Beekeepers make profit producing more than just honey and beeswax. Money comes from bee pollen, pedigree queen bees, propolis, royal jelly and more.This is the campaign Mr Bidemi Ojeleye, Chief Executive, Centre for Bee Research and Development, Igbeti, Oyo State, is mounting to get more Nigerians involved in the money spinning business. DANIEL ESSIET writes.
If one doesn’t mind the occasional stings, beekeeping as a home business could become a pleasurable and profitable enterprise, Chief Executive, Centre for Bee Research and Development, Igbeti, Oyo State, Bidemi Ojeleye, has said.
Beekeeping is a good way for someone to get some money out a hobby, said Ojeleye , who has already recouped his investment in bee keeping , including his own honey extractor, by selling at local farmer’s markets.
With a single hive and some equipment of N20,000, a home beekeeper could harvest about 100 pounds of honey, or 36 quarts, every six months. At the going price of up to N1000 for litre of honey in today’s market, that’s more than enough to recoup the initial investment.
Ojeleye has over 4000 hives in different places in Igbeti. He owns commercial hives consisting of wooden boxes, each containing 10 wooden frames around a plastic sheet with hundreds of small hexagonal cells, similar to the wax cells in a natural hive. The cells become breeding chambers for the next generation of bees and to store honey for food.
To make it, he said one needs some level of expertise and there’s a lot to learn. There are opportunities for bee keepers to make money. This is because honey isn’t the only commercial product from a commercial beehive.
One can make money from extracting wax which bees create to cover the honey and brood cells, though it is a laborious process.
For example, bees wax is used in candle making, shoe polish, vehicle and floor polishes, varnish, gum, carbon paper, electrical appliances, fabric industry, cosmetics, wax crayons, metal casting and food processing and packaging. In beekeeping industry,he said it is used for the preparation of comb foundations.
However, in addition to honey, production of bees wax, propolis, pollen, royal jelly, pedigree queen bees, package bees, and renting out honey bee colonies for crop pollination are some of the potential areas of apicultural diversification, he said.
He explained that the challenge however is that government has not supported the production of other bee products that can provide the beekeepers with additional wealth and increase the productivity of the colonies.
Ojeleye said everything produced by bees can be turned into cash. While most farmers harvest honey twice a year, he harvests four times a year, attributing his higher harvests ratio to proper maintenance.
Using money from honey, the enterprising beekeeper has built a house and bought a car. This has motivated him to encourage people to go into agriculture-related professions in rural areas, while hosting a mega honey bee-keeping conference in Igbeti for farmers and researchers.
For those who don’t have enough money, Ojeleye said they can start with N15,000. They can start with two wooden hives, but with more, they will make more money, he said. With his experience, Ojeleye said beekeeping is a veritable means of livelihood.
He said school fees is not a problem for a thriving farmer, as income generated from a few number of hives situated within a good forest area, can help him send his children to school and buy other basic necessities with money made from the sale of honey.
Having spent over 30 years in the business which he learnt while on a visit to Kenya, Ojeleye is so versed and well equipped to teach everything_ from beekeeping to product development, to marketing essential skills that help people earn money. He trains farmers on budgeting and costing issues.
His success shows that when done the right way, bee farming can be better paying than many white collar jobs. The veteran beekeeper has no kind words for the current education system which prepares students for white collar jobs and portrays farming as a career for failures.
Where other people see danger in the vicinity of a colony of bees, Ojeleye sees friends that provide huge dosages of elixir during his lean moments.
Because of his love for bees, he has been able to study their ways such that he can easily understand them and ensure that there is no enmity. His love affair with his bees is not unique, as almost every other beekeeper in the area seems to have an affinity with their bees.
He has a huge vision for his project as he wants to produce high quality, branded honey.
Another beekeeper, Jimoh Hammed, said he has been in apiculture as a side business from farming and trying to establish strong bond with his bees.
Trained by Ojeleye, Hammed, believes beekeeping is a viable business and there is money to be made through it.
He said a lot of suspicion and traditional myths surrounding the use of honey has seen people paying scant regard to its true value.
One area people fear is the bee sting. Although it hurts, Hammed explained that the venom extracted from bees is used to heal bee bites. Besides, he is now used to the bites and has developed that much resistance to their stings.
He says if someone is bitten by a bee, a signal is sent to the other bees and they will come to attack the same person, but they have learnt to break the signal between the bees and their communication with the queen bee by rubbing the bitten spot with green leaves or shrubs.
