Zambia is the place to bee

Honey be, oh honey bee. The Biblical Samson ate it to keep up his strength. It was bartered for silk along the Asian trade routes through Samarkand seven centuries ago. Ancient Greeks and Romans made love potions of it. Honey and other products of the bee hive have kept these and many uses to today. Beeswax is used in cosmetics, medicines, polishes, candles and batik making. Propolis, the sweet-smelling resinous stuff which bees use to build their hives, goes into the making of antibiotics. Zambia and other southern African countries could be a land 'flowing with honey', because large parts of the continent have just the right conditions for beekeeping, sufficient water sources and flowering trees. In Zambia, about 6,000 beekeepers produce more than 600 tonnes of harvested honey and 100 tonnes of wax annually. The bulk of the honey 90% - is used and consumed locally. The north western and western provinces are the major producers of honey and the Provincial Forestry Action Programme expects sales to expand in the near future. Zambian honey is already being sold in England as organic forest honey, with a Soil Association certificate to indicate it is ecologically sound, and more widely through the Body Shop chain (see Spore 88). In the United States, a blend of Zambian and Tanzanian honies is widely sold in health stores as honey with a fashionable lapsong souchong aroma. The growing interest in African honey comes at a time when more rural communities and small-scale farmers are starting to appreciate the role bees play in nature, and in income-generation. Around Kitwe, the Workers Education Association of Zambia is encouraging its members, often civil servants made redundant by structural adjustment, to adopt the technique. The Kaloko Trust based in Masaiti Boma has already trained about 60 small-scale farmers groups and started apiaries in Chief Malembeka s area in the Copperbelt Province. Kaloko Trust, c/o Luansobe Community Projects, Box 7137, Ndola, Zambia Email: kaloko@zamnet.zmHoney be, oh honey bee. The Biblical Samson ate it to keep up his strength. It was bartered for silk along the Asian trade routes through Samarkand seven centuries ago. Ancient Greeks and Romans made love potions of it. Honey and other products of..