Pigs and bee-keeper, Bridget

Bridget keeps chicken, pigs, has a orchard of orange trees and wants to expand the piggery and bee keeping. Do you have experience in running a piggery or beekeeping? If so please tell us and fill in the form at te right.
Expert Frank Leenen

Frank graduated as a tropical agronomist in Deventer, the Netherlands and has gained broad experience in various Latin American and African countries. Frank is proficient at assessing and describing opportunities in the area of rural development based on sustainable agricultural systems. Bee keeping for the production of honey, other hive products and pollination services, is his specific expertise.

We stopped adding monitoring data after October 2018.

 

October 2018

On the Saturday 6 October the third beekeepers meeting was held. Mary Nkhoma, Bandson Tembo and Krispin Daka attended the meeting.  Together they talked about their successes, challenges and way forward. A good thing is that they all tried to harvest the honey by themselves. It is not an easy work with the aggressive African bee, but they managed. Some of the challenges:

  • They do not have proper working suits.
  • Some of them do not have a press to press the honey. It is very time consuming harvesting without a press.
  • There was not enough honey for the customers they have at this moment.
  • It is difficult for them to make a floral calendar.

The group sees more potential when they start working together. One is a good beekeeper, another one is a good sales person and another can make hives or press machine. Agreed is that Bridget and Dinie from Jacana will prepare next time meeting and discuss what the possibilities are to form a business group. This meeting will be end November or beginning December.

June 2018

Half of June until the end of June it is honey harvesting time in Eastern Province. That is why the five beekeepers planned a meeting at Mr. Daka’s house to see if they can learn from harvesting. An experienced beekeeper was invited and harvested a hive together with one of the beekeepers.

Bridget borrowed the bee suit from Jacana to harvest one of her own hives. She discovered that the smoker was not well working and together with somebody else another design was proposed.

beekeepers

home made smoker

April 2018

As agreed in the training with Frank Leenen, the participants meet once per 2 months. On the first of May four of the five participants met at Mr. Bandsons Tembo place to discuss about the progress made and see the bee business of Mr. Tembo. During the meeting the participants were sharing their experiences and challenges with each other and discussed about a flora calendar.

Bridget, beekeeper

First meeting with the beekeepers

Next time they will meet at Mr. Krispin Daka’s place and together they will practice how to harvest honey. They will use protective clothes and the smoker. Mr. Bandson will teach how to harvest.

Bridget beekeeper

Mr. Bandson Tembo and Bridget together in the field.

March 2018

Bridget is one of the five beekeepers in Chipata, Jacana is guiding. Jacana arranged a PUM expert from the Netherlands to train and guide these five entrepreneurs in expanding their beekeeping activities
First of all Frank from the Netherlands visited Bridget’s farm to see how she is managing the beehives. Bridget had 10 beehives, but unfortunately 5 were stolen last year.

After the visit Frank trained the five beekeepers in the basics of beekeeping: know your farm animal (bee colony), protect yourself against the bees (bee suit and smoker), plan your activities. After the training the five beekeepers decided to meet each other every two months to do some assignments Frank gave them.

Bridget beekeeper

Bridget practices with bee-suit and smoker during the training.

Bridget in training

Frank is explaining about beekeeping

February 2018

Bridget was invited to Jacana’s “think out of the box” meeting. Together with nine other entrepreneurs they tried to find solutions for their problems. Bridget was in the group with the Bee-keepers.

Bridget is married and has four sons and one daughter (not on the picture).

Bridget is a very active farmer, teacher and mother. She keeps chicken, pigs, bees, has a orchard with 327 orange trees. She lives in a beautiful natural environment in Chipata, Zambia. How she managed to find time to also run a household with 5 children must be a well kept secret among African women.

During the business training, Bridget proofed to be very smart, eager to learn and -with excellent teaching skills- help others. Jacana has therefore decided to help her and is looking for experts in the field of running a piggery and beekeeping. During a full year Jacana will be actively guiding Bridget in the expansion of her business. So she can create jobs for others and serve as a role model.

Bridget's family (minus daughter and husband)

Bridget’s family (without daughter and husband)

Bridget in class

Bridget in business training

Jacana will support Bridget in:

Linkage to experts in the field of

  1. Management of a piggery
  2. Beekeeping
  3. Management of the business in general

Jacana will guide Bridget for one year in the expantion of her business.

Wim Tijhaar Educatiefonds donated money for the business training and guidance of Bridget, for the period of one year.

Bridget got also a partly sponsored pump on an open well, sponsored by:

This is part of a bigger project, sponsored by Aqua for All.

 

 

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