As Ghana explores more avenues for revenue generation to fuel national development, bee farming/keeping has emerged as an area with great economic potential for creating viable businesses and employment for many Ghanaians.
Bees are not only important for the production of honey, which is the world’s most popular natural sweetener; they are equally beneficial for their role in plant pollination. Without the bees’ natural role, food production would be at risk as bees pollinate approximately 35% of food crops consumed by humans.
The value of global trade of honey, besides other bee products, is estimated to be over $600 million, and in Africa, honey is produced in several countries with Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, leading as the largest honey producers on the continent.
Other products that bees produce that are in high demand include beeswax, which is widely used in both the skincare and cosmetic industries, as well as in shoe, furniture and candle manufacturing, propolis, which is used in medicines and cosmetic products, and honey bee venom, also known as apitoxin, commonly used as treatment for rheumatism and other joint diseases.

Origins
There are more than 20,000 species of wild bees. Many species are solitary (e.g., mason bees, leafcutter bees ( Megachilidae),carpenter bees and other ground-nesting bees). Many others rear their young in burrows and small colonies (e.g., bumblebees and stingless bees). Some honey bees are wild e.g. the little honeybee ( Apis florea ), giant honeybee (Apis dorsata ) and rock bee ( Apis laboriosa ). Beekeeping, or apiculture, is concerned with the practical management of the social species of honey bees, which live in large colonies of up to 100,000 individuals. In Europe and America the species universally managed by beekeepers is the Western honey bee ( Apis mellifera ). This species has several sub-species or regional varieties, such as the Italian bee (Apis mellifera ligustica ), European dark bee ( Apis mellifera mellifera ), and the Carniolan honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica ). In the tropics, other species of social bees are managed for honey production, including the Asiatic honey bee (Apis cerana).

Wild honey harvesting
Collecting honey from wild bee colonies is one of the most ancient human activities and is still practiced by aboriginal societies in parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. Gathering honey from wild bee colonies is usually done by subduing the bees with smoke and breaking open the tree or rocks where the colony is located, often resulting in the physical destruction of the nest.
Early forms of honey collecting entailed the destruction of the entire colony when the honey was harvested. The wild hive was crudely broken into, using smoke to suppress the bees, the honeycombs were torn out and smashed up — along with the eggs, larvae and honey they contained. The liquid honey from the destroyed brood nest was strained through a sieve or basket. This was destructive and unhygienic, but for hunter-gatherer societies this did not matter, since the honey was generally consumed immediately and there were always more wild colonies to exploit. But in settled societies, the destruction of the bee colony meant the loss of a valuable resource; this drawback made beekeeping both inefficient and something of a “stop and start” activity. There could be no continuity of production and no possibility of selective breeding, since each bee colony was destroyed at harvest time, along with its precious queen.

Protection for the beekeeper
One of the key activities in the life of a Beekeeper is collecting honey from often jealously guarded beehives. To achieve this, most beekeepers wear some protective clothing before attempting to retrieve honey. Typically, experienced beekeepers wear gloves, a veil and boots to guard against bee stings when invading a beehive.
Smoke is another significant line of defense for the beekeeper. Most beekeepers use a “smoker”—a device designed to generate smoke from the incomplete combustion of various fuels. Smoke calms bees; it initiates a feeding response in anticipation of possible hive abandonment due to fire. Smoke also masks alarm pheromones released by guard bees or when bees are squashed in an inspection. The ensuing confusion creates an opportunity for the beekeeper to open the hive and work without triggering a defensive reaction.

Composition of Bee colonies
In bee colonies, the queen is the only sexually mature female in the hive and all of the female worker bees and male drones are her offspring. The queen may live for up to three years or more and may be capable of laying half a million eggs or more in her lifetime. At the peak of the breeding season, a good queen may be capable of laying 3,000 eggs in one day, more than her own body weight. The queen is raised from a normal worker egg, but is fed a larger amount of royal jelly than a normal worker bee, resulting in a radically different growth and metamorphosis. The queen influences the colony by the production and dissemination of a variety of pheromones or “queen substances”. One of these chemicals suppresses the development of ovaries in all the female worker bees in the hive and prevents them from laying eggs.

