By Umar Nsubuga
Jennifer Tumushabe, a bee farmer and resident of Kyabwanswa village, Kicwamba ward in Kitagwenda district talks about honey with contagious enthusiasm.
“My husband and I convinced our neighbours not clear trees,” she says.
She says she has stuck with honey, a product she has harvested for years.
The honey business has enabled Tumushabe to become famous, she hires people if she can’t spare time to do it herself.
Tumushabe explains that it takes three months for honey to mature. The beauty of bees is that you don’t have to spend money on the food.
“You don’t need to feed them, you just pass by and smell money when the honey is mature,” she says, adding that keeping bees is the most appropriate way of dealing with poverty for those without much land. It is also one of the best ways to preserve nature, you don’t have to burn trees.
“We need to exploit nature and benefit from it eco-nomically,” Tumushabe says.
In cold weather or when food sources are scarce, bees use stored honey as their source of energy.
“Honey can be eaten on its own or taken on bread (toast or otherwise), while other people apply it on any other pastry of their choice. And for those watching their calory levels, honey can be a perfect substitute for sugar in tea or coffee,” Tumushabe added.
Today, honey is increasingly becoming an evident ingredient in exotic cuisines. For example, a puree (mixture of onions, tomatoes and spices) can be enhanced to make it thicker with honey. Likewise, the inclusion of honey in the making of desserts would be ideal.
“For the simpler approach, even the actual licking of honey off a spoon is good enough to speed up digestion. However, caution should be taken on the quantities applied because honey is sweet, so it might not blend well with spices and other ingredients if used in large quantities,” Tumushade added.
Honey is composed of glucose and fructose and minerals like magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium chlorine, sulphur, iron and phosphate. It contains vitamins B1-2 and C, it also has copper, lodine and zinc in small quantities.
“Apiculture is vital in the model farming, the bees are the best pollinators therefore, increase the productivity of coffee and other crops,” she says.
Tumushabe says bee farming does not require a lot of land and the enterprise can produce many products such as pollen, propolis, royal jelly, beeswax and venom which are highly demanded for their medicinal and food values.
Tumushabe has not just improved the quality and production of honey in the community but has moved a step further to support and mobilise beekeepers into producer groups, and has enabled them to harvest both high quality honey, and realise the benefits of other products, especially beeswax and propolis.
