the procedures of sensory tests on

118monofloral honeys, but so far as the honeys from Kenya are concerned, it would beneeded to start from the work of identification of plants from which they are derived.
Moreover in the traditional system of beekeeping employing log beehives, theseparation of monofloral honeys is essentially impossible to accomplish, and hence
most of the honeys circulating on the market in Kenya are considered to be thosecollected non-selectively from nectar sources of diverse plant species. In such cases,
since the color grade may not matter at all and the sensory tests also involve very
complex factors, it is expected that the most important matter in quality
assessment would be simply to determine the most fundamental properties of honey,
namely, the extent of contamination with foreign matters, the sugar content, andthe presence or absence of fermentation.
Incidentally, in order to satisfy the requirements of traceability, it is needed toattach to every lot of products a label indicating parameters: the name of producer;
location of production; the date of production; names of plants of nectar source; andlot number.
At any rate, when the business of export and import is considered, since thestandards set for honey products differ depending on individual importing countries,
the honey for export has to comply with each item of imposed requirements.
Moreover, the business of export has no chance of success, unless it can supply the
products of correct quality adapted to a particular market, by precisely assessing
the preference of the target country of consumption.
The products that have solved the above mentioned problems need to beverified with respect to their quality of safety. Principally the residues of antibiotics
and agricultural chemicals have to be tested at the testing institutions. Althoughthese substances are not yet problematic factors in Kenya, if modern beekeeping
technology is extended in the future, presumably they will make problems whichcannot be passed by. Product samples need to be sent from Kenya to Japan
beforehand to carry out tests at the testing institutions in Japan to determine theresidues of antibiotics and agricultural chemicals. Incidentally, currently in Japan(as of January 2009) no antibiotic except mirosamycin (Apiten) or no miticide except
fluvalinate (Apistan) is permitted to be used, and the allowable maximum content
of residue is 0.05 ppm for mirosamycin and 0.05 ppm for fluvalinate. For other119

substances, please refer to the list of permissible limits of residues for agriculturalchemicals, veterinary products, and feed additives (see the the web site below).
Moreover, particular attention needs to be paid to the requirement that no amountof substances such as chloramphenicol, nitrofuran, or coumaphos, which are likely
to be used in beekeeping, is permitted to be detected, even if the content is a trace.

The Japan Food Chemical Research InstitutePositive List System of Agricultural Chemical Residues in Foods
http://www.ffcr.or.jp/zaidan/FFCRHOME.nsf/pages/MRLs-p

2) Beeswax
Crude beeswax made by beekeepers by melting brace combs, honey caps andold disused honeycombs presents no definite color, showing a range of variable hues,
from light yellow, yellow, orange, brown, maroon, to dark brown. Fresh beeswax
immediately after it is secreted from wax glands in abdomen of bees is transparent
and colorless, but upon contact with air it soon gets hardened and makes thinpearl-like laminas. Even in the case where beeswax is made from newly built combs,
it is colored with a yellowish hue because the color of pollens attached to bodies ofbees is dissolved in it. Consequently, the color of beeswax varies also according to
the kinds of flowers which bloom in particular seasons when the combs are built.
Old honeycombs which have been used many times by honey bees becomedarker in color as they get older, and the crude beeswax which is produced fromsuch combs as raw materials contains more of impurities, showing brown to darkbrown color. Naturally, products of clear colors are traded for higher prices.
With respect to export and import of beeswax, the rating of quality according
to color grades seems to be undertaken by individual traders by themselves, andthere is neither any international nor any criteria of Japan for this quality factor.
Although the price ought to vary greatly by the color grade, it is determined by the
final objective of use and the relevance of the price.

