One of the most common questions we get at Forested Foods is, “What the heck is that log doing hanging high up in that tree?” It probably suggests we’re overusing that photo, but we think it perfectly illustrates what we mean when we say we make forest honey. Because that log is actually a beehive, and it’s what most of the smallholder farmers we work with use to produce honey.
Many stakeholders, including NGOs, the Ethiopian government, and businesses (even us!) have tried to introduce smallholder farmers to modern beekeeping methods utilizing box hives. But despite all the funding and training that has gone into this, traditional beekeeping persists (95% of Ethiopian beekeepers use traditional methods). Ethiopia has one of the oldest, if not the oldest, traditions of beekeeping—ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics suggest that the land on which Ethiopia lies today is actually the source of honey and beeswax. It is something we struggled with early on, but as we have worked more and more with our farmers, we have come to embrace the value of traditional beekeeping.
Traditional hives made out of hollowed-out logs
What is traditional beekeeping?
Not to be confused with honey hunting (we’re not raiding wild beehives like Baloo), traditional beekeeping relies on the construction and use of traditional hives. Traditional hives are mostly cylindrical in shape (about 3 to 5 feet in length and 11 to 20 inches in width) with a single chamber fixed comb and no internal structure (unlike a modern box hive that has a set of frames on which the bees produce layers of honeycomb). In traditional hives, the bees create their own layers of honeycomb within the hives.
While traditional hives are an art passed down between generations, each with innumerable defining nuances (like the difference between your grandmother’s chicken soup vs. your neighbor’s), the most common variants of traditional hive designs utilize a combination of materials such as hollowed-out logs, bark, bamboo, ensete ventricosum (false banana trees) leaves, straw, and/or clay.
How farmers attract wild bee colonies
The success of traditional beekeeping relies on wild bee colonies deciding to occupy the hives. To make a hive as homey as possible, farmers will smear fresh cow dung inside the cavity of the hive to keep the hive bacteria free (cow dung serves as a natural disinfectant, containing a penicillin-like substance) and insulated (ie. temperature controlled). Once dry, farmers will smoke the inside of the hive with various herbs and shrubs as well as sometimes leave certain herbs and shrubs as additional bait for bee colonies to enter. The hives are then closed on both ends of the cylindrical structure with woven straw discs. A very small hole is left on one side for bees to enter.
To best attract bee colonies, farmers tend to establish their apiary of hives deep in the forest, usually a several hour trek just one way. Once in their desired location, farmers will hang their hives up in select trees, choosing ones that bear flowers that attract wild swarms, either due to floral production of suitable honeybee nectar or pollen. Setting up traditional hives is always a collaborative group effort. Not only is company preferred for the journey, but for safety. In hanging up traditional hives, farmers must sometimes climb 30 to 90 feet high, where they set up their hives horizontally to ensure a more stable temperature for the bees. Given the nature of traditional beekeeping being further away from homes, there isn’t as frequent hive management as compared to modern box beekeeping. We’re working with our farmers to ensure that there is some practical monitoring and seasonal bee colony management.
Traditional hives hung up high in the trees in Kaffa Forest
How farmers harvest traditional hives
In the southwestern Afromontane forests in which we work, the main season during which our partner farmers set up their hives is after the big rainy season, around September and October. When it is time to harvest, groups of farmers will trek to their apiaries deep in the forest canopy and usually use weight as a first indicator of honey ripeness. They will also bring smoking tools, usually small containers holding a mixture of cow dung and leaves, vines, and/or other natural fibers. They will light a fire inside the container and pump out the resulting smoke from an opening. The smoke acts as a repellent to move the bee colony out of the hive so that the farmers can harvest the honeycombs. These wild bee colonies then move to another traditional hive, or create their own hives entirely from scratch in another tree in the forest.
Why we embrace the traditional
At Forested Foods, we always seek to understand traditional practices of food production before we assume that “modernizing” will lead to improvements. There are reasons—specifically centuries of generations of reasons—why people do things the way they do. Sometimes, the modern just can’t keep up with the traditional.