AGRICULTURE | FARMING | BEEKEEPING 

NAKASEKE - At Kibowa village, in Kasangombe sub-county, Nakaseke district is where Wilson Kabagambe operates a 10-acre coffee plantation. 

He bought the plantation a decade ago, but production remained low. On average, he produced 3,400kg of dried coffee annually from the 10 acres, which was giving him a turnover of 49% after factory processing. 

Determined to breakthrough, Kabagambe thought of using bees to boost coffee production. He now has 300 hives, colonised and well-organised at the farm. 

Other hives are still scattered on tree branches, waiting to be colonised. Kabagambe says since he started beekeeping, his coffee flowers are getting efficiently pollinated. 

In Nakaseke town, they have an office that serves as a honey refinery and also as their shop for the bee products that they make. 

In the last season, they got 4.2 tonnes (4,200kg) of coffee that yielded a turnover of 75% after factory processing. 

“All these berries, when you open them, none of them is without a seed inside. Because of honeybee pollination, I am able to receive high yields for my coffee,” Kabagambe says. 

Last year, he says they earned sh11.76m compared to sh6.664m the previous year. But the bees have not only boosted coffee production, but they also give Kabagambe honey, which he sells. 

He says on average, they process about 800kg of honey per year at the farm. Currently, they pack and sell a kilogramme at sh22,000, earning him about sh17.6m a year. 

How he started  

Kabagambe wanted something that he could easily integrate with coffee farming. He adds that he first came across beekeeping when he was a child. 

His father was also a beekeeper but on a small scale. He read about beekeeping again from New Vision’s Harvest Money pullout, and he decided to further his research. 

Two years later, he decided to venture into the project. He started by calling on carpenters to fabricate hives for him. 

When the bees entered the hives, it gave Kabagambe courage to improve on his apiary. He then went on to build more hives using timber rejects and hung them up. 

These also continued to attract bees. Later, he decided he wanted to do it in a better way. When he sold all his coffee the following harvest, he used the proceeds to make more hives. 

Kabagambe explains that he has been keeping bees for eight years now and fabricating hives is now one of his other businesses.

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Kabagambe says they were using propolis tincture to fight the virus. 

According to Kabagambe, venturing into beekeeping requires land and ability to get hives. At Nakaseke, they sell each hive at sh100,000. 

He says they were able to earn about sh10m after selling 40 litres of the tincture. 

They packed it in a 20ml bottle, selling each at sh5,000. He is also currently harvesting bee venom - the new hot bee product on the market. 

He harvests about 15g per week and sells each at 70,000 per gram. He says they expect to earn at least sh60m by the end of the financial year. 

Steps to start a bee farm 

According to Kabagambe, venturing into beekeeping requires land and ability to get hives. At Nakaseke, they sell each hive at sh100,000. 

Kabagambe adds that you must also have the labour force, bee handling gears; where one set goes for about sh300,000. 

You must also have smokers, a bee brush, bee decapper, knives, bulking buckets and processing equipment in case you decide to harvest the honey. 

Kabagambe says there are two types of stands on which to place hives. 

A joint stand, whereby one stand can accommodate five hives with a spacing of one foot, and a single stand for one hive. These stands can be anchored into the soil at six feet.

Feeding the bees 

Kabagambe thinks that for about 22 hives, you need one labourer. 

However, Simon Turner, the managing director of Malaika Honey, a beekeeping expert with at least 15 years of experience, says contrary to most belief, it is nectar source availability and not land availability that determines the number of hives to put on the farm. 

“You really want to be planning it out with as much nectar source as possible and not just like any nectar source, try to learn what is working in the area and then what times different nectar sources flower in a year,” he said. 

Turner emphasizes that for maximum honey production, you have to feed the bees throughout the year.

“It comes down to the size of the colony. If you have a bigger workforce, then they are collecting more nectar and, therefore, making more honey than they are putting into storage. You will have a lot more honey to collect at the end of the season. 

However, when you don’t have nectar sources for the other times of the year when the flowering plants in the area are not in bloom, you can be starving your bees. You will end up with a colony that is surviving and not thriving,” he adds. 

Turner says that while the bees can be good for increasing the productivity of crops such as coffee, the crop can also be a good nectar and pollen source for the bees. 

On his farm, aside from coffee, Kabagambe has other trees, such as Trumpet flower and Calliandra, to feed the bees with nectar and pollen. 

With the Calliandra plant specifically, he says the bees particularly like to sit on it when it flowers, especially at 5:00pm. 

On the importance of adding honeybees to the farm, Turner says 

“Beekeeping is the only agriculture practice that is good for the environment. While planting crops and rearing livestock requires that you clear land, beekeeping encourages more planting for nectar source. This way, you are making money whilst taking part in conserving the natural environment.” 

Food is good for bees 

Beekeeping is thought to be a crucial component of livelihood diversification in sub-Saharan Africa, as it can supplement household incomes, food and medicine. 

However, a significant challenge for Ugandan beekeepers is maintaining out-of-season forage access for bees. Due to forage scarcity, high absconding and low hive colonization rates are a common sight. 

Between November 2014 and February 2015, Deborah Ruth Amulen from the Department of Livestock Industrial Resources, Makerere University, Kampala carried out a study to estimate the potential of beekeeping in poverty alleviation. 

She concluded that increasing production volumes of hive products was contingent upon achieving the appropriate combination of hive type, number and the addition of a year-round forage crop, such as Calliandra calothyrsus. 

On top of providing bee forage, Calliandra is a multipurpose plant that can be used as a nitrogen fixer to improve soil fertility and also supply firewood in a region where 90% of its cooking fuel is firewood. 

Kabagambe said this kind of success in integrating beekeeping into the farm is dependent on good maintenance practices and bee nectar source. If you do not maintain it well, then definitely the bees will not productively pollinate your coffee. 

“Bees require a lot of food,” Kabagambe explains, “there is no regulation about that because they work day and night, and it is during the honey flow season when they specifically go for honey and nectar. 

Other times, when they are constructing combs for honey and brood storage, they can go and collect carbohydrates.”

We walked to one of his feeder houses where he had placed flour. While there, he said he feeds the bees with flour (that people eat), as well as water. At the bee feeder house, you could see the bees vigorously flying around carrying the flour.  

There were containers placed outside the bee feeder houses and he says these contain water. 

The bees like murky dirty water. After taking the flour, they get thirsty and look for water.

(This story is part of the CABI, SciDev.Net and Robert Bosch Stiftung Script science journalism project)