bee farming

Bee farming at the MIFACIG RESOURCE CENTER

Traditionally, bee hunters harvest honey by cutting down trees that host bee colonies. These bees are burnt by fire flames which most of the time result to bush fire due to rudimentary harvesting method. Honey with poor qualities is being harvested and sold with chaffs. Such persons need to be trained to protect the forest and especially the bees.
The main difficulties encountered by farmers are the poor quality of the honey, the access to finance and credit, the packaging, the marketing strategies, getting a good price for the product.

MIFACIG trainings provided at the Resource Center enables the farmers to explore the whole value chain: from the production to the market and offers start-kits for them to develop this activity in their household and communities on completion of training.

Why bee-keeping ?: Modern apiary development is a complementary rural activity to tree cultivation. The role of bees in pollination of trees has a good impact on the yields. Also, the modern bee-keeping techniques enhances the quality of honey compared to the local techniques of bee-keeping. With modern bee-keeping, both quality and quantity will be improved, so better prices for farmers.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES:
Trained farmers should be able to produce good quality honey in order to reinforce food safety of the area, diversify their sources of income, and increase household income.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES : at the end of the seminar / workshop participants should be able to:

· Set up tree nurseries

· Develop apiaries

· Identify and use equipment and tools required for bee-keeping

· Identify the different types of bees

· Better understanding modern methods of honey harvesting

· Process and commercialize bee products

ACTIVITIES

· Hive production

· Hive management

· Honey harvesting / processing

· Honey-by products processing