Juliette

It changed me greatly. Before, I was stranded, having nowhere to start from to care for the kids. I started with 3 beehives, but the most challenging was that I had no experience. However, from trainings received from cooperative societies, I got some knowledge in terms of how to keep bees. I increased the number of hives and started engaging in outreaches. From there, I started growing and I became fairly better than before. 

The Life as Beekeeper

Who belongs to your family and who is living with you?

I never had the opportunity to have children of my own. So, she decided to take care of orphans and currently take care of 18 of them. 

I am helping them in areas like spirituality, education and teaching them activities like field work and bee keeping. 

The oldest is 25 years old and the youngest 4 years old. The oldest is senior 6. 

What motivated you to start bee keeping?

Life was very difficult. I saw people doing bee keeping and a thought struck my mind to start bee keeping to meet the needs of my family. And with time, opportunities started to pop in from the cooperative societies and now I am better.

What does being a bee farmer mean to you?

To me, bee farming has become a part of me compared to other projects. Because there are a lot more losses in other projects than in bee keeping. Since I started bee keeping, it has supported me in providing school fees for the children. 

What would you like to change in your life?

I want to build a permanent house because I sleep in a grass thatched house. I need to get the transport means to reach the market for my honey. I would like to increase the number of beehives, get them organized, and provide fencing around my beehives. I have 60 beehives so far. 

What are your biggest challenges and how do you plan to overcome them?

The lack of storage facility since my house got burned. Secondly, theft and inadequate capital to increase the volume of honey and lastly termites that eat the wood that support the beehives.

To curb down theft, I would like to get fencing materials to strengthen the security of my beehives. For the termites, I would like to get metallic stands that cannot be eaten by termites.

What do you do to enjoy yourself?

Praying. Talking to God. I enjoy watching football at the local playground. After paying school fees and meeting the needs of my children, the money that remains is used to stock food to be used in times of scarcity.

What would you do if you had one year off?

I am sure I would gain weight! I would keep supervising how my project is running. I would use this time to do other enterprises like livestock farming.

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