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“First of all, I love keeping bees because it provided me extra food that time. Then later on I was motivated because people started using the bee products, especially honey for food and medicine..”.
The Life as Beekeeper
Who belongs to your family / who is living with you?
My name is Afidra Ben Amorimvapi. I come from Ogoko sub-sub-county. am married with children. We are about 10 people in my family during holidays. This number drops to 5 during school days because the other children go back to school
What motivated you to start bee keeping?
I have been keeping bees since 2006. I use part of the Ajai Wild reserve as a project area for this apiary project.
First of all, I love keeping bees because it provided me extra food that time. Then later on I was motivated because people started using the bee products, especially honey for food and medicine
How has beekeeping changed your life?
I have been getting benefits from bee keeping simply because I both eat it and they also pollinate my crops very well. That means improved crop yield and food security. That has changed my life
How do you provide a good environment for your bees?
First of all, I used to keep the bees in old pots and I put them on trees. Later on I started using local hives made of bamboo material, smeared with cow dung and wrapped in carpet which would stay longer. Then later on, the idea of introducing bee hives, modern bee hives attracted me and I started using them.
What do trees mean to you and how can they be protected?
I love the environment which is tree covered, because it gives me a lot of fresh air and at the same time it gives me shade. Definitely, if you look at the western side of my home, natural trees like hegline are still existing. But somewhere if you go you may not get them in the whole of the sub-county. People have been exploiting them for charcoal burning, and I don’t allow cutting and charcoal burning in my area.
What is the most important thing in your life?
In my life I value keeping our environment, maintaining a friendly environment. This one includes, as you can see around I almost have
all species of domestic animals. And if you moved around in the evenings you would see wild animals nearby, including indigenous and exotic trees. These ones are my pleasure in life
What are your biggest challenges and how do you plan to overcome them?
Yes, there is a bit of bee keeping challenge. The greatest challenge is acquiring the hives, then sighting the apiary, then of course begin keeping the bees so that they are colonized and from time to time protecting the hives from thieves, actually lazy people, who come to steal the honey. In many cases if I’m not there, people used to come and steal the honey..
What do you like to do in your free time?
When I get free time, I rest
Which place would you like to see once?
Now, I can go anywhere because I have been to other places and I have now come home. I love home more than any other place. However, if there is opportunity to go to some place, I would go. And I would only go for significant issues like going to exhibit exactly the things I am doing here in my environment so that I let everybody know about it, as much as I hope to come with new ideas.
