Help women increase their income with beekeeping

Since June it is the rainy season. This means little activity with the hives. Bees are not going out so much since there are very few flowers at this time. They are living out the honey they have produced after the main harvest in April.

With the funds gathered via GlobalGiving an another generous donor, we are able to provide beekeeping equipment to an additional 50 people. From those 40 are women and 10 are men.

As for the 130 other people who have already hives, the first step is the training in the villages. This training is for 2 days (one day theoretical and one day practice). The training will be completed end of September. By this time, all the 250 new hives will be installed.

This training is very important to make sure that the new beekeepers can perform the harvest, but also that they have a proper harvest.

Comment of a woman of the village of Sipigui, Ouédraogo Haoua: “here we are used to hearing that beekeeping is not an activity for women because it is considered dangerous. This training and the new apicultural techniques learned, show us that women can practice it safely because there are methods and proper equipment”.

The next step will be the check of the swarming of the hives, then to wait until April for the first harvest.

One apiary of 5 hives can bring up to 70 US$ per year for a woman. This is a very much welcome additional income helping the women to take care of their family.

There are still many women to be helped.

Help us invest in the future of the rural women in Burkina Faso with a new donation and / or by communication this project to friends and family.

Begining of April 2018 beekeepers have started to harvest their hives. This went on through the fisrt half of April. 

This is about 2 weeks earlier than in a normal year. The rainy season in 2017 stopped very early in September. One of the concequences was early flowering of the trees which imply this early harvesting. 

For some beekeepers they were able to collect honey early April and to do a second harvest in the second half of May.

The volume collected increased by 35% in comparison with last year. The total weight of raw honey (honey + wax) which we bought was 1.300 kg this year.

The training done end of 2017 really paid of. Almost all beekeepers had an increase in their harvested honey. Average income for beekeepers who sold their honey to us was 70US$. For the women with beehives this will help them take care of their family at a time when starvation is coming due to very bad yield for the culture in the fields in 2017.

However some other beekeepers were not so lucky. Elephants came and destroy their hives looking for the honey. This happened to at least 3 beekeepers who had their hives close to protected areas where there are wandering elephants.

We are still looking to fund more hives for women. May be your friends can help sponsor hives for them. What is may be not a lot of money for you can make a huge and sustainable difference for women in rural area of Burkina Faso.

Thank you for your support and do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions.

Sincerely

ASAP

In November and December 2017 an additional training has been given to the beekeepers with two main objectives:

• Improve the percentage of hives with swarms
• Improve the harvesting method

Regarding the colonization of the hives by swarms, the information  we have got from the field is very positive. All contacted  beekeepers have confirmed that 100% of their hives where with swarm.

On the second point we will have to wait the month of April in order to check the impact of the training.

The beekeepers are very optimist about the volume of raw honey they will collect this year. Fruit trees had a lot of flowers this year (mango, cashew nuts, shea nuts, locust bean trees), more than last year.

Price of the raw honey has been increased to 1.85 US$/kg from 1.55 US$/kg. We expect to buy more than 2.000 kg of raw honey in 2018.

This will bring additional income for the beekeepers: more kg of honey and higher price per kg.

There are still 200 villagers looking for hives from which 50 women.

Help us helping them get an additional income by providing them hives.

Thank you for your support.

At time of harvest in April, we realise that at least a third of the beehives we had provided where not swarmed. 

We first did a audit with a specialist to analyse the reasons for this situation. We found out that the unswarmed hives where not positioned properly (orientation or location).

In order to improve the knowledge of the beekeepers we have started a training in selected villages. The training goes over 2 days, including one session at night. 

With the training we expect the farmers to have a better understanding about bees, to be able to recognize if the swarm is of good quality, how to position the hives, why does swarm leaves the hives, how to bring a swarm in the hives. The training will also help farmers to maintain and protect their hives.

This year the rainy season has stopped very soon and abruptaly. One of the concequence is a very poor harvest, but also fruit trees are flowering at least one month earlier than normal. During the training it has been advised to check on the production of honey has early as February (when it is normally done early April). It is important to harvest the honey at the right time.

With this training we expect to have at least 90% of the hives with bees and that the production of each hives will be between 7 to 10 kg of raw honey.

Results will be measured at time of harvest between March and April 2018.

We wish you a healthy and peaceful newyear.

Do not hesitate to communicate with your friends about this project.

Thank you again for your support.

When we started the beekeeping project, the applicants lists consisted only of men from 4 villages. Women of those villages where told not to apply by the men.

For the second funding for beekeeping we had, we decided to accept only women applicants. Those women were from 3 new villages where men had not had the chance to aplly yet. 

For the irst group of beekeepers we had no problem with the training and the setting up of the hives in the 4 villages. However, the men of the 3 new villages created a lot of difficulties for us to train the women and set up the hives. For example the men were making sure that the women were not available at the dates planned for the training. Also, since the land belongs to the men, they were not accepting the location for the set up of the hives.

Taking into account those difficulties, we had to promise the men of those 3 villages that they would be included in the next group of participants. This is what we did and all the problems were gone.

From now on, for the beeking project we are making sure that both genders can participate.

What we have learned is that, even if we know that projects will work better with women than with men and if we want it to be a success, we have to have a good balance on who in the village will benefit from the projects.