The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Bee

  • Making money from bee byproducts

    Making money from bee byproducts

    Bee keeping is a sustainable income generation business to farmers. It offers invaluable nutrition as honey, protein and other byproducts. But there are money spinning opportunities from the herbal use of bees, DANIEL ESSIET reports.

    Chief Executive,Centre for Bee Research and Development, Oyo State, Bidemi Ojeleye, is one  of the biggest  producers of quality honey and honey products in Oyo State.

    Bidemi Ojeleye
    Bidemi Ojeleye

    He owns about 4000 hives. If his  income from the business blossomed, he might not be consider other ventures, he said.

    But this expectation depends on one factor: the quality of his harvest.

    Breeding queen bees for sale and bee-keeping training courses have also provided extra income for the business. Oyeleye provides training in bee-keeping and assists agro entrepreneurs  in developing organisations and management skills, basic record-keeping, and farm economics competency in honey business.

    Based in Igbeti, Oyo State, his  honeybee ambition has grown into a fully-fledged farming enterprise. It is among the top honeybee firms in the country.

    Ojeleye said honeybees can make a significant contribution to agriculture through the critical roles they perform in producing honey, pollinating vegetables and fruit orchards.

    Apiculture is the art  of beekeeping. It has provided many entrepreneurs  business  opportunities.  He  has  taken  all components of apiculture, including scientific colony management, bee breeding, bee pathology, bee products, bee flora,  value-addition and bee equipment.

    He is keen to see more farmers maximise their potential of bee-keeping to provide income for their families and contribute to rural development.

    According to him,  the industry produces honey, wax and  pollen. Few  people, he claimed,  are  making money from selling honey for  medicinal products. His training  enables people to harvest and process bee products, such as royal jelly, propolis, and bee venom. These products are safe and organic.

    He wants to see more Nigerians  produce  quality  beeswax, which  is an important ingredient in the preparation of beauty and healing products, medicinal skin creams, and ointments. The bee wax are highly efficacious in the treatment of dry and chapped skin and lips, cuts, abrasions,and grazes. Recognising the value of these products, he  is  ready  to train more Nigerians  in harvesting,  processing, and use of beeswax for manufacturing healing and cosmetic p r o d u c t s.

    Prospective entrepreneurs will  also be trained to produce royal jelly, also known as ‘bee milk’, rich in protein, vitamins and minerals and used for convalescence and fatigue, growth problems, ageing, stress, and infertility.The other area is the production of bee propolis used to fight plant viruses in crops, such as tobacco and cucumber.

    Ojeleye said he was ready to  work with prospective entrepreneurs  to  create new opportunities to sustain the bee sector’s contributions to agricultural development  and  job  creation.

    Though honey is its main product, he  wants to see honey used for the pollination of crops in greenhouses. Also, he wants propolis and bee venom used for treating acute and chronic non-surgical ailments. This means more money for  bee keepers. So many  bee keepers  are becoming involved in cosmetics production. Cosmetics are good business. Many Nigerians  are  getting  involved in the production of  cosmetics using bee products. Those in the business use pollen and propolis extractions.

    Jim Herbal Products Managing Director, Mikail Jimoh,  said cosmetics are probably the most easy to produce and sell. At the moment, the market for small entrepreneurs appears to be large. The product is good for small scale starters. Quality and marketing are easily adapted to increasing experience and increased business size.

    The key ingredient for  some  entrepreneurs is propolis, a natural resin gathered by bees from the bark and leaf buds of trees, which they then use to protect and maintain their hives. They combine this with herbs to make natural products for skin and hair.

    Bee venom is used to combat multiple sclerosis, pollen for indigestion and  honey to heal wounds.

    The  bee has been a key source of alternative medicine and many  entrepreneurs are working to keep the apitherapy alive. An  apitherapist and beekeeper, Mr Ayodele Salako,  is  on the  mission to  encourage people  to  take  up bee-keeping as a secondary activity to supplement their income.

    He hopes to develop the habit of consuming honey as a daily diet to stay healthy. He assures that beneficiaries will be trained. Narrating his success story, he emphasised that training is vital to anyone who veered into the business to avail himself of the huge job opportunities in the subsector.

    According to him, there are  many things bees produced that farmers haven’t really tapped into. whereas there are other aspects of honey, such as pollination and bee venom therapy.

    He wants Nigerians to explore the health benefits of bee venom therapy.

    A force in the medical honey business, Salako is ready to train people who are interested in apitherapy,  honey and other bee products to treat sicknesses.

    His aim is to help the villagers he meets to transit from subsistence to commercial farming through apitherapy. He  is being supported by various local organisations to conduct training on apicultural  entrepreneurship. He said the programme offers the best opportunities in self-emploment.

    At the moment, he promotes  honey as an effective medical therapy  for  eye, nose and throat and wound care products.

    One, he said, can start the business with N30,000.

    He has a programme for training small holder farmers in apiculture techniques. It enables farmers to purchase beehives and provides the marketing outlet to sell their honey. Salako  produces high-grade honey in various containers.

    More farmers have joined his network, he said, while others are  purchasing his  hives.

    On small-scale rural farmers, who embrace bee keeping, he said  he provides  them training, extension services, and a guaranteed market.

