The global shortage of honeybee products, especially those that comply with raw and fair-trade standards, means that there are exceptional opportunities for trained, committed beekeepers in these unspoilt areas.

Beekeeping as a form of agriculture has an overwhelmingly positive impact on the natural environment, including pollination and improved yields of many food crops.

 

African Honey Bee (AHB) is a Christian Social Enterprise that enables families from severely disadvantaged rural communities to build sustainable micro-beekeeping businesses – producing raw honey of unrivalled taste and quality, using environmentally-friendly and ethical beekeeping practises.

- In the last two years we have trained 1482 people in KwaZulu-Natal

- 962 (and counting) of these beekeepers (and their families) are actively keeping bees and many have started producing and selling honey.

- skills development - rural job opportunities

- empowering communities

- social cohesion through savings and microfranchising

- traceable produce, superior raw honey

• By using available natural resources, combined with the simple gift of vegetable seeds, a young fruit tree, day-old chicks and feed, or a flat-pack (the materials for making a hive), AHB beekeepers and their families can be liberated from the cycle of poverty forever.

Communities be set firm on a path of controlling their own lives and providing for their families through their own efforts, no longer dependent on others for their wellbeing.

• AHB’s focus on Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) – whether those assets are one’s family, the abandoned scrap material that can be transformed into beekeeping tools or protective clothing, or the timber offcuts that can build a beehive or chicken coop – allows us to give our communities a hand up, rather than a hand out.
• How? Through family-owned and operated micro-beekeeping businesses in rural communities that can profitably compete in local and fair-trade markets.