Beekeeping plays a vital role in the pollination of many species of flowering plants. This project aims to diversify the students’ knowledge and to optimise the garden harvests through pollination.
The bee project aims to introduce the interested students to modern beekeeping and to show them how to extract, process and sell a variety of bee products and by the same token benefit from the positive input bees bring to farming, including a more fruitful harvest.
The approach is based on teaching and coaching:
- The teaching will take place in BPC and the practice will be demonstrated at the small apiary within the compound.
- The teaching part will be carried out by the teacher who is responsible for livestock sciences.
- In parallel, the students will begin accompanying their own bee colonies that are preferably placed at their family farms or close to forests or organic farms.
- They will be closely coached by two experienced young women beekeepers from Addis Ababa.
The project aims at:
Training the students in a holistic way, focusing on the strong relationship between the honey bees and the bee-friendly plants, the importance of an organic environment, the most appropriate modern beekeeping means and the value of high quality bee products both for the customers and the beekeeper.
In order to guarantee high quality teaching and coaching, the project will start off with the training of the teacher as well as the preparation of the coaches. This is going to be done under the supervision of our senior beekeeping expert who lives in Addis Ababa.
Wondshet who harvested 13kg of honey 6 months after she received her hive.
The project will then focus on the following:
- Setting up of an apiary with three Zander hives and two Kenyan Top hives.
- Providing the teacher with the necessary didactic material enabling a clear understanding of the biology of bees, plants and the whole beekeeping process.
- Providing the students with the protecting clothes and the basic material, necessary for beekeeping.
- Providing the material for extraction, storage and sales of honey.
- Providing the material for working with wax.
- Discussing the harvesting and processing of propolis and pollen
- Organising the beekeeping teaching and coaching throughout the bee year.
- Improving the approach with a set syllabus clearly identified and learning processes.
- Ensuring that the students can earn money from selling the bee products and encourage them to re-invest in their own apiary.
