Bees for Development - Information Portal Article

Dear Sir,

It is my pleasure to write to you as the programs officer of Ameh Bee Farmers Common Initiative group ABEFA-CIG. I have for some time now sort means of getting and sending pictures of some of our activities to you. This has not been easy for us. In December 2009 and early 2010 we organized some trainings to which a friend came with a camera. Since then, we were unable to get the pictures. We just got some of them recently and I decided to acknowledge your contributions to us by preparing this picture gallery for you. It involves picture of activities with my group and a few other groups I also help in training. It is very difficult for me to get pictures of things we do due to the absence of a camera.

First and foremost, I want to thank BfD so much for their readily available support when ever we seek for it. We believe that with you beside us, we shall get to even higher heights.

Akwaya, the area where we operate most is a Sub-Division of Manyu Division in the south west region of Cameroon with 99 gazetted villages and over 15 none gazetted ones. It has two main geographical regions- the Equatorial rain forest low land south and the Sudan savannah mountainous high land north. The latter is where we belong.

About 90% of the Sub-Division is only accessible by foot (No phone, internet, electricity, TV etc) and the government of our country is so far giving this area negligible attention. Very little is happening here in terms of developing the area despite the fact that it host a National Park, a forest reserve and a wild life Sanctuary, all three being government property. Despite this negligence, we have chosen to support government conservation effort by modernising beekeeping (a traditional art in this area) as a sustainable way of improving on our livelihood and also checking our adverse use of the environment.

Although few KTB hives existed, they did not respect standard dimensions mean while the principles and approach to modern beekeeping were not known. Since 2006 we have been contacting individuals and organization both local and international for information and technical support and Bees for Development have been our most resourceful partner that has not only equipped us technically but has equally linked us with many other organisations e.g. One Percent Fund For development to which we apply for support and are still waiting for their response. We thank you so much.

We have so far gathered much information on modern beekeeping and are increasingly doing so. We have 28 KTB hives already with 14 of these respecting standards. Our annual production too has been increasing from 100liters in 2010, 220 litters in 2011 from KTB hives only. We desire to have 500 hives, a well equipped processing and bottling centre and to start producing at least 2800 litres of honey by 2015.

Pictures from Ameh Bee Farmers Common Initiative group in Cameroon