Under the Cover of Darkness

As the sun dropped below the horizon we arrived in Mugombe village. Along with Staford and Joseph from the Kasulu Beekeeper's Cooperative Society, I was joining a group of beekeepers to harvest honey from local style hives. We were greeted by Timotheo Tinya Bilala, a beekeeper and board member of KBCS, and two other beekeeping elders. As we waited for dark to take hold we carried out introduction formalities and I was told a bit about the beekeepers of Mugombe.

Two groups are operating in the village. Group A has fifteen members and Group B has twenty members. Women make up about a quarter of each group and own hives but hire men to place hives in the forest and to harvest honey. I was told that this is because they cannot climb trees (the kanga or kitenge, which are the typical fabric skirts or dresses worn by women, get in the way), though I suspect responsibility for children and domestic obligations are larger limitations. It has been the inclination of western non-profits to use beekeeping as a tool for liberating women, but pragmatically the current situation is probably sufficient or else women can be very effective for creating secondary goods (candles, cosmetics, or even just processing raw wax and honey) which increase profits and frees men to increase their numbers of hives. Women can also be trained for making bee suits, or protectives as they are called here, but I have digressed.

The members of Group A have a total of 1,987 hives made from bark or grass with a few box style. Most of the hives are owned individually but sixty seven are owned by the group. The members of Group B, which is newly formed, have 200 total hives - fifty box hives (half owned by the group and half by individuals) and 150 local hives. They get the same amount of honey from local hives and box hives (10-15 L per harvest). They say it is easier to work in the box hives (Tanzanian Top Bar), which are built locally, but also say that they are very expensive.

As Staford translated my questions into Swahili I found myself very impressed with the records each of these men kept. Each had a notebook with pages and pages of data on numbers of hives, historical group membership, volume of honey harvested, etc from previous seasons which has been very useful for the cooperative in keeping track of its constituency and outputs. As is common, the men were not just beekeepers, but were also farming (corn, potatoes, maybe even tobacco) between honey flows.

We departed and soon arrived at the beehives just outside of the village. I was shown the traditional tools for harvesting - rope, a large paddle and spoon for manipulating honeycomb, a smoking bundle, and various buckets and tubs to contain the harvest. Each of these were shown to me and described as the "traditional" rope, "traditional" smoking bundle, etc. However, we all laughed a bit when the very modern-looking "traditional" pliers and "traditional" flashlight (torch) were revealed.

I'll let pictures (with captions) tell the rest of the story...

Timotheo primes the smoker as the rest of the party prepares to lower the hive.

In this tree you can see all three hive technologies utilized in Kasulu - (from left to right) a bark hive, a grass hive, and a box hive. It is important to note how skilled these men are at climbing trees! Men well over fifty years of age make short work of trees I can only dream of climbing and then rapidly ascend to nightmarish heights. The beekeeper is barely visible here.

The chosen one.

The honey is harvested at night because bees are calmer which makes the endeavor less dangerous. This goes against western practices where honey is harvested during the day hoping that many of the bees will be away foraging and not around to sting. I think the sometimes very cool ambient temperature is also an aid to night-harvesting African beekeepers (I worked in a hive one early morning which remained docile but became ferocious in the afternoon heat). The beekeeper removes his shirt so that bees will not get caught in the fabric and sting him. The two pictures before this one also show that, in the night, the African beekeepers are very difficult to see, perhaps confusing defensive bees. On the other hand, when my shirt is taken off and my white skin is exposed to the moon light I essentially glow in the dark..

The hive is always worked from the side opposite the entrance. The smoking bundle is placed at the rear of  the hive and the grass lid is removed. The smoke is blown in by the beekeeper at first and then left smoldering. The bees move away and the beekeeper uses a wooden paddle to break and remove comb from the inside of the hive. Once out, he uses a bundle of grass to brush away bees and then places the combs in buckets. Finally two combs are left behind (ideally one with brood and one with honey, though in practice it seems hard to tell which kind is remaining) and the hive is re-sealed.

A drawback to this harvesting method (and local style hives) is that more than just honey gets taken in the process. However, bee brood is traditionally eaten by beekeepers in Africa and is considered a normal product to harvest along with honey, wax, and propolis - we even had a special bucket for it. Brood are high in protein and have a slight almond flavor, though the juiciness can be disconcerting at first. I found the watoto ya nyuki (bee children) to taste nice enough when eaten with honey which was conveniently located a few cells over. The comb in this picture has a beautiful brood pattern. These bees were obviously of Islamic origin - they did a great job with the crescent but the star still needed some work.

Once sealed, the hive is hoisted back into the tree, the next hive is lowered for the process is repeated. It was about this time that we asked our brave friend in the tree how many stings he got while harvesting the honey. He yelled down to us "HAMNA," which means NONE!

We are showcasing the various honey harvesting implements. The man in the light blue shirt at middle-left is Joseph, the KBCS Secretary, and Timotheo is on the far right - he made sure the hive was safely lowered and returned to the tree. The courageous man in the middle did the harvesting and climbing and our friend on the far left controlled the light and inspired us with his shirt featuring scenes from Rambo movies.

I had been told all kinds of stories about how horrible it is to harvest honey from local style hives - bad for bees, bad for honey, painful for beekeepers. Maybe it was beginner's luck, but we sustained zero bee casualties from stings and, even better, no stings for beekeepers. The honey was harvested in the comb, which is made perfectly by the bees and we walked away hopeful that the bees would remain in the hive and rebuild their colony. The process was carried out rapidly and delicately so I think the bees experienced a minimal amount of stress, or at least no more than the experience by most other honey harvesting methods.

Sure, brood were taken from the hive (so many future bees were killed), selecting only sealed comb honey was impossible, and there is probably a fifty/fifty chance that the bees will abscond. There also was no consideration of the queen, so there is a chance that she was hurt in the process. However, this was not the horror show of flaming bee hives, charred bees, and dirt crusted honey many government officials would have had me believe and none of the drawbacks mentioned above are compelling enough reasons to abandon the most sustainable and time-tested beekeeping technology in the country. If any improvements could be made in the process itself I would suggest improving knowledge of the queen and of the importance of leaving enough brood and honey behind. Also, beekeepers could place more value on avoiding brood comb. They should not be told to never eat brood, but could just be encouraged to take more care when harvesting. I suspect beekeepers are no longer excited about brood food when they get to their one hundredth hive, but would prefer to not be killing bee children.