120

In the current situation in Kenya, the harvesting of honey is realized by the
traditional system in which log hive is used to make wild honey bee colonies tosettle it and then the entire honeycombs is compressed to extract honey.
Consequently, the quantity of collected beeswax is larger than that obtained fromthe modern system using movable comb frames, and the pollution of antibiotics andchemicals used for the modern system is almost non-existent, which provides agreat advantage for the export of beeswax of Kenya. In this respect, as long as
beeswax is mainly used to make products associated with foods, cosmetics andmedicines, the beeswax of Kenya occupies a favored position for establishingdifferentiation among competitors.
Among the beeswax imported to Japan from Africa, that from Tanzania
accounts for the largest proportion (around 30%) of which actual cargos consist of
blocks cast in molds of a shape of trapezoid weighing about 50 kg. Regarding thestate of beeswax, while there is little variation in respect of color, actual imported
cargos contain carcasses of honey bees, wood chips and sand, which suggests thatthe products to be imported from Kenya would possess the same level of quality.
Unlike foods, the products in such conditions reportedly create absolutely no
problem in the process of custom clearance.

3) Procedures for importing honey to Japan
From the viewpoint of ensuring safety, all the food products to be imported
into Japan are subject to the clauses of Article 27 of the Food Sanitation Law which
stipulate that importers are obligated to make notification about the act ofimportation, stating "Those who wish to import food, food additives, apparatuses, or
container/packages for sale or for use in business, shall notify the Minister of
Health, Labour, and Welfare on each occasion as prescribed by the Ministerial
Ordinance", and the imported foods and related products must not be used for salewithout import notification.
"Notification Form for Importation of Foods, etc." is submitted to a Quarantine
Station of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. At the quarantine station,
food sanitation inspectors carry out document examination and inspection to see to121

it that the foods and products comply with the Food Sanitation Law.

.

【Requirements concerning tariff classification】
Natural honey is defined as that in which the sucrose content accounts for less than
5 % of the total weight and the fructose content accounts for more than 30 % of thetotal weight, and at the same time, the proportion of fructose among total sugarcomponents exceeds 50 %.

Regarding the verification of contents of ingredients inofficial procedures of the importing country, the analysis data prepared by theexporter or the manufacturer of an exporting country and authorized by an officialorganization including the local chamber of commerce shall be approved, andtherefore, for importing a particular article, it is needed to acquire an official
document like “Certificate of quality”.

【Requirements concerning Food Sanitation Law】（i）Requirements concerning formalities of notification of importation
In order to import articles of food and products associated with food
which are used for commercial purposes, it is required to submit “the form of
notification of importation of articles of food and related products” together
with relevant documents to the service responsible for surveillance of imported
articles of food at a quarantine station of the Ministry of Health, Labour andWelfare. After undergoing the procedures of examination and testing at thequarantine station, if no problem has been identified on the ground of
application of Food Sanitation Law, the form of notification shall be returnedto the notifier with an official seal “Notification Certified” stamped on it.
（ii）Requirements concerning the labelingof contents
In order to sell products contained in containers and packages, thelabeling complying with Food Sanitation Law is obligatory.
（iii）Regarding the regulation on the residues of agricultural chemicals and the like,122the requirements are defined in compliance with the positive list system(Clause 3, Article 11 of Food Sanitation Law).

【Requirements concerning the Law of Standardization and Proper Labeling ofAgriculture and Forestry Products (JAS Code)】
In compliance with the law, it is obligatory at the points of sale to indicatecomprehensively the data on products, according to the criteria for labeling of
quality.

For imported goods, the representation of the county of origin iscompulsory.

【Requirements concerning the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading
Representations (Premiums and Representation Act)】Regarding natural

honey products, aprivateorganization,

National

Conference on Fair Trading of Honey, Inc., has set out as a guideline for voluntary
control by the sector, “Agreement on fair competition concerning the representationsof honey bee products”.

【Requirements concerning preferential tariff treatment】
As Kenya is designated as a beneficiary country of preferential tariff
treatment, the importation from the country can benefit from its application. In
order to benefit from the application of a preferential tariff rate, it is necessary toacquire “the certificate of origin eligible for preferential tariff treatment” issued at
the time of exportation by the local country from which the goods are exported (thecertificate is not required if the total monetary value involved is less than 200,000
yen.)* The system of preferential tariff treatment is the one which is intended topromote the industrialization and the economic development of developing
countries by expanding the exporting capacity of such countries through the123application of tariffs lower than general rates (preferential tariffs) on products
from them. In Japan the system is stipulated in the Clause 2, Article 8 ofTemporary Tariff Measures Law and a list of articles for application of this law isprescribed as an annexed table. Moreover, the countries and regions that are
eligible to benefit from the system of preferential tariff treatment are collectively
termed as “beneficiary countries of preferential tariff”.

