Help women increase their income with beekeeping

Bees forage the flowers to collect pollen and nectar. Pollen is used to feed their youings and the nectar is transform in honey.

In the area where we work, bees forage mainly fruit trees such as mango, cashew, locust beans trees. Those trees are flowering mainly between December and March.

The main harvest of honey is done in April. 

Between May and November flowers available for foraging are from plants seeded during the rainy season such as corn, sesame, peanuts. This is just enough for the bees to have enough to eat. 

We have provided seeds of sunflowers to the beekeepers. Sunflowers have a lot of nectar and pollen. This will increase the production of honey and / or will help bees to have food for a period when there is little flowers in the fields.

The sunflowers seeds can also been transformed in oil. This is an added profit for the beekeepers.

Thanks a lot for your support to this project.

Links:

• Sunflower Project for beekeepers

As expected the harvest of honey in April / May 2025 was very good. We have been able to buy over 20.000 kg of raw honey from 250 beekeepers. From those 70% are women. 

One woman in the village of Fon got a revenue of 350 euro from her harvest. This is an incredible amount which will help her to pay for medical and education costs of her family. 

The payment for the honey comes to the beekeepers in May / June. They come at a good time since funds are needed for the fields input before the rainy season. 

Unfortunatly we have not been able to measure the impact of the bees on the production of fruits. There are too many varaibles which we cannot control / measure.

Due to the success of this project, a lot of women are still asking for hives. Also the bees are doing the majority of the work and the harvest time do not conflict with the field work.

Help them to get more hives!!!

Thank you

Links:

• Harvest of Honey 2025