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Yuvenalis Kiage a bee farmer displays some of the bottled honey harvested from more than 100 bee hives in his Nyaikuro farm Nyamira County on 16/4/2019. (Sammy Omingo/standard)
At a time when cereal farmers are crying foul of diminishing returns due to climate change and and pests, Yuvinalis Kiage, a bee keeper is happy to have ventured into bee keeping over two decades ago.
Bee keeping is one among many other ventures farmers in different parts of the country have resorted to in the wake of crop failure and climate change.
In his two-acre farm, Kiage has constructed wooden bridges as interlinks between trees where hives are suspended using strings and supported by wooden bars.
He has also devised ladders which he uses to access the hives on the trees.
Kiage has 240 bee hives, 100 in his two-acre farm at Chabera in Homa Bay County where he lives while the other 140 are in Kadongo also in Homa Bay. Of the 240, he says, only around 20 are not occupied by bees.
From one hive, he can harvest up to 12 litres of honey and harvesting is done every four to six weeks. But according to the farmer, caution should always be exercised during harvesting.
“If for instance a hive has 27 bars, a farmer should separate about 17 and leave the rest for reproduction purpose,” he adds.
He says the 10 bars should be separated using a special mesh which can only allow servant bees to pass and not the queen.
“The queen bee should be guarded to stay within the remaining 10 bars so that it can lay eggs and hatch more bees,” he says.
Good honey combs, he says, should be brownish in colour.
“Some farmers are not keen when harvesting and collect honey from combs that are still white. Such honey is not as pure as one from a brown comb,” Kiage warns.
To prepare pure honey, the farmer heats the honeycombs in a controlled container which is immersed in a main one which has boiling water.
The combs are inserted in a special filtering bag which is suspended inside the controlled container which will be immersed in boiling water.
The steam heats the container, allowing the liquid honey to drip from the filtering medium into the immersed container.
“Marketing is a whole ball game but I have been able to get quite a number of loyal customers who know my honey is pure. Our business is tricky as there so many products out there being sold as honey and aren’t. I sell under the brand Ting’a Pure Honey and those who know my honey, know that it is pure,” he added.
One litre of his honey goes for Sh1,200 and every month he can sell up to 200 litres.
Kiage’s farm also serves as a model farm for upcoming beekeepers. “My main challenge is acquiring modern honey extraction equipment but bee keeping is a venture worth investing in,” said Kiage.
The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization
with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print operations,
television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group
is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in
matters of national and international interest.
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