Rukwa Valley 2021

May 23rd found us harvesting honey together with trainees in the Rukwa valley. After a day of Theory training the trainees were ready to go out to the bush with us and get their hands dirty. In every case, according to our students, the practical “hands on” training done on the second day of our training sessions is their favorite part.

After a session of making BEES WAX STARTER STRIPS for using in top bar hives, we suited up and hoisted our buckets, harvesting tools, ladder and equipment. Our goal was NOT to simply harvest honey; but rather to harvest honey while teaching local beekeepers about the colony and how they interact with each other. One of the goals during our practical training was looking for the queen and inspecting both brood chambers, as well as honey chambers in the hives we harvested from. Our top bar hives are divided into two separate rooms due to our desire to keep the queen from laying eggs in our honey chambers. This separation is done using coffee wire. The 4.5mm spaces in the coffee wire allow house bees to take honey through the wire to the storage cells in the back of the hive while simultaneously excluding the Queen. It is undesirable to have the queen lay eggs throughout the whole hive. Since bees pupate during development, every cell that the queen lays her eggs in has a webbed cup in it. This makes for a messy harvest and allows bee refuse in the pressed comb while processing honey. So, if you haven’t used queen excluders in the past it may be a good thing to do in the future. They are easy to install and we will update our site with a few pictures of how to add them. We will also make a YouTube video.

Jericho, helping a student “suit up” before going out on the practical training session. It’s important to have someone else help you check your suit to be sure there is no openings bees can get into. Bees always climb up and never down. If you have a space between your veil and suit. They’ll find it!

We have our trainees go together with our skilled training team run by, Jericho Mugalla. He has 15 years of experience and is as courageous as a lion when working with African bees. It’s always a good idea to have someone help check your suit after you put it on. Bees tend to crawl up your body and not down, so any gaps between your veil and suit will be “found out” and investigated.
 
We didn’t find any queens but had a good look at the brood chambers, as well as the honey chambers in all the hives we opened. All the students saw and understood the desirability of having a queen excluder to separate the queen from the honey chamber.
 
Our trainees once again told us how much they enjoyed our session in the bush harvesting honey. One again, we learned and they learned. There is no end to learning when it comes to beekeeping in Africa.
 
Hope that the pictures with this article were informative and encouraging?
 
Happy Beekeeping!
 
Ted Rabenold
Hodari Investments Ltd.

Good pollination produces beautiful fruit, such as these hybrid Tahiti limes growing at our training venue in the Rukwa Valley.

Jericho Mugalla, heads up our practical training. All the trainees love his easygoing way as he teaches them about how to harvest honey from the aggressive African bees.

Harvesting honey from a top bar hive. What a beautiful comb!

If you sell people a half KG of honey be sure that you weigh the containers occasionally to ensure that they are getting what is advertised. You will lose customers if you don’t sell as advertised.

Honey should be packed in clean plastic or glass containers with an attractive label for better sales.

This honey comb shows both capped section and uncapped section. If you notice the transition you can see partially capped comb. All the honey was ripe and ready for processing!

Harvesting team (in white/gray) pictured with students in green.