Beekeeping - training and livelihoods
The situation
In rural Nigeria people tend to go into the bush and hunt for honey, rather than keeping bees. Hunting for honey involves killing the bees; the resulting honey is not as clean as honey taken from managed hives.People at Fanstuam have been wondering if it would be possible to keep bees at Attachab, and so Dadamac is helping them to find out. (This is a Dadamac OK project - people are sharing knowledge, but we will also need to find some resources).
Story so far
In 2008 beekeeping at Attachab became a regular agenda item during our UK-Nigeria team meetings. We started to learn something about the necessary pre-requisites for beekeeping, thanks to some expert advisors (including people at First Thursdys). We got as far as checking there were suitable forage plants for bees, and that there would be a market for honey, and deciding how it should be sold. We decided that it could become a useful small enterprise.
However, we needed money to arrange training, and to buy bees, hives and other equipment, and there were more urgent projects pressing for attention so the beekeeping idea was put aside for a while.
In November 2009 we discovered some great training resources, specifically for beekeeping in Afirca, which are freely avaliable. This encouraged us to take first steps in reviving the project by making it more visible here and setting up a discussion group
What we need:
- A volunteer - to nurture this group
- Resources - see Dadamac Foundation for fundraising and giving