【Requirements concerning import customs clearance】
Importers submit to the customs house the “Declaration of import (duties)”,
together with relevant documents including “the certificate of import notification offoods and related products” acquired through the procedures described above,
invoice, B/L, detailed statement of insurance, etc. After examination, inspection andpayment of taxes, the import permit is issued.
* Invoice: it is notification of shipment of goods, or a statement of delivery, but
signifies a bill.
* B/L：Bill of Lading

4) Procedures of importing wax【Requirements concerning tariff classification】
Waxes and derivatives are classified under the clause 8, but beeswax isclassified under the clause 1521 together with vegetable wax, insect wax, and whale
wax, and candles and the like are classified under the clause 3406. The actualclassification varies depending on the state and constituents, and consequently it isnecessary to confirm particulars through inquiries made to the customs house.

【Requirements concerning Pharmaceutical Affairs Law】
When one intends to import and sell as business, among different products ofbeeswax, those used as coating agents for medicines, raw materials for making
124base agent, or other medical drugs, it is necessary to obtain the permit for runningthe business of fabrication and distribution in compliance with Pharmaceutical
Affairs Law, and authorization for the operation on the basis of item by item.
Moreover, when beeswax products are to be imported as articles for runningbusiness, it is necessary to submit by the time of customs clearance to the regional
administrative office of Kanto-Shin-Etsu or to that of Kinki of the Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfare a written notice of importation for its confirmation,
reporting the designated items of information, including the name and address ofmanufacturer/trader,

the

type

of

permitforrunningbusinessofmanufacturing/trading, permit number, date of authorization, the designations of
products to be imported, etc.
However, regarding the importation of products as a commodity sample, forprivate use by physician, for experiment or therapeutic testing, if the quantity does
not exceed a designated limit, commodities can be imported only by presenting
required documents. For the quantity exceeding the designated limit, they can beimported by presenting required documents to the expert official of pharmaceuticalsurveillance at the above mentioned regional office of the Ministry and by receiving
the certificate of pharmaceutical surveillance.
The inquiries for detailed information are processed by sections in charge ofpharmaceutical affairs of provincial (prefecture) governments.

【Requirements concerning Food Sanitation Law】
For the importation of beeswax products used as food additives such as thebase of chewing-gum and brightener, it is necessary to submit to the quarantine
station of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare the document, “Importnotification of foods and related products”.

Food additives are exempted from theapplication of the Positive List system.

【Requirements concerning preferential tariff treatment】

125

Similarly as the case of honey, beeswax importation from beneficiary countries
of preferential tariff can benefit from the taxation system of preferential tariff
treatment.

【Requirements concerning import customs clearance】
The same procedures can be applied.

5) Procedures of notification of importation(i) Preparation of the notification form for reporting the importation of commodities(ii) The notification form comprises blanks for prescribed items that have to be filled
completely.
(iii) When the notification form of importation and required documents get ready,they are submitted to the quarantine station of the Ministry of Health, Labourand Welfare exercising jurisdiction over the port for landing goods. Currently,
regarding the procedures of notification of the importation of articles of food andrelated products to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, it is possible topresent the documents not only by written papers but also by means of datatransfer through electronic telecommunication.

