Windhoek
Community members who are part of the Sikanjabuka Community forest are experiencing growth in their bee keeping initiatives a few months after they took part in a knowledge exchange and capacity building visit to Zambia.
At least 12 community members benefited from the exchange visit to Livingstone, Kazungula District in August 2023. The Exchange visit was funded by the NILALEG Project which is also supporting the community to develop sustainable beekeeping. The exchange visit sought to increase networking, share knowledge and best practices to enable the Sikanjabuka community forest members to establish beekeeping projects for honey production. This promotes food security and income generation for the community through business enterprising.
Dr. Jonathan Kamwi, the facilitator of the trip says that the exchange was beneficial because the results can now slowly be seen. “The community is producing more honey for sale because they are following the right procedures as outlined in the training they received.”
Kamwi notes that such initiatives help in building connections between the participants, mentors and experts which can be beneficial for future collaboration and for the progression of projects.
Beekeeping has numerous benefits, both for individuals and the environment. In an exchange visit report which was prepared by the participants, they outlined some of the benefits of beekeeping; job creation and source of income through sale of honey and beeswax, production of beeswax to produce candles, shoe polish etc., reduction in ecosystem destruction as people no longer damage the environment looking for honey.
“The exchange visit provided a chance for the Sikanjabuka beekeepers to learn and identify best practices that could be propagated in Namibia from Zambia. The bee farmers will continuously follow-up on the implementation of the acquired skills and share with rest of the members especially from the villages they hail from,” Dr. Kamwi.
According Elma Simataa, one of the participants, the training was beneficial and informative. “I was made to understand that bees do not only feed on brown sugar but can also be fed maize meal. In addition to being trained on how to catch and raise beehives and extract honey from honey comb, we also learned that beehives are not restricted to indoor environments only, you can also set them up in trees in wooden boxes called apiaries,” she added.
