How I have built a multi-million beekeeping venture

Ambition, focus and execution: this defines everything Pauline Otila, the managing director at Apiculture Venture (AP), has done as a beekeeper and a businesswoman.

Otila runs a honey business which she founded and built. In 2021, thus far, Otila has already processed and packaged three tonnes of honey.

Kenya’s National Bee Institute (NBI) estimates that we produce approximately 25 tonnes of honey every year.

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And since we are only halfway through 2021, Otila might arguably produce six tonnes of honey by the next year.

This would approximately translate in to 24 per cent of Kenya’s production.

She is a formidable force in the industry.

Her journey into beekeeping started in 2003. “I was a Second Year student at JKUAT then. I was studying for a Bachelor’s degree in finance,” she says.

It is also the year she got employed by a beekeeping company  as a secretary: recording and planning logistics for field visits and typing reports.

She remained a committed employee and rose through the ranks to become the operations manager in 10 years.

In 2013, a scholarship aimed at training enthusiastic beekeeping professionals arose and Otila was aptly nominated by her employer. The training lasted three months in Israel.

Those three months marked the turning point in her career as a beekeeper. She was still employed.

“Israel is a desert. Yet they produce so much honey. In comparison, Kenya we are blessed beyond measure.

“I felt challenged because Kenya does not even meet its own demand for honey,” she says.

Indeed, according to Kinyanjui Mburu, a trainer at NBI, Kenya is meeting just about 20 percent of its honey needs. That leaves a void of 80 percent. Otila came back determined to change that.

Otila’s plan was to go solo. But the scholarship had a caveat: she could not leave her employer until four years were over.

As she waited for the four years to end, she did what any calculating mind would do: prepare to manage her own business by gaining management skills.

“I enrolled for a Master’s degree in strategic management and graduated in 2016,” she says.

“The idea was to prepare myself adequately for the task of managing my own business.”

In 2018, having served the four years, Otila launched AP.

At the time of her exit, she had worked for her employer for 16 years. Her starting capital was Sh4 million.

Her current office, a godown, hosts an apiary, a processing facility, a training centre, administration offices and a workshop for making beehives.

If apiculture is the art of keeping bees, then Otila is doing an incredible job on her canvas.

She calls herself a commercial beekeeper.

We might add  ‘par excellence’, because right next to her office on the first floor of the godown, she has set up a transparent Langstroth hive – hooked to the wall via a plastic duct that allows the bees to fly in and out but not into the room.

“In fact, just last week, I harvested from it,” she says with glee.

You want to be a beekeeper? Otila has all you need to know as you prepare to start-off.

Most, if not all, of Kenya can do beekeeping

In Israel, Otila says, beekeeping is done with professional finesse. “The hives are set up in orchards – where bees can access flowers,” she says.

Otila believes that in Kenya, beekeeping can successfully take place anywhere.

“You can do beekeeping anywhere,” she says.

“The most important factors to consider are: forage, water, security, accessibility and distance from social amenities. The more the varieties of flowers the better the quality of honey.”

The traditional mode of beekeeping in Kenya is such that a hive is set on top of a tree and left to attract bees and develop honey.

She says: “But if you are smart you can place the hives next to a plot where crop farming is taking place

The weather determines rate and amount of production

Bees make honey from nectar they suck from flowers. However, flowers grow on vegetation; which, in Kenya, is largely dependent on rainfall.

“When it rains vegetation grows and flowers blossom. This provides bees with a lot of forage to get nectar from,” she says.

She has noted that after the long rains she harvests honey twice (two to three months apart). After short rains she harvests once. During drought, the duration can even be longer.

Placing the hives not far away from a water body, like rivers and streams, may also be a prudent idea as it increases frequency of harvesting.

Beekeeping is not as easy as you think

The interesting thing about beekeeping (an opportunity that Otila herself saw) is that the insects do not need to be fed like a dairy farmer would feed cows.

“All you need to do is provide them with a ‘house’ and they will feed and water themselves,” she says.

But that is as far as ‘easy’ goes. She notes that many beekeepers in Kenya make the mistake of “hanging the hive and letting it do the job.”

Bees need management, she says. Without proper management the beekeeper might never have a colony, might never harvest, and even if they managed to harvest, the amount of honey may be too little to make commercial sense.

Management is key. You cannot perform management of a hive hanging high up a tree.

The hive, ideally, should be set up three feet off the ground – low enough for proper management to take place.

“I check on my hives at least once every month,” she says. “When we install, I give it a month for the bees to continue building. In subsequent visits, I check if the frames are developing combs.”

Management involves visiting the hive at least once a month following placement of a hive, and every two weeks as the combs gets ready for harvesting.

Bees make honey for their own consumption, she notes. “You take too long and they eat it themselves.”

Work with a professional beekeeping company to sell your honey

In the end, the whole idea is to earn from beekeeping. Despite the fact that Kenya is not meeting demand for honey locally, some bee farmers struggle to sell their honey.

Some are taken advantage by unscrupulous middlemen who buy the honey at a throwaway price.

Otila, having formed networks in the industry, has access to ready honey market.

“I export the honey and also sell locally. I have come up with a way of partnering with local beekeepers. We enter into an agreement that assures them of a market.”

The farm gate price of honey is about Sh500 per kilogramme in Kenya. Otila sells honey at Sh850 (wholesale price) and Sh1,000 (retail price).

“My ambition is to now work with health stores because natural honey has medicinal qualities and is a healthy alternative to sugar. I also hope to set up honey shops all over the place,” she says.

Potential for business is still huge

Initially Otila wanted to trade with honey: produce, harvest, package and sell. She however quickly realised that to optimally profit from the business she needed to act broadly.

A beekeeper has several other possible revenue products that they can monetise. They can produce propolis, royal jelly and even bee venom.

“I am producing beeswax and honey. The other two (propolis and pollen) is by choice. I sell a kilogramme of wax at Sh1, 200.

“It is even more expensive than the honey itself. I don’t have expertise in royal jelly and bee venom, yet,” she says.

Royal jelly is a milky secretion produced by bees. It gets its name from the fact that bees use it to nurture queen bees. It is a premium product that retails with gold status.

Like royal jelly, bee venom is hard to come by and fetches a fortune if a farmer is able to harvest it. Bees excrete venom through their stingers, into a target, when they feel threatened.

Otila has already procured a machine that would harvest bee venom. “By the end of this year I should have started harvesting bee venom,” she says.

She also sells bee colonies. She traps them in a colony box and then sells it at Sh7, 000 per colony. The opportunities for a beekeeper to monetise a venture are therefore diverse.

Utilise a professional hive

As a commercial beekeeper, Otila is not only interested in producing honey: she needs it fast and in plenty.

“To be a commercial beekeeper, you cannot use traditional hives – like the log hive. The best hive for commercial honey production is the Langstroth. The Kenya top hive is also good,” she says.

Langstroth hives allow for the honey to be extracted from the combs in a centrifugal extractor and the frames can be reused.

With the Kenya Top hive, honeycombs are cut out completely for honey to be squeezed out.

One Langstroth hive produces 8 to 10 kilogrammes per harvest. In a year (the average honey harvesting frequency is 3 times in a year) the production is 24 to 30 kilogrammes of honey.

Important pests

The reason management is important, is because bees get affected by pests too.

“If you don’t do frequent management checks, what if the colony is sick? Or it has been affected by pests?” she says.

The most important pests that affect bees are Varroa mites, safari ants, and the wax moth.

Varroa mites attach onto bees and suck fat from them, weakening the insects over time.