Lyanza Harvest Dec 2012

Lyanza Village - December 2012

Efforts at diversifying agriculturalists’ income in East Africa continues to be a major thrust for various organizations and churches seeking to impact the lives of those living here. One excellent way to impact people with access to forest and bush is through beekeeping. We have been working with several organizations in Tanzania and Kenya over the past eight years and "Tree of Life," an NGO located in Rukwa Valley, SW Tanzania, is one of the best we
have had the good fortune to partner with.

While training Tanzanians there the first week in December, I was able to work with the three leaders of the NGO who are hands-on men, willing to get dirty and
sweaty to succeed at what they do! Early December (2012) was one of the harvest
seasons for beekeeping in Lyanza village where the NGO owns property and has
over 45 hives. The harvest was of 30+ hives and it was over 100 degrees F. In
short order I sweated through my clothes, extra canvas shirt (added protection
against stings) and bee suit. Over 23 of those hives were well occupied and the
bees had put up good to decent honey stores. The December bush honey was very
dark, with a distinct flavor. It was very different than the blonde colored,
floral honey harvested in the Valley in late May.

In total there were five of us, which was good as we were able to share the load of harvesting and hauling the equipment. The hives in Lyanza are of two varieties. Top bar hives and Langstroth hives. Most of the Langstroth hives had the wires removed from the honey supers - the men like to squeeze the honey from the comb together with that from the top bar hives. Since this is the second time we harvested in the month of December, it is amazing to see how the queens cut back in laying and seem to just put up honey during this important nectar flow. Most of the hives we harvested from only had three to four brood combs in them and honey all around the brood chamber as well as any added super. We have very few of the hives with queen excluders. The bees seem to know just where we want the honey!

Day after processing, together with Eliamu Mulungu one of the heads of Tree of Life, good yield of flavorful dark forest honey. Honey is the "primary vehicle" for helping this NGO meet its financial needs.

When working with African bees be sure that you keep smoking the area you are working in to keep the bees in check. Smoke masks the bees alarm pheromone, diffusing a lot of aggression.

We followed the old fashioned method, favored by locals in Africa, of brushing bees off the honey comb and cutting the comb into buckets to process later. It is a process which is time consuming but works well! It requires few tools and the hives used are much more inexpensive than a full Langstroth complete with wires requiring a centrifuge to extract the honey. In this case the honey is extracted by pressing the comb. Presses can be incorporated or it can be pressed by hand while wearing latex gloves. The finished product is
excellent.

Langstroth hives need "lots" of management. The problem with beekeeping using Langstroth hives is that most Africans who keep bees are using beekeeping to "diversify" their income. Meaning, they are also involved in many other forms of income generation to financially make it through the year. These agriculturalists often do not have time to properly manage Langstroth hives due to farming, thatching roofs, tending animals and planting and harvesting other crops like corn rice and sunflowers for oil. Thus, a complicated hive like the Langstroth, that costs 70-80 dollars each to buy and needs special extraction equipment, is not used to its fullest potential and the farmer has debt on his hands for buying such equipment. The Langstroth can be the goal for every serious African beekeeper, but in my opinion one should never start out with such equipment until they decide to focus primarily on beekeeping
as a livelihood.

Thank you for taking time to read our update on the Lyanza village harvest here at Africanbeekeeping.com. We wish you happy beekeeping wherever you are in Africa! Please feel free to comment on our "comment page." I will get right back to you about questions or comments you make regarding beekeeping on this great continent!

Ted Rabenold

More photos from the harvest:

Hauling a heavy hive to the harvesting table. It is always a good idea to take a small table to the bush with you to harvest your honey on as it can get quite tiring for your back to bend over and work on hives placed on the ground.

The “Tree of Life” NGO men harvest their honey. These men have been trained in harvesting and training others in beekeeping. I have great faith in the beekeeping work they are involved in and am fortunate to have worked with them these past years!

Harvesting from a swinging apiary. The wires holding the swing with the hives on are
greased to prevent Siafu ants from attacking the colonies.

Mixed drone brood, worker brood and beautiful white-capped honeycomb.

Ha, the rascals! Even with starter strips affixed to our top bars they burr combed this hive.

Beautiful capped comb. This is a box type hive with bars in it and it works great!

Frenki with full-capped honey comb from the brood chamber of a Langstroth.

Frenki banging excess bees off a Langstroth honey super before taking it to the truck.

Amazing white capped honey comb in the brood chamber of our Lyanza hives.