For decades beekeeping in Zimbabwe has been taught with a bias inclined more towards conservation than bee entrepreneurship.

By Alois Vinga

ZIMBABWE’s honey sector is struggling to transform from small scale extractive operations into fully-fledged, large scale manufacturing entities due to lack of investment, an industry player has revealed.
Beekeepers Association of Zimbabwe (BAZ) director, Chaipa Mutandwa, told TheFinancial Gazette that investors were reluctant to invest in the country’s honey industry because they were sceptical about returns.
The sector, he said, was currently under strain from use of inappropriate technologies, decline of bee population due to a number of factors including pesticides usage, lack of adequately specialised skills in apiculture to serve extension needs, gaps in the legal framework to regulate the industry and lack scientific research to support apiculture.
“The fact that Zimbabwe has almost all it takes to be a large producer of high quality honey and other hive products in the Southern Africa Development Community can be hardly disputed. Sadly, her full potential remains unexploited because her beekeepers have not yet organised themselves into a collective body that can bargain for equitable and sustainable mobilisation of resources for capacity building in market linkages, research and development, entrepreneurship development among others,” Mutandwa said.
He said beekeepers in Zimbabwe were currently not registered.
He noted that the investment value and production output was therefore currently difficult to measure with accuracy.
Mutandwa noted that bee health and welfare issues were rarely given serious attention outside conference rooms.
“For decades beekeeping in Zimbabwe has been taught with a bias inclined more towards conservation than bee entrepreneurship, resulting in it being often taken as a pastime activity rather than a potentially fully fledged employment opportunity and forex earner. This perception has seen some financial institutions shying away from funding beekeepers,” he said.
He stressed that the absence of research and development has seen many beekeepers relying on only one hive product — honey — thereby neglecting other lucrative hive products such as propolis and beeswax, among others.
The country could be missing huge potential to create new jobs in the sector.
According to analysts, international demand for honey is expected to reach 2,4 million tonnes per annum by 2022.
The emerging demand will be driven by growing consumer preferences for natural health and medicine alternatives.
“The apiculture sector can only be revived through the promotion of stakeholder knowledge sharing, promoting and strengthening research in indigenous knowledge systems, ensuring the development of the value of the honeybee, supporting documentation, publication and dissemination of best beekeeping practices that promote up-scaling of production ideas,” said Mutandwa.
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