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“In fact I realized there is money in honey. It can give you good income. So, that motivated me to go into bee keeping. Here we largely do cultivation. And you could plant cassava but it takes so long. Other crops equally don’t do well. So, I find bee keeping easier.”
The Life as Beekeeper
Who belongs to your family / who is living with you?
I’m called Matua Alex from here in Oluko sub-county. I am married, with children. Some of them are still in school, one is doing a tailoring course. So we are 8 in the family
How has beekeeping changed your life?
During good season, you can realize good money. That has helped me push my children to school. Then you add money from other sources. So, overall, I think it has changed our life a little bit. We can try basic needs, but of course it is not adequate.
How do you provide a good environment for your bees?
Here it is very dry during dry season.
So sometimes I give them water, you saw some cut out jerry cans there. That is to provide them water. Then we protect these trees so that they have flowers around. I’m also planting more mango trees to help them with forage.
Apart from that, they have to look for their food.
What do trees mean to you and how can they be protected?
Trees are important, not only to me but everybody. Trees bring rain, trees provide good and cool shade, sometimes we sell to people who need firewood etc. So, trees are important. We protect them but ensuring that people don’t cut them so much. But you can only protect those in your own piece of land, but the others….ahhhh it is hard.
What is the most important thing in your life?
The most important thing is that I should be alive, work hard to get money, so that I can educate my children
What are your biggest challenges and how do you plan to overcome them?
The biggest challenge here is now looking after these hives and trying to ensure the number is increased. The other challenge is that these trees are disappearing. People cut trees so much for charcoal, firewood, curing tobacco etc. So, if these are gone, we shall be in a big problem. We need to plant more trees.
To overcome these challenges, we just have to work hard, but it is also not easy without money.
What do you like to do in your free time?
After work, I just come home and take a rest.
Which place would you like to see once?
I can’t go away…..for how long? That will be hard because if I’m away, the family will suffer. I just want to be around here. Maybe if there is opportunity for training, we go, attend and come back to put it into practice.
