Although Frame and Top Bar Hives (TBH) may be used for commercial yards, in my eyes they

neither meet the circumstances of African honeybees nor of farm people living in rural areas. Here I
describe, from own experience the life of a traditional side-line beekeeper and how he arranges himself
with the rather particular behaviour of African honey bees
In rural areas of tropical Africa the peoples’ living conditions in their social and environmental
context are characterized by unrelyable rains, too little or too much, no mains for electricity, no
telephones, long ways to wells and shops, expensive transports on bad roads (mostly done on foot
or by bicycle) and, very little money. The majority of Africans who joined my courses on bees in
the Ngorongoro / Mbulu area are traditional beekeepers, but predominantly they are subsistence
farmers. Most of their time they spend on the land, on house repairing and improving, women
additionally on caring for their many children and there they incur quite some costs for schooling
them. I reckon cash is limited to $500-700 per year and family. Beekeeping as a sideline activity
is not easy under such conditions. Nails and wire are valuable and so are more complicated tools.
The government promotes beekeeping with TBHs but this is unrealistic in more than one respect:
Unless the hives are donated, as happened in villages adjoining the Ngorongoro Conservation
Area, but not near the Marang Forest Reserve, the income from one sold harvest of honey does
not pay back the investment into such a hive. And, sad to say, unless specially trained, the users
of THBs are not trained enough to manage the bees properly. Furthermore, very few THBs I saw
were occupied by bees, untended they were rotting away. So people gain the impression that
swarms do not like THBs. In contrast, farmers can arrange themselves better with bees in
traditional log hives; just hang more to compensate when rate of occupancy is low and anyway
harvest only every other year. Log-hives cost virtually nothing, just the labour to build
them.Then“zero-managing” is the only option for them to come in terms with their agile bees.
When harvesting these hives (done in the night) relatives and friends assist, with carrying gear far
away from the village where log hives are usually kept, with climbing the trees and smoking the
bees to calm if not kill them There is not enough money to take new buckets for “good” and
separate for “bad” honey, nor money for appropriate bee equipment like protective clothings,
filters, and bottling jars. The results are: first all combs are removed from the log-hive and then
those with some honey carried home, the rest is discarded. Due to poor lighting at the fire ( the
risk of forest fires had persuaded forest and National Park authorities to chuck out / repel
beekeepers altogether from forests) and strong defence by bees, people procede hastily with much
smoke and take also honey mixed with pollen and brood and hygene with honey leaves a lot to be
desired. Sad to say beekeeper’s inattentiveness spoils the originally clean natural product. I tested
some honeys and they tasted not pleasant mostly also of smoke.
(In rural areas empty combs ‘per se’ have little market value; they are usually discarded. Gaining wax
from combs which keeps, it must be heated in (non) boiling water possibly in a waterbath, and this
should be done outside the house and late in the evening; if wax catches fire it is dangerous inside the
dwellings, and if done in daytime bees are attracted and become a serious nuisance. For keeping combs
without melting, they have to be strung, spaced and hung airy otherwise wax moth larvae spoil and
quickly destroy them. Some Africans doubt the effectiveness of this storing and are adement to melt
combs as soon as possible.)
If the individual beekeeper manages to keep the harvested honey clean enough for a lucrative market
he is confronted with the transport: he needs to do a 30 km journey or more on foot or on bicycle. In
the end he gives up and offer the honey-dead bees-wax mixture to relatives, uses it as donation at the
church auction, selling it as “natural honey” (a beekeeper is quoted) on a local market, for brewing
local beer, in the end he has gained virtually nothing. Thus, without an incentive like obtaining good
cash for good quality honey organized at a close collecting place, the situation will not change.
Rural village beekeeping: Swarms come on own account to live and fix their combs unrestrictedly
inside almost any containers. For harvesting the colony it must not be turned out to perishes as is the
usual case, but instead, only surplus clean honey should be taken from their stores without danger. The
bellhive method suits bees, men and women, and provides extra income. It is environment friendly and
therefore sustainable in the widest sense of the word.
. My aquaintant Mr.P.Paterson, Nairobi, thinks that the shape and size of a hive was not as important
as was the availability of sufficient bee forage. Surely, for a worthwhile beekeeping the area must
offer enough forage and water the year round and nearby. But hive designs become crucial when it
comes to harvesting. My approach is pivoted on suitable hives for home beekeeping, light in weight
for handling and when full, safe to manipulate (this can be a problem with TBHs). And on secure
methods for keeping colonies docile near ones homestead Here I list again some of the advantages
of a small bellhive; it is light in weight (1.5 Kg) and thus easy to manipulate, does not require leveling;
is robust and durable, cheap ( 5$) and easy and quick to build with a knive and a wire poker (two to
three hives in one day). And then there are all the advantages associated with harvesting. When done
in dusk or dawn it takes only minutes to take off a full “honey-top” and replace it by an empty one;
the main nest is not opened so no fighting with the bees and no absconding is to be expected the bees
“forget” the disturbance; their honey in the reverted full bowl when covered with a clean sheet is
sealed for transport. “comb honey” inside a bowl, visibly untouched can fetch a good price. For home
use the honey top may be ladled out with a spoon, or filtered, slowly drained through a new nylon
stocking it may be sold in a jar with attractive lable.
With bellhives ( large ones included) any swarm catcher boxes are obsolate, and harvesting is just
lifting off only surplus stores, or cutting out just combs with ripe honey from below. So no feeding is
required. With this concept the spectrum of possibilities lies between “zero colony managing” and
advanced skep-hive managing for experts. The latter can comprise of feeding honey-sugar cake during
derth, migrating, expanding, dividing and transfering a colony (sized combs lifted from the bottom and
clamped with the other hand to starter bars, from the top.
Here I should emphasize that the larger bell hives now planned for Africa are like troughs hung
invertedly. It is charactereized by the possibility to open it at the bottom, hung within easy reach and
that during harvesting , smoke passes up and out of the bees regular entrance, driving bees
automatically up and off the combs etc. All this is described elsewhere.
With the estimated 8 kg clean honey harvested per hive and year from 10 to 20 hung up bellhives the
farmer can earn when selling it at least the equivalent of 300 $. In the first year this amount is reduced
by the material costs for hives ($100). This cash, gained with little effort and no land used, is small but
still significant when added to the house hold budget in the financial situation of villagers in rural
areas..