Nnkokonjeru Trainings

Nnkokonjeru Trainings 

by Emily Erickson

Nnkokonjeru is a small town located about an hour by bus from the capital of Uganda, Kampala. I stayed here with my translator Liz for the past four weeks with the Rural Agency for Sustainable Development. Our typical day consists of an early breakfast of tea and toast at the compound, then maybe constructing some demonstration hives or going on a short walk to town. We generally have one or two training sessions after a (huge) lunch of cassava, matoke, posho, and beans. Although our trainings are considered to be very local, it can still take us up to half an hour to reach them by boda boda (a small motorcycle that functions as a cab in Uganda). We’re a  comical sight on the bodas, as we will sandwich up to 3 passengers and a demonstration beehive on one before setting out on the bumpy dirt roads. While bodas aren’t exactly the most comfortable mode of transport, they are certainly the most efficient on the backroads of the Ugandan countryside; you can ask a boda driver for directions to the most obscure village and he will usually be able to locate it for you. 

I love doing the beekeeper trainings because we work very closely with a diverse range of people. Some are beekeepers, but most aren’t (I have found that the biggest barrier to many farmers starting their own sideline beekeeping business is not lack of motivation but rather fear of the bees that stems from a lack of proper education on the matter). To this point, I’ve worked with both young and very old people, with the wealthy and the poor, with men and women, and with those living in the heart of Kampala and others who live in the farthest reaches of the most rural town. 

With the novice groups we cover the absolute basics of honeybee biology, management, and hive designs. We have been using top bar hives as a demonstration (however we are also discussing the merits of using the traditional hive designs) because i find them to be a very practical option for low cost beekeeping. I have tried to format each presentation to each group depending on their skill level and what they have said they were most interested in during our initial meetings. Therefore, the sessions with the groups that already had bee hives were very varied, and covered everything from basic inspection skills and queen rearing techniques. 

My biggest mission in my training sessions has been to encourage the beekeepers to lose their fear of their bees and to practice inspecting their hives more. While African bees do rightfully have a reputation of being especially aggressive, in my experience working the hives, the behavior is can be managed.