Water System for Peace Demonstration Farm, Uganda

Bees are amazing little creatures. They pollinate our crops, give us sweet honey to eat, provide wax for our candles and cosmetics, their venom for immune system booster and treatment for people with immune deficiency diseases, and even give us their propollis to use as medicine. When I was a teenager I spent a summer working for a beekeeper. I mostly did grunt work- building hive boxes, painting, and fighting with wax inserts. But when we finally went into the field it was almost magical. Montanan bees are nice! We would talk to them softly, used smoking burlap, and the bees basically welcomed us into their hives.
African bees- as I have recently learned- are NOT so nice! We were hosted by Ugandan Pearls for a three day bee keeping workshop with Malaika Honey. It was an awesome time and we were obviously extremely excited. On the third day we had our 'practicals' where we visited two different bee keeping sites. EXCITING!!! Unfortunately we had 13 trainees and only 10 bee keeping suits. Huh. As I had a bit of previous experience, I opted to NOT wear a suit and instead just keep my distance... But of course I got excited (shocker) and got too close to the hive while the guys were opening it. That was the first time I was attacked by the swarm of angry bees. I ran, swore, flailed my arms in the air and eventually they stopped attacking me.
The dedicated trainee that I was, I promptly went BACK to the hive and was attacked again. Yep. They got my arms, legs, neck, and even my upper lip! This time while I was running I decided to hide and lick my wounds at a village neighbor's house. The sight of a giant white lady running around screaming like a lunatic was obviously entertaining for them, and as I sat peeling potatoes with the mother, her children busied themselves counting my bee stings.
When we went to the next site I decided had a BRILLIANT idea! I borrowed a wide brimmed hat from another neighbor and a mosquito net from the Ugandan Pearls center. WHALLAH! A home-made bee suit! The second site we visited was a colonized hive that was left feral as the owner was afraid of the bees. The bees had been left alone for about 3 years, the hive was completely honey-bound. We were going to slash our way up to the hive (as it was in impenetrable bush) and open it for the first time. This was when I got attacked by angry bees the third time. Apparently a mosquito net is NOT adequate protection against vicious African bees and holy crimeny they got me EVERYWHERE!!! Again I was running through the village screaming with my dress hiked up and tucked into my biker shorts and a cloud of angry bees swarming around my head.
Lesson learned. Fifteen bee stings later my pride was injured but fortunately not much else. Bee suits are on order, and we plan to bring ten hives to the farm. If we can colonize the hives and care for them properly (while wearing full body armor) we should be able to make about $2,000 USD per year in profit. They will also increase our yields as bees are a HUGE help in pollinating our crops.
Moral to this story? African bees are nasty little buggers. BUT they are still worth their weight in gold, er...honey. A few (dozen) bee stings are a small price to pay for the benefits.