Youths in Kitui County have been challenged to engage in beekeeping ventures to supplement their livelihoods.
Founder of Wisdom Capital Apiculture, Senior Counsel, Simon Malonza, noted that the county was endowed with climate that was favourable for beekeeping with a promising high returns in honey production.
He regretted that local communities had failed to fully exploit the large tracts of land into productive use and urged the parents to allow their youth to utilize it by engaging in beekeeping projects.
The Senior Counsel, who also has a law firm, SS Malonza and Co Advocate in Kitui town, said has was getting reasonable returns from his over 500 beehives at his Apiculture beekeeping farm which the youth could emulate.
“I have 100 employees most of them youth at Wisdom Capital Beekeeping Initiative and I intend to upscale the honey production and as well create over 500 job opportunities,” Malonza to KNA when visited the farm yesterday.
Apiculture farm is located at Katyethoka area about 10 kilometers away from Kitui town and the beekeeping ranch sits on 40 acres of land, with a man-made forest with over 50,000 trees.
The farm produces 100 tons of honey annually and the harvested products are further processed for value addition and sold locally at a better price.
“We keep the records of the bees when they enter the beehive and monitor when there is honey which takes around one and half months to three months to mature,” John Wambua, an employee at the farm explained.
He however said that, the only challenge was on transportation of honey to the market due to poor roads network in the region.
On bees and human conflicts, Wambua said “We keep continuous tracking of the migration of the bees to ensure there are no cases of attacks.
By Denson Mututo and Joshua Muimi
