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Lockdown turned me from MC to beekeeper

Runo adds that learning more about bees fascinated him.

"One of the most important things every business person needs to have is product knowledge. My passion is more about the bees, and I believe that when you take care of the insect, they will actually return the favour," he says.

"Bees are responsible for up to 33 per cent of the food we eat, and if we get rid of all our bees, humanity will have less than four years to survive."

Runo says that if a farmer becomes a bee keeper they automatically become a conservationist, because a bee farmer will always plant trees, make sure there are flowers around and reduce or stop the use of pesticides.

"If you have crops or flowers that have pesticides, it means that you are also making contaminated honey. Bees go to the flowers collect nectar come back to the comb and regurgitate that. In a lay man's language, honey is bees vomit," he says

Runo built an apiary in Murang'a County. He has 30 bee hives.

"Each hive can give 10 kilos of honey per harvest. You can harvest four times a year but I have met farmers who harvest monthly, because they intentionally bring a lot of stuff for the bees to forage," he says

His beehives are in different attractive colours, blue, green, yellow and one made of concrete but painted in African art.

[Lydiah Nyawira, Standard]

According to Apiservices.biz, the hive can be built using scrap or rough lumber, may be woven from cane or reeds, formed from cement blocks or adobe, or may even employ old, discarded oil drums for the hive bodies.

Runo says that the KTBH is partitioned in two. After seven bars, a wire known as the queen excluder is placed.

"The worker bees can fit through the mesh but the queen does not because of the size. So that means on the queen's side, you will have corns that have eggs what we call the brood, then on the other side we have just pure honey. So we never harvest from the brood side. It gives around 15-20 kilos," he says.

Kenya Top Bar Hive Pros and Cons

Ranges from Sh5,000

Easy to manage and the bees are less stressed.

Harvesting of the combs is easier because there's no movement of boxes like the Langstroth hive.

Bees move in a systematic way filling up the bars with comb. There's also no need for a queen excluder, as the bees will organise themselves since it's one storey.

The set up of the top bar hive is not complex -- a box, bars and a top. A beekeeper can use kitchen equipment to harvest honey.

Top bar hives allow bees to build comb in a natural way.

Cons

Top bar hives are less productive

No room to add on to the hives and therefore, the hive cannot grow very big.

Concrete Bee Hive

Runo says that the concrete hive is suitable in hot areas; it is cooler inside and a lot more comfortable for the bees. It is also better than wood hives that decompose after a while. It gives 5 kilos of honey.

Langstroth Bee Hive

Has 3 sections (Comprised from perfectbee.com)

Lower section: Where boxes rest includes a bottom board, featuring an entrance through which bees can come and go.

Boxes: Where the action happens inside the hive. Brood, honey, pollen, propolis and, bees are all housed inside one or more boxes.

Upper section: The top of the hive comprises an inner cover, sitting on top of the uppermost box, plus a top cover to cap the entire structure.

Langstroth Hive Pros and Cons

Ranges from Sh5,000 to Sh7,000.

Benefits honey sellers since it has many boxes hence more honey.

You don't need to harvest honey to make more space for the hive; you just add another box on top.

With frames, you are able to give the bees their wax back. This means they don't have to spend any extra energy rebuilding their comb.

Cons

It becomes stressful for the bees when inspecting the lower bars since the farmer has to remove the top boxes.