Can bees battle climate losses? Why harvests not as sweet as hoped

In the middle of a seven-acre woodlot of indigenous trees in Chemare, a village in Kenya’s Rift Valley, Charles Ng’ong’oni keeps 164 hollow-log beehives, which in good years bring him a healthy income by producing thousands of litres of honey.

Ng’ong’oni, 63, has managed the hives since the 1970s. But these days, he is being joined by a growing number of farmers in East Africa – and around the world – taking up beekeeping to broaden their income in the face of wilder weather, including heat, droughts and floods that can decimate crops.