126

Diagram Flow of steps for import notification of foods and food related products(Source）Webpage of Service of surveillance of imported foods, Ministry of Health, Labourand Welfare

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/importedfoods/1-1.html

1276) Trading by letter of credit
When the business of import and export is carried out through transactions byletter of credit (L/C), a document, certificate of origin, is required. Certificate oforigin is a document which testifies that the commodity to be traded has been
produced, manufactured, or processed in a particular country or a particular region.
Regarding the procedure for delivering the certificate of origin, it is issued by anorganization designated by each of those countries which have ratified the“International Convention relating to the simplification of Customs Formalities
signed on November 3, 1923 in Geneva (Geneva Treaty)”, in compliance with the
Article 11 of the Treaty. Since the certificate of origin is prepared, in principle, inEnglish, the contents are described as follows:【Contents of a certificate of origin】
Exporter: Name and address (including country) of the enterprise (individual)
actually carrying out the exportation
Consignee: Name and address (including country) of the enterprise (individual)
receiving the cargo
Print ORIGINAL or COPY: The indication whether the document is an original“ORIGINAL” or a copy “COPY” has to be made without fail：
When the issuance of multiple copies is requested, up to 3 copies
qualified as “ORIGINAL” can be delivered. When the number ofcopies requested exceeds 3, thefourth copy and succeeding ones

are indicated as “COPY”.
No. and date of Invoice: Number and date of invoice of the product the origin of
which is certified.
Country of Origin:
Transport Details: While, in the case of invoice, it is necessary to describe in detail128

the modes of transportation, on the certificate of origin, it ispermissible to omit the description of shipping point, discharge point
and points on the route, and to mention simply “By Vessel” or “ByAir”.
Remarks:

Mention is dispensable. Space is used to describe, if necessary, trading
requirements, condition of payment, code number of L/C, contract
number, etc.

Marks, numbers, number and kind of packages; Description of goods:
Ａ．Marking of cargo, cargo number: markings and numerical data indicated on
the imported cargo are mentioned.
Ｂ．Numbers and types of packing: modes of packing, such as “carton”, “box”,“crate”, and number of each type of packing are mentioned. When cargos
are not packed, statements such as “unpacked” or “Loose” should be made.
When the commodity is transported in containers, the container numbers
and seal numbers should be stated, as “Container No. xxx”, “Seal No. yyy”.
Ｃ．Designation of commodity：general designation of commodity should be
mentioned. As the certificate cannot be issued for the commodity in brandname or commodity code, it is necessary to mention the general designationof the commodity.

Incidentally, in general, as designations, thosecorresponding to HS codes of 6 digits* are used.
Quantity: the same quantity expressed in the invoice is mentioned for eachcommodity, in the same specific unit like “pcs”, “sets”, or “kg”, etc.
Declaration by the Exporter: date of application for issuance and the name ofexporter are mentioned and signature is added. Only the registeredsignature is valid and allowed.
Certification (certification by chamber of commerce): space for certification by thechamber of commerce. The applicant cannot write anything in thisspace.
Certification No.: number written by the chamber of commerce129

*HS code：HS stands for Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding
System. By HS code nomenclature system, all traded commodities areclassified by codes of 6 digits, and every 2 digits of them are allocated to either
one of the 3 levels of “section” and “chapter”,” genus”, and “clause”. In the
HS treaty, participant countries are allowed to add 4 more digits from 7th to10th digits for their own classification purposes according to their particularneeds, and hence in Japan the system of 10 digits is used. In order to knowcorrectly the correspondence between a HS code and a particular commodity
designation, it is often needed to have specialized knowledge. Consequently, if
an importer unscrupulously uses the HS code transmitted by the exporter toprepare the documents for domestic import formalities, and if the code turns
out to be irrelevant in the judgment of the customs house, a certain situation
may arise in which the importer has to revise the formality documents or has
to take a procedure to amend the tariff rate. In the importation of a newcommodity for the first time, it is recommended to make use of “the system of
preliminary instruction on tariff classification” provided by the customs house,to ascertain in advance the tariff classification and the tariff rate.
Incidentally, in the case of Kenya, since it is possible to benefit from thepreferential tariff treatment, it is needed to acquire “the certificate of origin
eligible for general preferential tariff treatment (Form A)”.

