FITZGERALD MUNYORO IN MUTARE
A Mutare woman, Wendy Mtisi (pictured), is making waves in bee keeping and honey production industry.
Through her innovation called Climate Smart Bees initiative, Mtisi is harvesting honey in a way that is environmentally friendly, a huge step in the right direction for a form of agriculture that has been castigated for being hazardous to surrounding environments.
Players in the bee keeping industry have been using an ancient technique of harvesting honey called ‘smoke gassing’.
This has resulted in Zimbabwe’s veld fire status reaching red status, according to a 2021 Environmental Management Agency report, meaning cases of veld fires has reached an unmanageable stage and poses great danger to not only wildlife but human beings as well.
The ‘smoking technique’ has been condemned by environmental conservation agencies and has been fingered as one of the protagonists of the spread of veld fires.
But, Mtisi, migrated to climate smart eco-friendly bee keeping technique.
It all started in 11 years ago when Mtisi enrolled with Environmental Africa to be trained in apiculture.
Between 2012 and 2013 she took the personal initiative to research and study more on beekeeping.
In 2014, she ventured into business and started a bee removal service.
She describes the venture as modestly successful and led her to her first bee keeping commercial venture.
“In 2015 I formed the Mutare Divine Co-operative and we had hives in Chimanimani. Unfortunately, the apiculture project was met with an unfortunate incident and the hives were destroyed by a veld fire.”
Mtisi said it was this incident that propelled her to start working with EMA to gain more knowledge.
Ultimately, this led to the formation of Climate Smart Bees, which was set up in Honde Valley.
Her new found knowledge of the environment led her to come up with the revolutionary bee husbandry method she terms ‘bee wisdom’, an idea which is based on the bees’ ability to build their hives and produce honey.
“Bee wisdom is based on my study of how bees behave and as such we extract bees in a way that is sensitive to their needs and behaviours,”Mtisi said.
She added that part of bee wisdom includes manually building artificial hives at strategically positioned areas that encourage the bees to produce excess honey.
“We prefer and use KTB (Kenya Top Bar) hives because they are affordable owing to availability of timber in Manicaland.”
“Moreso, traditional hives encourage deforestation and therefore they are not eco-friendly. Hives should be mounted near water, flowery plants and away from wind and swamps.So that is what we try to do,” Mtisi said.
Her passion does not end with her personal success and the environment innovations she has pioneered.
Mtisi encourages other women in her community in Dangamvura, Mutare, to also venture into apiculture through the Women of Wisdom Co-operative, which she founded in 2017.
She said the Climate Smart Bee project has gone beyond pure liquid honey production and has branched into alternative honey products as well.
“There is much that we make from hives such as wax, honey, propolis and pollen.
We also produce by-products from wax such as candles, lip balm, cobra and honey wine (mead),” Mtisi told Business Times.
She plans to expand the business and open a honey processing centre and produce more honey based products.
