How To Start Making Money With Beekeeping

Have you ever tasted genuine honey before? If you have, you’ ill agree with me that it is one of the most powerful natural sweetener ever known to man. I sincerely don’t know which of these is the best – water or honey. Honestly, honey is a very power substance with unlimited benefits. It’s a well known insect throughout the world. It is a substance produced by bees from pollen grains of trees has found its use in several aspects of our everyday life ranging from beauty purposes to being used as a sweetener in food substances and most importantly in health treatment.

Basically, honey could be classified into three main types by its made and these are:

1. Man made honey
2. Self breeded honey
3. Wild honey (especially of Yoruba land of Nigeria)

Man Made Honey:

Man made honeys are honeys made from some compounds which may be compound (table) sugar or other substances that has high sugar contents. These classes of honeys have been found to be dangerous to proper health conditions.

Self Breeded Honey:

Self breeded honeys on the other hand are honeys gotten from bees which are breeded in a confined (intensive) environment. This is the common in our environs today!

Wild Honey:

Wild honeys are honeys produced by bees living in their natural habitat which in most cases is in a forest. These honeys have been proved scientifically to be very beneficial to health with a high emphasis placed on honeys gotten in tropical areas such as south west of Nigeria.

Usefulness of Honey

Unprocessed honey contains enzymes that are considered essential for good health and also contains natural minerals needed by the body. It is the most assimilated carbohydrate compound for the body, it is also an effective aliment to generate heat, create and replace energy, and furthermore, to form certain tissues. Moreover honey supplies the organism with substances for the formation of enzymes and other biological ferments to promote oxidation.

Here are some of the uses of honey:

1. Honey can be used as an antimicrobial (i.e. You can use it to treat cuts, scrapes and burns as well as to prevent scarring!) due to its high sugar content, low pH and the presence of organic acids.
2. Honey is used as a hair and facial treatment because it attracts and retains moisture.
3. Honey contains the vitamins B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin and pantothenic acid.
4. Honey is rich in minerals such as calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, sodium and zinc.
5. Honey contains antioxidants such as chrysin, pinobanskin, vitamin C, catalase and pinocembrin.
6. Honey is a great source of energy due to its high in content in carbohydrates.
7. Honey helps to improve the organism efficiency of the elderly ones.
8. Honey is effective against enzymatic browning of fruits and vegetable, oxidative degeneration of some foods and in controlling the growth of or eliminating food borne pathogens.

However, it is important to know that honeys are in very high demand at the international market. Thereby open another opportunity for us as Nigeria even at this time when dollar is on the increase everyday. That is why you must take hold of this opportunity and make sure you start exporting something; no matter how small. Maybe, I should even start by telling you various ways to identify original honey!

How To Identify Original/Unadulterated Honey

There is actually a huge difference between the original honey and the white or refined sugar, which may not be easy for some people to know when honey has been rendered impure. The following tips will help you greatly in identifying original honey:

1. Pure honey has a distinct smell or scent. In this case experience is the best teacher.
2. The best honey takes a brown, pale yellow, or near brown appearance.
3. In the process of adulterating honey it may become a little ticker than pure honey.
4. A drop of pure honey falling on the ground can picked up again because pure honey does not spread like water when on the ground or flat surface.
5. Put pure honey in the freezer and it will remain the same unblock
6. Put a stick of matches in the honey and light; if it light, it is original honey.

 

What Is Beekeeping

Just as you rear cattles to meet mans need for meat, milk, hide etc so also bees are kept in artificial confinements or habitat called hives. This is with a view to make money out of their by-products.  A beekeeping site is usually referred to as the apiary. Here you can have multiple beehives.

Why You Should Set Up Beekeeping Business

1. It’s a multi-stream of income business.
2. It requires very little capital to start.
3. It does not require you to be there after setting it up.

Where To Set Up Beehive

You can hardly have bees resident in cities. It’s not even advisable to set them here. They prefer farm lands or bushy areas. You can therefore set up your beehive from a portion (apiary) in a farm land or bushy area where you have lots of flowering plants. This is because bees feed on plants. You don’t have to own the farm. You can negotiate with owner.

Those who have abandoned lands in the villages or outskirts of town can make good money by setting up as many beehives as possible. You can even lease an uncultivated land.

The apiary may be built to assist with farming, to collect honey or both. An apiary is beneficial to the farmland that surrounds it because it encourages bees to stay in the area. In turn, bees aid in pollination, which helps vegetables and fruit to grow. Typically, one beehive provides enough bees to pollinate one acre of crops.

Beekeeping Management

This is very simple. Managing a beehive does not require you are there always.  You don’t’ feed them, you don’t do any clean up. You can visit your site even once in a year or once in every six months. You can be in Lagos and operate your beekeeping business outside of Lagos. The most important thing is to know when to go and harvest; usually, harvest is between 10 to 12 months after setup.  For second harvest it takes 8 months. Then afterwards every 4 months. The untold secret is that the longer the duration the bees stay within the hive the faster the release of honey for harvest.

How To Attract Bees To Your Beehive

The art of attracting bees to artificial hives is referred to as baiting. All you need to do is get any juicy fruit such as orange, cashew, manago, pineapples  and dab the juice to the  inner part of the hive and you’ll see them swarm there. And if they find the hive conducive, then they colonize the place.

The market for bee by-products especially honey is huge. The selling point to make huge sale is to arm yourself with the scores of medicinal benefits of honey. You don’t need to talk far before you get orders.

Beekeeping  Business Requirements

Beehive -You can either construct with hard wood with the help of your carpenter or buy.

Bee kit – Uniform worn to prevent bee sting. It’s made of very thick material.

Smoker– it’s a controllable smoke use to relax the nerves of the bees so as to prevent them from stinging when you want harvest bee by-products. It can be fabricated for you.

Extractor – the extractor is used to harvest honey from the honeycomb.

I hope this helps someone? Thanks for visiting Earn Base!