Association of Women in Bee-Keeping says it will train no fewer than 2,000 practicing and 2,000 potential bee farmers each on modern ways of farming bees across the country.
Mrs. Obianuju Okpo, the National President of the association told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday, that some bee farmers still practiced traditional ways of bee farming.
Okpo noted that the traditional practice was a contributory factor to the low quality of honey and yields of hives products.
She said that the move would make Nigerian honey to be more acceptable at the international market and reduce contamination of honey.
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“Our target is to train at least a minimum of 2,000 potential bee keepers and an additional 2,000 practicing bee farmers for them to imbibe modern ways of bee keeping.
“With modern bee keeping, our yield will be higher than what it used to be.
“We have had three trainings in Kano, Osun and Abuja where a lot of new and old bee keepers were trained and some of the modern bee farming equipment are available for them to buy.
“When you use the wired frame (modern hives), you harvest your honey every month and produce more but when you use the traditional means, you might harvest once or twice a year.
“We are encouraging people to imbibe the modern way of bee keeping, that way our honey can be more acceptable at the international market because the way you farm is the way you process it.
“In the traditional way, you use the hand to squeeze out the honey but the modern way, it is the machine that spins out the honey and that way, the rate of contamination is eliminated.
“You use stainless steel for the modern way because honey can stick and absorb things from the environment but stainless steel reduces contamination in the honey,’’ she said.
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The national president, who decried the wet nature of Nigerian woods, said that the Federal Government had distributed modern bee hives to no fewer than 3,000 farmers to ease modern bee keeping.
“Our wood in Nigeria are usually not very dried and by the time the hives are built and dried up, they become crooked and the wood will create holes that will attract reptiles into the hives.
“The government has also taken a very good step as it has sent in the samples of Nigerian honey to the EU so that Nigeria can be listed as one of the countries to export honey to the EU,’’ she said. (NAN)
