Ghana

Bees for Development Ghana is a specialist beekeeping organisation, established in Ghana in 2016 to serve the nation by teaching and promoting sustainable apiculture and protecting nature.

Their mission is to lift people out of poverty and to support healthy agricultural and natural landscapes, through sustainable beekeeping. They envision a country where sustainable beekeeping enhances people’s well-being and incentivises people to care for nature.

Since establishment Bees for Development Ghana has worked on integrating beekeeping into cashew orchards to raise farmers’ incomes from increased cashew yields and honey selling. We have achieved transformational change in the Afram Plains, establishing beekeeping as a sustainable land-use, as an alternative to honey hunting and charcoal making. Recognising the value of investing in young people, Bees for Development Ghana is supporting beekeeping clubs in schools and training graduates as professional women beekeepers.

Education

We are supporting beekeeping clubs in primary schools, enabling pupils to start their beekeeping journey at a young age – giving them practical skills and a deep respect for nature at the same time. Since 2015 we have trained 35 teachers to be Buzz Club leaders, helped establish 15 school clubs and enabled nearly 300 young people to learn about bees and beekeeping.

To support the clubs we train teachers as club leaders, and donate a package of support. Thereafter we visit to offer encouragement, skills-sharing, and to check on progress. To make it as easy as possible for teachers’ to plan lessons and activities for the kids, we have developed and shared the Buzz Club Teachers Handbook.

We receive regular updates from all clubs. Amongst our many achievements include teachers going into beekeeping, pupils harvesting honey and sharing it with their friends, pupils taking their learning back to their families and schools earning money to spend on books and cleaning materials.

Michael Baah Narh, Abotanso school, said that the lesson on The Value of Bees was one of the most interesting, “Learning about the importance of bees as pollinators has been particularly memorable for our club. The children are fascinated by the role bees play in our ecosystem”.

Beekeeper training, Supporting marginalised groups

Beekeeping is a sustainable agribusiness, creating economic opportunities in rural areas. Lucy Benewaa earned £620 in 2021 and £740 in 2022, enabling her to support her three children at college. Solomon Dwamena, made £181.29 by constructing hives and swarm boxes and is training two apprentices. These economic benefits are driving a huge demand for beekeeping training which BfDG cannot provide in full, for lack of premises. To meet this need we are embarking on a new project to establish a Beekeeping Training Centre in Adofo, Donkorkrom.

We aim to establish facilities to serve thousands of people who wish to establish beekeeping as an environmentally-friendly and economically-profitable enterprise. This facility will offer accessible, affordable and excellent beekeeping training, delivered by an experienced and specialist team.

The Centre will offer training for farmers, NGO coordinators who implement beekeeping projects, entrepreneurs, and school leavers. Donkorkrom is well suited for this development, because the surrounding forests are highly suitable for beekeeping, yet are being degraded. Beekeeping gives people the economic incentive to use natural resources sustainably. This meets the urgent need in Ghana to create jobs and economic activity which can drive nature-based climate-mitigation strategies.

Beekeeper training, Biodiversity support

We are working in the forests of Kwahu Afram Plains, in the east of Ghana, aiming to reverse unsustainable exploitation, lack of management and destructive late season fires. People in this hard-to-reach part of Ghana have limited access to employment and the poverty metrics of these communities are some of the lowest in Ghana.

Yet within these woodlands there are resources which can create wealth – from standing forests. These forests support a healthy honey bee population and good floral resources. Following a plea from local people we now provide beekeeping training, turning honey hunters into nature-based beekeepers, and making beekeeping accessible for women.

Since 2019 we have trained nearly 1,000 beekeepers. Early adopters starting making hives immediately, whilst others waited to see how their neighbours faired. This project integrates beekeeping with forest conservation and bush-fire mitigation. We are establishing a network of lead beekeepers able to mentor new beekeepers and have put in place honey buying logistics, connecting beekeepers to their local Honey and Beeswax Trade Centre.

Routes to market

People tell us that having a reliable and rewarding route to market is key for any beekeeping initiative. So instead of focusing on production first and thinking about selling as an afterthought, Bees for Development Ghana has invested in a social enterprise and built a Honey and Beeswax Processing Centre in Donkorkrom.

Being able to sell honey for cash instantly transforms bees and beehives into economic assets, thus incentivising beekeepers to maintain the forests where their hives are located.

In the 2024 honey season, beekeepers earned over £15,000 from selling about 13 tonnes of honeycombs. Some of the beekeepers who brought honey to the Centre, and were paid using Mobile Money, said they had never received so much money before. The priority expenditure for both men and women is children’s school fees.

We have created a honey brand called Digya Forest Honey and built a robust traceability and quality assurance system for the honey. Now with a FDA certificate our honey is respected and demanded for its high quality and established provenance.

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