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Smallholder farmers in Village M鈥攁 farming community south of the eastern border city of Mutare in Zimbabwe鈥攈ave, for years, enjoyed bumper harvests of maize and other crops. However, the abundant yields in Village M and surrounding communities have diminished considerably over the past 20 years. Large swathes of previously productive farmland now lie neglected, overrun by rough thickets of .

Several areas across Zimbabwe have been ravaged by severe . A 2021 that Zimbabwe鈥檚 temperatures rose 1 degree Celsius between 1960 and 2000, while annual rainfall decreased 20% to 30%. Experts estimate that in sub-Saharan Africa by 10% to 20% by the year 2050.

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But Lazarus Mwakateve, a smallholder farmer from Village M, has diversified his operation to offset crop losses from droughts. He ventured into beekeeping more than a decade ago, largely as a pastime, but the enterprise has since morphed into a lucrative alternative source of income for him.

鈥淏eekeeping does not need large pieces of land or large amounts of water like crop farming,鈥� Mwakateve says.

Many other farmers are following in Mwakateve鈥檚 footsteps. Experts say there are in Zimbabwe today.

Mwakateve has 53 beehives, and as of last September, he says 26 of them had bees and honey. Each beehive provides between 33 and 35 liters of honey each year. And each liter of honey earns Mwakateve US$3.20 when he sells them to middlemen.

鈥淒roughts reduce income from crops down to zero in some cases, but income from honey has remained stable even during the worst droughts,鈥� Mwakateve says.

Honey Harvesting on the Rise

Village M is an enclave tucked at the foot of Gombai mountain. Nearby, the Mushaamhuru River snakes sluggishly along the heavily silted riverbed as it heads toward its confluence with the Mpudzi River. Other villages鈥擝, C, D, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, N, and O鈥攄ot the expansive farming area, broken only by some rugged hills. Rain-fed crop farming has long been the mainstay of these communities, but changing climate is putting Zimbabweans鈥攕ome 70% of whom depend entirely on agriculture or rural economic activities鈥攊n jeopardy. 

However, local demand for honey is growing both on the formal and informal markets. The day before Christmas in 2022, I witnessed an informal honey seller roving around a local business center, Gutaurare, selling honey from a 25-liter plastic container. Such informal honey sellers are now a common sight in the streets of the city of Mutare.

A study done by researchers at Chinhoyi University of Technology and Women鈥檚 University in Africa reveals that there is demand for honey in Zimbabwe from manufacturers of confectioneries, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, as well as demand for beeswax to make polishes for floors, shoes, and furniture.

鈥淗oney in Zimbabwe has the potential to improve the income of small-scale honey producers and at the same time increase crop yield, conservation of trees, and health of the bee farmers,鈥�

Blessing Zimunya is a traditional leader in Chitora who farms and raises bees.

鈥淚鈥檓 encouraging other farmers affected by droughts to try beekeeping,鈥� Zimunya says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very profitable.鈥�

Techniques

To succeed in this new enterprise, Mwakateve says beekeepers must acquire knowledge on beekeeping and honey harvesting techniques.

鈥淥ur traditional ways of harvesting honey are not good for bees,鈥� he says. This involves using fire to smoke out the bees, which ends up killing large numbers of them. But new techniques, like bee smokers and bee suits, are gentler on the bees while still protecting the beekeepers.

Nicholas Mukundidza, a farmer from neighboring Village F, has transformed a small, forested hill outside his homestead into a successful apiary.

Mukundidza鈥檚 beehives are mostly traditional hives鈥攈ollowed-out dead logs. But he says he is planning to invest more in modern beehives, like the Kenyan Top Bar hives, to boost honey production. Kenyan Top Bar hives than traditional hives. These hives have widely been adopted in parts of Zimbabwe, like Mutasa, Lupane, Mudzi, and Nyanga districts.

Mukundidza says his apiary has helped to conserve vegetation around the hill, as other villagers do not cut the trees for fear of the bees.

He says the demand for honey is high, too, with some buyers paying up to US$65 for 20 liters, slightly higher than the US$60 that some buyers were paying the previous year.

鈥淐rop farming in our area is no longer sustainable due to severe droughts,鈥� Mukundidza says. 鈥淏eekeeping is now the only way to go.鈥�

Bees for Climate Resilience

Ishmael Sithole, a Zimbabwean bee expert and chairman of the , says in the face of our changing climate, beekeeping offers a number of advantages over crop farming.

鈥淒uring droughts, field crops are more vulnerable than wild plants, and a crop farmer is easily hammered, whereas a beekeeper will rely on the resilient wild plants to provide nectar and pollen for his bees,鈥� Sithole says.

He says beekeepers can use the same hives season after season, whereas crop farmers need seed, fertilizers, and agrochemicals every season.

鈥淭o practice crop farming, save perhaps when using hydroponics, you need fertile land, but with beekeeping, you can utilize infertile patches of land. Bees rely on nectar and pollen from your farm, neighboring farmlands, and forests without the beekeeper being accused of stealing.鈥�

鈥淚nstead, the beekeeper gets praise for increasing crop yields qualitatively and quantitatively through pollination services, which the bees offer during their foraging trips,鈥� says Sithole, who also runs a small honey production company, .

But beekeeping is not without its risks. Sithole says modern agriculture largely hinges on the use of massive quantities of agrochemicals, and some of them affect bees adversely.

He points to the Zimbabwean , which tries to address the issue of application of agrochemicals to crops within 5 kilometers of apiaries. 鈥淏ut most hives in use in Zimbabwe do not offer the beekeeper an opportunity to confine the bees in the hives during spraying regimes,鈥� Sithole says. 鈥淎s result, a number of bees are lost to agrochemicals every farming season.鈥�

To address this, Sithole鈥檚 company invented a hive鈥攖he MacJohnson hive鈥� which has entry and exit compartments with plastic or metal screens. The screens can be easily fixed in place to confine the bees in the hive but keep the hive well ventilated. This offers beekeepers an opportunity to safely confine their bees inside the hives when farmers spray their crops, saving bees from chemical poisoning and sparing the honey from contamination by pesticide residue.

The breakthrough earned MacJohnson Apiaries the Best Climate Smart Award for small and medium-sized enterprises in Zimbabwe in 2022. The company is now working on patenting the innovation.

A Sweeter Future

Sithole adds that most crops have a short shelf life compared with honey, which is the only food that does not carry an expiration date because it can last thousands of years without going bad.

鈥淚t therefore has low post-harvest losses compared to crops,鈥� he says. 鈥淗oney can reach distant markets, which offer lucrative returns if it鈥檚 traceable and marketed well.鈥�

As honey production gains traction, beekeepers in areas like Zimbabwe鈥檚 drought-prone Buhera District have received support from nongovernmental organizations their honey.

In spite of the continuing and worsening droughts in Zimbabwe, Mwakateve is bullish about the prospects of raising bees. 鈥淏eekeeping is the future,鈥� he says.