Mating of queens
The queen emerges from her cell after 15 days of development and she remains in the hive for 3–7 days before venturing out on a mating flight. Mating flight is otherwise known as “nuptial flight”. Her first orientation flight may only last a few seconds, just enough to mark the position of the hive. Subsequent mating flights may last from 5 minutes to 30 minutes, and she may mate with a number of male drones on each flight. Over several matings, possibly a dozen or more, the queen receives and stores enough sperm from a succession of drones to fertilize hundreds of thousands of eggs. If she does not manage to leave the hive to mate—possibly due to bad weather or being trapped in part of the hive—she remains infertile and becomes a drone layer , incapable of producing female worker bees. Worker bees sometimes kill a non-performing queen and produce another. Without a properly performing queen, the hive is doomed.

Mating takes place at some distance from the hive and often several hundred feet in the air; it is thought that this separates the strongest drones from the weaker ones, ensuring that only the fastest and strongest drones get to pass on their genes.

Starting a Profitable bee farming venture
The standout advantage of venturing into bee farming is the relative ease from business conception to actualization stage. The venture is surprisingly easy to start and guarantees a steady stream of income with the application of the right technique.

Typically, a significant part of start-up capital for a beekeeping venture goes into the construction of boxes where the bees will build their hive. Once this is secured mostly by contracting a carpenter, a protective gear is the next vital tool needed.
Because of the increased aggression by bees when the beehive is heavy (loaded with honey), a smoke sprayer or dispenser becomes a must-have-especially as it not only serves the purpose of significantly reducing the aggression of bees by inhibiting their defense system.

Additionally when considering a stint in beekeeping it is important to ensure that beehive site is removed from residential dwellings. This is to minimize sting incidences; which have proved fatal in some cases.
After considering the aforementioned, the cardinal component which is obviously getting the bees becomes the next task for anyone venturing into the beekeeping. To court the attention of bees, one simply needs to buy some honey-especially the unprocessed one. Once the honey is available, a beekeeper could proceed to smear the honey within the boxes- and of course hang them in secure locations –preferably in tree and roof tops.
Depending on the swarm of bees that a beekeeper is able to attract, the average time before harvest is 6 weeks. At this point the bee keeper’s effort is often rewarded with enough honey to attract some good money.

Potential for Ghana
Ghana could become a leading producer of honey in Africa if necessary attention is channeled to the area. With healthy living crusaders advocating it as a healthier alternative for refined sugar and the increasing global demand for honey it is easy to see that Ghana has been presented with a fertile ground for job creation and foreign exchange.
Only in 2016, the industry’s global value, globally, was estimated at US$2.2billion, up by an average 27.1percent for all exporting countries since 2012, when natural honey shipments were valued at US$1.8 billion.
In the world of manufacturing, a lot of multinationals use honey to make cosmetic products such as skin care lotions, soaps, and lip balms, a lot of health conscious people are replacing sugar with honey in their tea and other meals.
This increasing demand for honey is a conspicuous testament that honey is a genuine money-maker that has to be taken advantage of. This is why a recent effort by The Ghana Beekeepers Association (GBA) to seek greater support from government is laudable and timely.

It would be recalled that the association, in February 2017, presented a proposal to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture which outlines in detail the level of investment needed to fully exploit beekeeping in Ghana.
A peek at the highly ambitious proposal presented to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture revealed that Ghana stood a chance of emerging as foremost producer of honey globally with an investment of GH¢1.62billion that will consequently yield as much as GH¢2billion for the country annually in just a matter of ten years.
With increasing global demand for honey one would only hope that the relevant authorities will leap in support of the budding beekeeping industry to ensure that the potential of this promising industry is fully harnessed for the benefit of Ghanaians.