    Other benefits include cash payments for the products they sell.

     

  • Osogbo hosts bee keepers’ confab Nov. 9

    The Centre for Bee Research & Development (CEBRAD) is organising a three-day conference for key players in the apicultural business under the theme, “Maximising apicultural potential as a way forward to oil dependent economy in Nigeria”.

    The conference, the second Biennial Nigerian Beekeeping Conference, tagged, NIBEECON 2015, is aimed at providing updates of advances in all aspects of beekeeping and develop strategies for reaping success from this industry in the areas of dissemination of research findings, latest beekeeping technology, globalisation and trade issues as a better alternative to monolithic oil dependent economy.

    The event will hold on November 9, through at Brymor Hotels Ltd, Ilobu Road, Osogbo, capital of Osun State.

    According to the Director of the Centre, Mr. Bidemi Ojeleye, the conference is a major event in the beekeeping calendar and the nation’s biggest national beekeeping event because it will attract people from the hobbyist to the commercial beekeepers, MDAs relevant to beekeeping and economic activities of the nation, development programs workers, trainers and extension workers as well as parkers of beekeeping products, equipment fabricators, apitherapists, entomologists and academics, farmers, journalists, students and other interested members of the public.

  • Firm seeks redemption through spelling bee

    Teammasters, an education consulting firm, hopes to contribute to reversing the decay in the education sector through its spelling bee competition.

    Rotimi Eyitayo, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the firm, said the competition, now in its seventh year, provides a platform for their intervention in boosting quality education without resorting the conventional classroom teaching and learning method.

    “When you see someone like myself train and speak, people admire the courage; they admire the level of confidence – even if it is a thousand or 2,000 you are speaking to.  We had the desire to see how we could translate that same confidence right in the kids outside the classroom. We looked at it and said what way can we train these kids consistently and achieve a particular result without necessarily taking them through the classroom method? And that was what gave birth to the spelling bee project that was launched October 14th 2008,” he said.

    He said through the competition, which is open to primary and secondary school pupils, aged 6-17 in four categories (lower primary, upper primary, junior and senior secondary), the pupils not only learn to undertake rigorous preparation for the competition which was inspired by popular movie, Akeelah and the Bee, they also learn confidence and public speaking.

    Though the competition is open to both public and private school pupils, Eyitayo lamented that participation from public schools has been low.  He said even when they got a sponsor for 200 public school pupils, they struggled to get 40 because of government bureaucracy.

    “Public schools are not allowed to pay because it is a free education.  But what we do is that during the registration, 20 students are selected to participate.  Even at that we have unnecessary bottlenecks. There was a particular occasion that the sponsors wanted about 200 students. You will be shocked that we were struggling to get 40 because of the bottleneck.  The level of openness working with public schools has been a challenge,” he said.

    To address that challenge this year, Eyitayo said the organisers have not limited registration to schools.  He said individuals can register on their own – perhaps sponsored by their parents; while institutions can also register pupils in their host communities.  That way, he hopes that by the time registration closes on November 30, many more pupils from various classes of schools would have entered for the competition, which kicks off with the district stage in December.

    The competition would progress to the state finals early next year and climax with the national finals.

    In the past six editions, Eyitayo noted that winners have emerged from both big name elite schools and little-known private schools from Lagos and 15 other states.

     

  • National Spelling Bee to begin next year

    Some April next year, the maiden edition of National Spelling Bee Competition will kick off in Africa’s most populous nation-Nigeria. Interested states willing to enroll their wards would be allowed to participate by formally applying for the forms, which will be available in November. Twenty five pupils, each representing 25 schools, will be taken from each state, said Young Educators Foundation (YEF), organiser, of the event.

    The grand finale, according to its organiser, has been tentatively fixed for April next year in Calabar, Cross River State.

    Explaining to reporters what the event is all about, YEF Country Director, Mrs. Eugenia Tachie-Menson, said the contest is targeted at primary school pupils between ages eight and 14.

    According to her, YEF is an NGO that promotes literacy and education, noting that the foundation is also a franchise holder of Scripps National Spelling Bee, United States.  Ghana is the only African country to participate in Scripps National Spelling Bee in partnership with two consulting firms, PDR Media Service Nigeria and Business Interactive Consulting International.”

    She said the major objective of the competition in Nigeria is to encourage pupils to improve on their knowledge and application of the rules guiding the use of English Language.

    According to her,  YEF, last year, underwent the trial version of the contest in Osun State to understand the challenges and prepare better this year.

    “We are very pleased with the overwhelmingly successful implementation of The Spelling Bee in Osun States, where the eventual winner, Zainab Olawale of Unity School, Osogbo was rewarded with an all expense-paid trip to the 87th Scripps National Spelling Bee of the USA, as a guest.  We remain grateful to the State of Osun and the office of Sheri Care Foundation (a foundation initiated by the wife of the State of Osun, Alhaja Sherifa Aregbesola)  for welcoming this programme into Nigeria,” she said.

    Mr. Emmanuel Afful, a Linguist and Lead Trainer of the competition, said selected teachers from the 25 schools would undergo one-week training to be led by Linguistics trained officials from Ghana. After this, the teachers, she added, are expected to impart their newly acquired skills onto their pupils before presenting them for the competition.