Paul Lopeto had been struggling to eke a living through the tedious charcoal burning for 16 years until he tried his hand at beekeeping in 2003.
“I would be better off today had I started keeping bees at the time I started burning charcoal. We have destroyed the environment,” laments Lopeta, a resident of Luchwaa village in Lokichar, in the drought ravaged Turkana County.
He is among a group of farmers who were trained in beekeeping by Oxfam, a British humanitarian organisation in 2001.
After the training, Lopeta bought 10 locally made beehives in 2005 each at $20 and placed them in strategic points on his farm to trap the bees. Oxfam also gave the farmers three modern Kenya Top Bar hives to use for demonstration purposes.
Lopeta now has 20 beehives on his farm, most of which are colonised. He gets an average of 30 to 20-litre jerrycans of honey in the main season between March and April and less in the second season between September and October every year.
In the last season, he sold 20 jerrycans at $120 each and earned $2,500.
Using the proceeds from honey, he has built a six-room permanent house and bought five head of cattle, three years since he embarked on beekeeping.
“I sell 20 litres of milk everyday and my family consumes 10 litres,” Lopeta says. His children go to good boarding schools in Eldoret and Kitale.
“I plan to educate my children up to the level they want. I am able to plan today because I get money to do so, unlike in the recent past,” Lopeta adds.
When he told these neighbours he was trying his hand at beekeeping on a commercial purpose, they did not believe there was market for honey.
“When I bought a motorcycle and cattle, they said I had another source of income somewhere. They realised honey was my source of income when I started constructing my house,” Lopeta says.
Impressed by his achievements, the residents organised themselves in a group, Tiongole Beekeepers Association, to encourage others to follow.
“We have 30 members,” Lopeta adds. Denis Lomolia, another beekeeper in Moleum village in Kainuk Division, gets between 50 to 60 litres of honey on average each season. Lomolia has also constructed a permanent house and is educating his children.
“I thank Lopeta for my success if it were not him I could have languishing in abject poverty,” says Lomolia, a father of six.
At first things were not well for Lomolia when he decided to pursue Lopeta’s footsteps, hovered the financial status of his family forced him to brave the odds to earn a living.
“It was a tough venture and I almost gave up but when a looked back at my family I was motivated to move forward to fight poverty and raise fee for my children,” Lomolia admits.
Lopeta puts honey in a catcher box and places it in a strategic area where he can easily catch the bees. After the bees have entered the box, he removes the wax and bees and transfers them to the main beehive.
“After transferring the bees and wax, I take back the catcher box to its position to catch more bees. Sometimes, the bees enter directly into the main beehive,” Lopeta says. (Xinhua)
