Help women increase their income with beekeeping

Honey is harvested in 10 villages from 112 beekeepers (45% are women). It is important to insure a uniform quality of the honey purchased from the beekeepers.

To achieve this we have first a training in the village given the beekeepers some education on beekeeping and on what we expect them to do at time of harvest.

Then we go to each village when the honey is harvested. It is visually check: colour, odour, aspect. It is weighted and water content is controlled using a refractometer. 

The purchased honey is controlled one more time when it comes to our office. It is then processed by batch in which each of the harvested honey from beekeepers is identified for tracibility.

This process and analysis have allowed us to get a national certification called ABnorm.

Revenue from beekeeping is very important for the women. This revenue is used to pay school tuitions, health care expenses.

The fact that it is not an heavy work, that it dooes not require strenght and that the space used for the hives is relatively small makes it a very attractive project for the women.

Help us to get even more hives for women.

Thank you for your continuous help.

Good news! The French Agence pour les Microts Projets has agreed to fund 30 new women with 5 beehives and associated equipment each. The equipment will be delivered to the women end of April.

This will bring the total women with beehives to 90. This means that now we have 57% women in our program.

We are pleased for them but they are many other women who wish to also increase their income from selling honey to improve the situation of their families.

With the 5 hives each woman can earn up 60 US$ per year from the sale of the honey.

In the villages some of the beekeepers have started the harvest of the honey. Those who have already started their harvest are reporting promising volume of honey. We will come back to you with more information on this year harvest in our next report.

Beekeeping is not too difficult to be done by women: most of the work is made by the bees. It does not require land (own by the men) and it bring an extra income to the women who will use it for health and educatioin expenses of their families.

An investment of 100 US$ for one hive will bring 12 US$ per year to a woman.

With the 12 US$ a woman in the village can pay for the school fees for 2 children or pay for medecine for one year for medication malaria for one children or buy 50kg of corn or 25 kg of rice.

 Make sure you communicate about this project to your network. 

Thank you.