Caption: Areas of Bulolo, such as Mainyanda, would be ideal for raising bees.
Bulolo MP Sam Basil has made moves to ensure his electorate benefits from the lucrative honey market.
He has committed K40, 000 from the Bulolo district agricultural programme to be used to conduct training for 40 bee farmers to learn how to breed bees for small-scale commercial markets.
“Parts of the Bulolo terrain are rugged but there is abundant wild flora,” Mr Basil said.
“Naturally, these plants provide many flowers, and where you have flowers – nectar – the primary raw material for honey.”
He has engaged the services of a team from Goroka to start the intensive training in the third week of March.
Team leader Tela Aloye commended Mr Basil for this initiative to reap the sweet benefits of honey.
“Bee keeping is a low labour- intensive task,” he said.
“The bees do all the work gathering the nectar to make honey in their honey combs or beehives.
“All the bee farmer needs to do is to simply check the beehives and harvest or scoop the honey, package it and sell it.”
A kilogramme of honey is currently sold at K10 so a farmer can earn up to K200 or K300 from each of his beehive, as each beehive can contain between 20-30 kilos of honey.
“I also want my people to use honey as a natural-sweetener for their tea or coffee as sugar has become too expensive for many of them,” Mr Basil said.
“Honey is a health form of nutrition for the people if used regularly.”
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