Problems with honey badgers

Author: Bees for Development
Language: English
Year of publication: 2004
Number of pages: 1
Type of publication: Article
Publisher: Bees for Development journal

I am Abrham Tesfaye, from Arbaminch. I am looking to expand my beekeeping enterprise. In May this year I was able to purchase a motor cycle for travel and carrying hives to my apiary 12 km away from my home. Previously my transport system was a bicycle.


I need to protect my bees from disturbance by honey badgers. In April and June this year my apiary was severely damaged by attacks. Information and assistance would be appreciated.

Ed: Honey badgers are a serious problem for beekeepers in Ethiopia as elsewhere in East and southern Africa. This is why locally evolved beekeeping methods place hives in trees, safely out of the badgers' reach. To protect wooden frame hives, you need to make them inaccessible to badgers either by placing them in a building, surrounding them with wire, suspending them from posts with wires, or hanging them in trees! These are all expensive solutions, and it is very difficult to work with frame hives that are suspended by wires. You could try cement or clay hives. Alternatively uses local style hives and harvest from these without harming the bees.

[Bees for Development Journal #73]