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“My grand father and my father used to do beekeeping but also on small scale not for selling honey but for home consumption. Then I also started slowly up to when I started seeing money from it then expanded.”
My Life as Beekeeper
Who belongs to your family / who is living with you?
I stay home alone, my children stay and work in the town and others in Kampala.
How has bee keeping changed your life?
I am now 73 years old and started beekeeping when I was 20 years old. I started by making my own hives from sticks with banana fibers and smearing cow-dung which is also used as bait to attract the bees. I now have about 30 traditional beehives and harvest about 5 jerricans of honey in a season.
My life has slightly changed because I get some money from the sale of the bee products especially honey and propolis. I also take honey as medicine for cough, flue, wounds, stomach pains.
How do you provide a good environment for your bees?
I provide good environment for the bees by planting flowers for the bees like caliandra plant, sunflower, eucalyptus trees and others. I dug a well nearby for water for the bees.
What do trees mean to you and how can they be protected?
Trees are very good for our environment; they give us flowers for the bees to get nector and pollen, they protect us from wind, they give us medicine sometimes like the leaves of eucalyptus are used as medicine for cough. They hold the soil so that its not eroded away.
What is the most important thing in your life?
Land because if I get big land I can always sell off and get a lot of money, or even can use it for extensive farming then get a lot of money.
What are your biggest challenges and how do you plan to overcome them?
My biggest challenge is lack of protective wear so I get stung whenever I go to harvest. So I plan to buy one.
There are so many pests here, like red ants, black ants, and honey badgers I try to control by cleaning the apiary and slashing the grass in the apiary.
What do like to do in your free time?
I go to the trading centre join my colleague and we have a beer.
Which place would you like to see once?
I would like to visit Nairobi in Kenya.