130

Shipping company

Exporter A⑤①（Seller）⑥

ImporterＢ（Buyer）

Insurance company

⑦
⑨

⑧

④

③

Bank in exporting⑩

country X

②

⑪

Bank

in

⑫

importingcountry Y⑬

Diagram: Flow of the settlement of accounts of transactions by letter of credit

i. Contract for sale is concluded between seller A and buyer B.
ii. Buyer B requests the bank Y in importing country to issue a letter of credit. At
this time, B is called the applicant for L/C.
iii. The bank in importing country Y issues an L/C. Y is called the L/C Issuing Bank.
iv. The L/C is advised to the seller A through the bank X in exporting country. X iscalled the L/C advising bank.
v. The seller arranges the cargo according to the conditions specified in the L/C,
makes out shipping documents, and delivers the cargo and the documents to theshipping company, requesting the shipment to importing country.
vi. The shipping company that has shipped out the cargo issues a bill of lading (B/L)
as an evidence of the shipment and delivers it to the seller A.
vii. According to the request from the seller A, the insurance company issues a131policy of insurance.
viii. In order to collect the bill, the seller A puts together the required documents
procured from the shipping company and the insurance company (bill of ladingand policy of insurance), issues a bill of exchange and asks the bank X inexporting country to purchase it.
ix. The seller A receives the proceeds of the sale from the bank X in exporting
country.
x. The bank X in exporting country sends the bill of exchange and the documentspurchased from the seller to the L/C issuing bank, and at the same time requests
the latter to refund the cost of the bill that it paid to the seller.
xi. The bank Y in importing country (L/C issuing bank), in order to get paid for thecost, sends the arrival notice of the documents to the buyer B, asking it to settle
the bill.
xii. The buyer B settles the bill of importation and receives the bill of lading. It
collects the cargo from the shipping company in exchange for the B/L.
xiii. The settlement of accounts is accomplished between the bank X in exporting
country and the bank Y in importing country.

In the settlement of accounts of trading transactions, that by L/Cs is generally
executed. The exact term of the device is “documentary letter of credit”, and in orderto have an L/C issued, the importing trader has to undergo a credit screening
imposed by the issuing bank. After passing the screening, the trader submits a deedof contract for L/C transactions. Consequently, it is needed to have a priorconsultation with the bank concerned.
The above section has described essential and fundamental points when the
trading of export and import of honey bee related products from Kenya is considered.
In actual transactions, it is the most convenient way to make inquiries through thewebsite of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for dealing with theformalities of notification. Moreover, concerning the mode of settlement of accounts,132

it is carried out in diverse manners depending on specific situations, and hence only
the basic mechanism of L/C trading has been described. It is recommended to seek
advices from Japan External Trade Organization, JETRO, in various situations.

Japan External Trade Organization
http://www.jetro.go.jp/
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: Imported Foods Inspection Services
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/importedfoods/index.html

At any rate, the most important matter in the trading of honey bee related
products is certainly the relationship of unfaltering mutual trust with local
partners.

133

[APPENDIX]

Websites for technical information on apiculture development
and beekeeping
Bees for Development
http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/
includingWhat We Do／Information Centre>Beeswax／Journal／Online Book StoreInternational Bee Research Association
http://www.ibra.org.uk/
including
Journals／Shop／Information Services

Apiservices
http://www.apiservices.com/_menus_fr/index.htm?menu.htm&0
including
Apishop ／Country info ／Articles / Reports ／Databases

Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (USA)
http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/

Bee Culture
http://www.beeculture.com/index.cfm
including
McGregor's Handbook of Pollination
The Science of Beekeeping

Bee Culture's Online Book StoreApis Information Resource Center

Cornell Pollination Study, by Roger Morse and Nick Calderone

Canadian Honey Council
http://www.honeycouncil.ca/index.php
including

Beekeeping Industry Facts and Information/Diseases and Pests/Beekeeping in the Developing World

Australia
http://www.honeybee.org.au/pdf/wonderfull01.pdf
http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/index.htm

134

JAICAF
Japan Association forInternational Collaboration ofAgriculture and Forestry
Akasaka KSA Bldg., 8-10-39 Akasaka,
Minato-ku, Tokyo, 107-0052, Japan
Tel: +81-3-5772-7880
Fax:+81-3-5772-76802