Women are the backbone of societal growth; and it’s difficult to think of any thriving sphere of life that is independent of a positive feminine influence.
In Ghana, the annals are strewn with outstanding women who have shone bright in often spectacular fashion. While this is refreshing, the prominences of women in a crucial facet of national life like agric remains underwhelming despite being central to the success of the hugely important sector.
Despite their central importance to agriculture, which sees women produce a great chunk of our food, women farmers are sadly excluded from conversations that determine agricultural policies, while unfair laws and practices deprive them of their land, their rights, and their livelihoods.
In Ghana, about 80% of agricultural production comes from small-scale farmers, who are mostly rural women. Women comprise the largest percentage of the workforce in the agricultural sector, a situation that means we cannot afford to treat women in agric with hands of levity.

Training is crucial
The training of rural women is very important, especially with the adoption of modern agricultural techniques that are tailored to local conditions and that use natural resources in a sustainable manner, with a view to achieving economic development without degrading the environment. The traditional and sometimes obsolete farming practices must give way to new forward-looking practices that will consequently lead to improved livelihood for these women and their dependents.
Training efforts must be backed by the provision of extension services, storage facilities, rural infrastructure (roads, electricity, and information and communication technologies), access to markets and access to credit, as well as supporting organizations and farmer cooperatives. This will ensure that the impact of training schemes is felt by the farmers- and in extension the society.
A commitment to training women farmers is a guaranteed means of breaking the vicious cycle that leads to rural poverty. Because of the nurturing role that women play in families, any intellectual investment made goes a long way to help build the capacity of several individual in society.

Affirmative action
Practicable affirmative action is by far one of the surest ways of safeguarding the interest of women in agriculture.
Instead of intermittent interventions, a solid affirmative action roadmap will go a long way to ensure that concrete success is achieved in efforts to improve the lot of women who have committed themselves to working hard to feed the country through the noble art of farming.

Networks operating in rural areas, especially rural women’s organizations are crucial to the conception of development programs. These organizations must partner in crafting any policies for women farmers as experience has shown that contributions from such actors are often invaluable.
A number of other changes will strengthen women’s contributions to agricultural production and sustainability. These include support for investment in rural areas in order to improve women’s living and working conditions; giving priority to technological development policies targeting rural and farm women’s needs and recognizing their knowledge, skills and experience in the production of food and the conservation of biodiversity; and assessing the negative effects and risks of farming practices and technology, including pesticides on women’s health, and taking measures to reduce use and exposure.

Feminization of agriculture
Feminisation of agriculture refers to women’s increasing participation in the agricultural labor force, whether as independent producers, as unremunerated family workers, or as agricultural wage workers. Specifically, feminisation of agriculture entails:
1. An increase in women’s participation rates in the agricultural sector, either as self-employed or as agricultural wage workers; in other words, an increase in the percentage of women who are economically active in rural areas.
2. An increase in the percentage of women in the agricultural labor force relative to men, either because more women are working and/or because fewer men are working in agriculture.

[ Feminization of Agriculture: Trends and Driving Forces]
According to the FAO, while the proportion of the labor force working in agricultural declined over the 1990s, the proportion of women working in agriculture increased, particularly in developing countries. In some regions such as Africa and Asia, almost half of the labor force is women. This trend has been called the feminisation of agriculture. This feminisation of agriculture is caused by increased “casualization” of work, unprofitable crop production and distress migration of men “for higher casual work in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors”, leaving women to take up low paid casual work in agriculture.

WIAD helpful
The Women in Agricultural Development Directorate (WIAD), one of the seven Technical Directorates of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has since inception contributed significantly to the cause of women in the agric discipline. Set up with the mandate to supports livelihood and well-being of women in the agricultural sector, the body has made encouraging strides.
The Directorate of Agricultural Extension Services is credited with improving access to extension services for a healthy number of women who hitherto were deprived such opportunities.
The Statistic Research and Information Directorate has in the last few years managed to develop a functional data bank that has proved crucial to identifying the peculiar challenges of different groups of women farmers across the country.
As the body continues to strive harder however, extra effort from other stakeholders remains crucial to achieving a highly functional women agricultural workforce that is fully equipped to alter the status quo.

