Sting or no sting, I’m in love with my bees

Marcellino Kariuki with some of his bee hives on his farm in Embu. PHOTO | FELIX MUGENDI

What you need to know:

  • Kariuki recently sold 105 kilos of honey for Sh84,000 — not bad for the former carpenter

At the three-acre farm in Embu, bananas, bees and dairy cows compete for space.

The bananas, however, occupy the biggest section of Marcellino Kariuki’s farm.

But Kariuki, 48, says his heart and mind are on bees.

“Bees cover the largest space in my mind. They are the ones I think most about because they give me better income,” says the farmer based in Kiaragana, Kyeni division.

Before he ventured into commercial farming seven years ago, Kariuki disliked bees.

“I was doing subsistence farming besides carpentry, which was my main breadwinner. To me, bees were harmful because of their sting. I could not imagine keeping them in my farm.”

Today, he has several apiaries on his farm.

Kariuki changed his mind on bees after an agricultural extension officer in Kyeni advised him to keep bees because of the small size of his land.

“I sought his advice because my carpentry business was not doing well. I wanted to venture into farming but I did not know what suited me best,” says the father of three.

Kariuki sold two beds at Sh6,000 each to venture into bee farming. He used the money to make hives and get honey combs from a fellow farmer, where he got wax.

GOOD MONEY

He then applied the wax on the three beehives he had built, attracting the insects.

Each hive now earns him at least Sh30,000 every three months.

“I have 30 beehives and will increase the number,” he says. The honey he extracts earns him good income.

“Recently, I extracted 108 kilos of honey from six hives. I sold 105 kilos at Sh84,000. This is good money considering that I had spent most of my time on other activities.”

The farmer passes his skills to others seeking to join the business. He teaches them how to manage the insects and get the best quality of honey.

Using his carpentry skills, he constructs beehives, which he sells at between Sh3,000 and Sh5,000, depending on the type of timber used, whether hard or soft.

“Bees are friendly. What you need is only a beehive, flowers and a water source. If you mismanage them, you will never love them. To me, bee is black gold,” says the farmer who manages the farm with his wife Eusephia. Kariuki mainly sells his honey to a businessman based in Mombasa. He helps other farmers market their produce too.

“He normally comes to pick the honey when it is more than 150kgs. However, if it is below, I pack it in jerricans and send it to him. Each kilo goes for between Sh800 and Sh1,000.” For good honey, Kariuki advises that the hives be placed on racks at a spacing of one-and-a-half to two feet in a 22m by 15m sized apiary.

He adds the surface area of an apiary depends on the size of the farm.

Justin Kavuro, a bee-keeper from Mbeere sub-county, who Seeds of Gold met with his wife at Kariuki’s farm getting tips on bee farming, says a beehive needs to be raised at a minimum of 30 inches from the ground. “When hives are put on a lower level, pests like ants disturb the bees. It is important to apply grease on the posts to keep them off,” says Kavuro.