Chocolate, honey and sweet larvae!

Did the mzumbe team already harvest some more honey? How many stings did they get the last 10 days? What progress was made? What will happen with the money we gave for fundraising? These are probably some questions that you would like to be answered. Well, today is your lucky day! Our third blog post is finally here.

We’ll start this post on Friday the 15th. While we were taking our breakfast (bread with bananas and honey (what a surprise)), our personal driver Chowo knocked at our door. At 9u30 we would leave the campus and go to some beekeeping groups. We wanted to go to the Sokoine university to speak professor Kimaro again after our bad harvesting experience, but Nico told us that we would do that on Monday. He gave the advice to take some good hiking shoes and warm clothes with us. We jumped in the car and Chowo took us through a beautiful mountainous landscape. Somewhere up in the hills, Chowo stopped the car. We there helped a carpenter ‘Ras’ with his design of a top bar hive and then jumped again in the car. After a trip that took about 4 hours, we arrived in Vinile, a village high in the mountains. It was cold outside and we could almost touch the clouds. After talking to the village chief, it became clear that these people wanted to start beekeeping. They once had some beehives, but the hives, full of bees, were stolen by people of other villages. After this talk one of the women of the beekeeping group took us over some steep trails to show us a beautiful waterfall. In fact, one week ago we paid a lot to see a waterfall in the Udzungwa mountains, but I think this waterfall was even more beautiful.

In the following weekend, we prepared ourselves for some small beekeeping courses. We went to Morogoro by bus, packed together like sardines. In Morogoro we bought some buckets to make a honey filter, asked some tailors if they were able to make beekeeping suits and looked for the price of boots (very handy if you don’t want the bees to get into your pants). Sunday evening, we helped Tony (one of the beekeepers in the mzumbe region) with the processing of beeswax.

After the weekend, we left our beloved campus and travelled to the region of Mvomero. We slept in a hotel in a town called Turiani. Before going to Turiani, we passed by the Sokoine university, but prof Kimaro wasn’t at his office. Prof Kimaro recommended another beekeeping professor and we talked about harvesting honey. On our way to a beekeeping group in Mvomero we passed by another Masai Market. Clearly a lot of the people on the market had never seen wazungu (white people) before, because they all gathered around us and stared at us. After this we waited for a beekeeping group to come, but only one of the beekeepers could make the appointment. In the evening we spoke to Baiton, an experienced beekeeper in the Mvomero region. We made an appointment at 17u for the next day to harvest some honey.

On tuesday we went to a carpenter and showed the design of the Top Bar Hive. We ordered one hive to see if he was able to make good hives. We also met a beekeeping group with a large beehouse with over 30 beehives. Only a few of them were colonised with our little friends. We helped them by cleaning the hives that were colonised by ants, lizards, wasps and spiders and made them more attractive to bees. Afterwards Faith, Milan and Jonas prepared themselves to go harvesting. Unfortunately Baiton missed our appointment for harvesting and said we could come back the next day.

Wednesday, Chowo drove us over a bumpy and rocky road to a small village up in the mountains. We walked through cocoa plantations and met another beekeeping group. The beekeepers took us along small trails to their beehives. Because they had no money for buying beekeeping suits, they rented them and they also hired someone to take the beehives out of the trees before harvesting (it’s not an easy job to get a bee colony to the ground). We advised them to look for another place to put the beehives and they immediately took us to some possible apiary places. While walking through the cocoa plantation, they harvested a few cocoa beans and gave them to us. Nico showed us how you can eat the white pulp that covered the beans. Back in the village we went to a little school. We could arrange a small place, where Faith taught the beekeepers some basic beekeeping practices. We also drew some plans for the new apiary. We promised them to come back in our last week. In the afternoon, we met a beekeeper with a hundred beehives. He had a problem with getting them colonised by bees. Only one hive had bees in it. We made some recommendations and as it was already 17u, we drove to Baiton’s place. Again he didn’t show up! We were very disappointed. Maybe he didn’t want to share his experience with us.

On Thursday we visited the carpenter who had promised to be ready with our hive. When we arrived, the hive was far from ready. He said he had had a meeting Wednesday, but that the hive could be ready in an hour. Afterwards we went back to the beekeepers with the large beehouse and helped cleaning the hives. They were all very happy when we said that we would provide some beekeeping suits. One of the women of the beekeeping group prepared some lunch. In the evening, one of the beekeepers took us to his beehives for harvesting. Milan, Nico and Jonas followed the beekeeper to the edge of a little forest. It was very dark. We could hardly see anything, so running away from bees wasn’t really an option. If we would run we would get lost. Deep in the forest we could see some flickering lights. They moved and came closer sometimes. They were fireflies. These fireflies created a somewhat magical atmosphere, besides the nervous atmosphere ofcourse. A help of the beekeeper, who had no beekeeping suit, climbed the tree the bees were hanging in. He lowered the beehive from the tree with a rope. The beekeeper with the suit opened the hive and started cutting out combs. These bees were more quiet than the bees we encountered at our first harvest. The beekeeper said he always harvests one comb with bee larvae to eat, because of the healthy nutrients. Back in the village (without stings), Milan and Jonas tasted a little piece of the brood comb with larvae. The first seconds it had a nice sweet taste, but after that it started to taste rather weird.

Friday morning, we went back to the carpenter. He had finished the beehive and, to our delight, it was of perfect workmanship! We finished this week (with a lot of missed appointments) in Mvomero by going to a beekeeping group with only young men all aged between 18 and 20. They made their own hives and were really enthusiastic. They all became beekeepers because they had nothing to do after finishing their school. The only things they needed to practice beekeeping were some beekeeping suits and their two bicycles (with which they go to their hives) to be repaired. We followed them to their hives, where we did not only see bees, but also a dead snake! For the two guys of this group who liked our page: Keep up the good work! You are doing well.

After seeing all the beekeeping groups of the project, we are now sure on what to spend our money, collected by fundraising: Every group needed some appropriate protection like a beekeeping suit, boots and a smoker. The next week, we will teach the two beekeeping groups in Mzumbe. We will again open a beehive and try to harvest honey. This time when the sun is down and there is just enough light to see and with the method of smoking the professor at Sokoine told us. In our last week, we hope to go back to Mvomero to help the other beekeeping groups and try harvesting.

Well, I think this is the right time to end our third blog post! I hope you enjoyed.

See you all in a week,

Faith, Femke, Milan and Jonas

p.s.: Milan and Jonas started a new side project. You can now preorder your chocolate bars at mzumbe@academicsfordevelopment.be (currently, the proces of fermentation is going on)