Elsewhere in Africa
While efforts to promote women interest in agric is gaining ground elsewhere on the African continent, Ghana surely has to do more. Recently, the Global Fund for Women has helped to bring African women farmers to the center of debates aimed at stirring the wheels of advocacy in favour of women farmers on the continent, through the Rural Women Striding Forward initiative. Rural women in Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Uganda received information, learned skills, and acquired networking opportunities – and as a result, they were able to provide more food for their families while advancing their human rights.
Key outcomes recorded as a result of the effort by the global fund for women included:
• 5-50% increase in crop yields.
• 30% increase in women’s income.
• 25% of women added one or more income-generating activities.
• The majority of households are now eating 3 meals per day.
• Women enjoyed more respect and became decision-makers in their homes.
• Women took on leadership roles in the community, joining village councils and forming advocacy networks.
There are significant gender disparities in the way that key resources essential for success in agriculture are distributed across Africa. Access to land, inputs, assets, markets, information and knowledge, time, decision-making authority and income still present a challenge for women in the sector.
Studies by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, Farming First, and other organisations consistently show that throughout the world, women farmers control less land and make far less use of improved technologies and inputs such as fertiliser. They tend to have less access to credit and insurance and are less likely to receive extension services, which are the main source of information on new technologies in the developing world.

Conclusion
The mammoth effort put into our agric sector by women is too huge to ignore. It is so crucial that we must do everything in our power to safeguard .Failure to do this could see a catastrophic reversal of the massive gains that we have so painstakingly made since Ghana began putting together the foundations of a now burgeoning agric sector. First and crucially, legal and cultural barriers to ownership and access to land, information and extension services, inputs and other resources must give way to women friendly structures and rules that will aid the seamless rise of our women to the highest echelon of world agriculture.
Also important is the need to usher in a new epoch that will see women venture into agricultural education and training, research and extension services, as well as supply chain logistics, agri-technology, agric-policy-making and implementation. Our women are capable and must be encouraged to rise and rise!

Crop Clinics
Yara Ghana has also been offering technical support for farmers through its Crop Clinics. Along with the company’s distribution and retail partners, the Crop Clinics and its training programmes reache thousands of farmers every year. Using the Crop Nutrition Concept, it focuses on crop knowledge, portfolio combinations and application competence, in order to help Ghanaian farmers optimize profitability in a sustainable manner.
Yara Ghana undertakes scientific trials aimed at evolving cost effective crop nutrition solutions and programmes for Ghanaian farmers.
In terms of capacity building for farmers and dealers, it provides training and knowledge for farmers, Agricultural Extension Officers as well as dealers in agro-inputs. The focus among others is on the right application of fertilizers: right nutrients, right time and right place. In addition, it offers technical support for farmers on Yara Crop Nutrition approach, focusing on crop knowledge, portfolio combinations and application competence, in order to help Ghanaian farmers optimize profitability in a sustainable manner.

Pre-Harvest Agri-business Exhibition & Conference
As a demonstration of its continuous commitment to the agric sector, Yara Ghana has provided financial sponsorship package to Agrihouse Foundation, the organisers of the Pre-Harvest Agri-business Exhibition & Conference. The 8th edition of the Pre-harvest event will take place this year from the 3rd-5th October at the Aliu Mahama Stadium in Tamale. The exhibition and conference will feature over 2,000 exhibitors and businesses across the agricultural value chain.
In a company statement, Yara Ghana said of the event: “We are hoping to see a lot of farmers and other players in the value chain attending this event. We are also expecting that a lot of networking and partnerships will be built and linkages established that will help further strengthen the agricultural value chain and enhance profitability among the various actors.”
The statement continued “We also expect to see an exciting exhibition that will showcase new and improved technologies in the sector that will help modernize agricultural practice in Ghana and make it attractive and profitable.”
“Yara as a leading player in the fertilizer industry believes in building partnerships and collaborations that will help strengthen the entire agricultural value chain. This is demonstrated by our collaboration with the USAID/ADVANCE on their project demos covering over 200 sites,” the company added.
The Pre-harvest event which had previously been handled by the USAID/ADVANCE is one such event that brings together actors in the value chain to network, build partnerships and help link farmers to up takers and aggregators and Yara believes its sponsorship of this event will help enhance and promote this objective. It is for this reason that Yara has been supporting the Pre-Harvest event over the past three years.