Defining Nature-based beekeeping: Insights from our Africa-wide summit in Uganda

Across Africa, Nature-based beekeeping is helping communities protect forests, adapt to climate change and build sustainable incomes.

To explore how this approach can be shared more widely, we held a Africa-wide Nature-based Beekeeping Summit at the offices of The Uganda National Apiculture Development Association (TUNADO). We invited our partners from Ethiopia, Ghana and Zimbabwe to define what Nature-based beekeeping entails and how we can communicate its benefits more effectively to development workers and project designers.

The Nature-based Beekeeping Summit team

The Summit was part of a new project funded by the Darwin Initiative to create a set of videos that will help development workers around the world understand what Nature-based beekeeping really means, the benefits of adopting it as an approach and practical tips on how to effectively integrate it into development work.

Exploring Nature-based Beekeeping

The intention was to get to the heart of Nature-based beekeeping and how we intend to share with the world this approach that we are so passionate about. We launched the Summit with an introduction from our Programmes Manager Dr Janet Lowore on what Nature-based beekeeping means, and why we believe it is the most sustainable approach to beekeeping development.

Prior to the Summit, the multi-country team had conducted a survey of stakeholders including development workers and educational establishments in their respective countries. The aim was to understand the beekeeping development landscape and to gauge the challenges and needs faced by stakeholders. This gave us a set of areas around which to map out our video content:

• Foundations of NBB
• Designing effective NBB projects
• Practical beekeeping
• Harvesting, quality and value addition
• Enterprise development

Our first task was to identify the different audiences we wanted to reach. We then mapped out relevant subjects based on their needs. Through this participatory process we came up with ten video titles for each area we had identified.

Jane (BfD Project Manager) and Dennis from TUNADO defining our audience

Robert from Zimbabwe (right) and Agazhe from Ethiopia (left) interrogating our topic areas

To deepen our understanding of Nature-based beekeeping practice in the field we took two days to visit Ugandan beekeepers in Gulu and Adjumani. It was an enlightening experience for the whole team to see how Nature-based beekeeping varies across Africa. Learnings were shared, insights discussed and everyone was inspired to focus on the shared endeavour of promoting the Nature-based beekeeping approach as widely as possible.

Meeting Akena George

We met Akena George in Gulu. He started beekeeping in 2021 after climate change began affecting his farming and received training from TUNADO. George has his apiary in a wooded area on his family land and has a mixture of Borassus log hives, basket hives and top-bar hives. George explained that he prefers local style hives, “because they are easier to harvest, compared to top-bar hives”.

George keeps his hives low down in the trees, and some on hive stands, as his wife helps him to harvest honey, and it is not appropriate for her to be climbing high into trees.

Conservation is important for George and he has planted many trees in and around his apiary. He is planning to plant a living fence around one of his apiaries.

George (right) talking to the group

George’s apiary

As a successful beekeeper, George sees many benefits. He has money now and sends his daughter to college in Kampala, and his family use honey as medicine.

“People now come to me looking for honey,” George says. “With farm produce, such as groundnuts, I have to go out and find a buyer.”

People have started approaching him to buy the woven hives which he makes, and he plans to make and sell hives once he has made 100 of his own. He currently has 47. George also aspires to process his own honey at home; presently he sells unprocessed honey.

His current challenges include rain ingress into some of his hives and termites eating hive stands, but he is well supported by Richard, the Apiary Master engaged by TUNADO to provide extension services to the beekeeping community.

Building a global learning resource

Whilst on our field trip, Stephen, the videographer from TUNADO gave the team two workshops on video production. He explained how content creators must support a videographer to ensure they get the required footage, scripting and consent forms. There were plenty of tips for filming interviews, such as how to make the subject feel relaxed, where they should look, the importance of using a beekeeper’s native language, and how to structure questions. Crucially, Stephen gave lots of advice for safety when filming around bees and how to protect the videographer and their equipment.

Stephen’s production workshop

Isaac from Ghana reviewing workshop outputs

The output from the Summit was exactly as we hoped. After a lot of passion and hard work from the team, we finished with a content plan for 50 videos with titles including:

• What motivates beekeepers to conserve nature?
• NBB for climate resilience
• Beekeeping projects in protected areas
• Choosing and making a beehive
• Adapting beekeeping practices for inclusivity
• Supply chain logistics and traceability
• How to scale up beekeeping enterprises

By sharing this knowledge, we will provide development organisations and extension workers around the world with the guidance they need to adopt nature-based beekeeping approaches that support biodiversity, while strengthening rural livelihoods.

In early 2027 we will launch a YouTube channel dedicated to Nature-based beekeeping, sharing practical guidance, case studies and training resources for development organisations, NGOs, educational establishments and beekeeping projects around the world.

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Nature-based beekeeping in action at George’s apiary