Safeguard Bees and Beekeepers in Madagascar

This is Jevago. Jevago has been working with SEED Madagascar for a few years now as our very own Beekeeping Technician. He has played a key role throughout our pilot beekeeping project and now he's going to be especially busy in September as the day we've all been anticipating comes around - the start of Project Renitantely - Renitantely is the Malagasy term for  'Honey Bee' !

Today marks the start of our three-year project to support some of the world's poorest people to earn much needed extra income from beekeeping, while also sustaining vital bee populations and all the amazing things they do for the ecosystems around them.

 As an activity that doesn’t require too much time, commitment or energy, beekeeping is a great way to help rural households to become more financially secure - providing opportunities to send children to school and buy more nutritious food. Not only that, through pollination, bees help plants grow from the forrest to the farm. This is particularly important in the  Anosy region, where the unique littoral forests are under threat and crops have repeatedly failed in recent years.

Jevago is playing a masive part in helping the region's people and protecting its environment. Having worked with bees for years, he knows how to create environments in which bee colonies are strong and settled. These kinds of colonies make lots of honey, enough to both sustain themselves as a group and give a bit extra that beekeepers can then harvest and sell!

Sharing his skills with people in isolated and remote areas, Jevago is teaching people good husbandry skills that will allow them to harvest honey in a way that keeps the bees happy. Bees that aren’t treated properly tend to swarm and leave the hive. This damages the colony and prevents beekeepers from harvesting the honey.

Not only will Jevago be vital for this knowledge transfer in how to be nice to bees, but he’ll also be imperative in demonstrating how they can use resources around them to create and repair hives. It is important for the long-term sustainability of Renitantely that beekeepers know how to create hives themselves, rather than being reliant on being given them. Excellent at thinking sustainably, there isn’t a better person at ensuring that money put into the project has the greatest impact possible.

He’s going to be a busy bee!