Sweet taste of success for Farm Africa's Bee Team

03 November 2014

image: members of the Bee Team and local carpenters in front of stacks of brand new Langstroth hives that will help the Endoji community increase their income from honey sales.

Farm Africa’s Bee Team landed back in London this morning after a triumphant conclusion to its Beehive Challenge.

The challenge was nothing less than building from scratch as many modern beehives as they could within just two days. The hives would then be given to members of a local farming community to help them make larger quantities of better quality honey so they could make more money from their beekeeping business.

The Bee Team had also set itself the extremely daunting task of raising £50,000 in sponsorship for Farm Africa!

But thanks to a herculean effort that saw them hammering away long into the night, the exhausted team of seven UK farmers and agriculturalists had soon knocked up a whopping 58 new modern-design beehives.

image: the Endoji community comes out to welcome the Bee Team and the 58 modern new beehives which will help them almost quadruple their income from sales of honey.

Their exhaustion and blisters were soon forgotten however after the team was given a rapturous reception of traditional singing and dancing by the local Endoji community as heartfelt thanks for the new hives. These new hives are high-quality Langstroth beehives, capable of producing more than twice the amount of honey than traditional hives, and are set to have a dramatic impact on the lives of the Endoji who will now be able to develop far more profitable honey-selling businesses. That’s because as well as doubling harvest quantities, the new hives also produce better-quality honey that sells for almost double the price per kilogram than the honey produced by the traditional hives. With the new hives built by the Bee Team, the Endoji community will be able to almost quadruple income from their honey sales. 

Lincolnshire farmer and Bee Team member Matthew Naylor described the remarkable reception given to the team as they delivered the hives as “exceeding any welcome that any of us has ever received in our lives. The villagers were singing songs especially written for our visit. The gratitude and joy that were shown was quite overwhelming and will remain as one of my greatest memories for the rest of my life.”

And agricultural journalist, Caroline Stocks, continued:

“When I first arrived in Tanzania I wasn't sure about what kind of difference we would be able to make in just three days. But speaking to the farmers we were working with and the communities we were delivering the hives to showed how simply giving knowledge and skills empowered these communities to help improve their own lives.” 

The Beehive Challenge

The challenge started last week when the Bee Team landed in Tanzania before travelling to Babati in the Nou Forest, the site of Farm Africa’s Forest Management Project which is working with approximately 200,000 people.

The project is proving hugely successful in turning back the tide of deforestation in an area that, until now, has seen the forest disappearing at a rate of 300,000 hectares each year – that equates to the loss of 1,500 football fields every day.

But thanks to Farm Africa, forestry communities are abandoning traditional livelihoods that focused on felling trees to sell as timber and charcoal. And they are now turning to more profitable and sustainable enterprises, like mushroom farming and beekeeping. That’s because they have learned that they can make more money from protecting the forest and its resources than they could previously by chopping down trees.

So why not reward all their hard work – and make a huge difference to farming communities across eastern Africa – by making a donation via the Beeteam’s online fundraising page?

And you can see all the action from the Beehive Challenge - including media coverage, tweets, photos and video – via our Storify link.

Find out how you can get involved in supporting Farm Africa’s work to end hunger in eastern Africa.

Huge thanks to all seven members of the Bee Team for taking on such a demanding challenge to help raise funds for Farm Africa’s life-changing work in eastern Africa:

Adam Bedford - EU Policy Advisor, National Farmers Union.

Emma Dennis - Marketing and Technical Support, Agrii.

Tom Hughes - Director at Active Soil.

Ally Hunter-Blair - Farmer in Herefordshire and one of Channel 4's 'First Time Farmers'.

Matthew Naylor - Lincolnshire farmer and journalist.

Simone Pickering - Florist and blogger behind the Miss Pickering website.

Caroline Stocks - Freelance journalist specialising in the environment, food, agriculture and rural affairs.