Out of bees come elegant candles that cost Sh7,000 a piece!

KAKAMEGA: On the day of this interview, our subject is celebrating her birthday.

“Today, I am 52 but my friends tell me that I look younger. The secret lies in consuming honey and staying close to bees. You know they have an admirable character that humans can ape,” the jovial Diana Lubira starts off the interview as she welcomes the Smart Harvest team at her factory at Kenya Industrial estate, Kakamega town.

Ms Lubira ventured into beekeeping in 2002 after quitting her secretarial job in a parastatal.

She now has several beehives, trains aspiring bee farmers, sells apiary equipment and even better, she makes candles from bee wax that sell at Sh7,000.

At first, like the rest of her neighbours, she was a maize farmer. “Maize farming was so stressful and unrewarding. I could invest a lot of time and energy in it, but the returns were depressing. Realising that I would die a peasant maize farmer, I decided to explore more fulfilling ventures,” the mother of two recalls.

It was then that a friend told her about a bee keeping training at Lenana bee keeping station.

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In 2002, she enrolled for the training and while there, she learnt all things bee keeping plus how to make Langstroth bee hive, a modern hive better than the traditional type.

Armed with knowledge from the training, she began her journey as a bee keeper.

BEES ARE SENSITIVE

She now sells a complete hive at Sh6,000 but also gives her customers who buy in bulk a discount of Sh200 selling them at Sh5,800.

On a good day, she makes an average of five Langstroth bee-hives.

She has since made more than 6,000 Langstroth hive besides and also keeps 30 hives on her three quarter acre farm in Ikonyero, in the outskirts of Kakamega town.

She harvests an average 14 to 20 kilos of honey from each of her hives. On average, seven hives are ready for harvest every month.

Other than constructing hives, she also harvests honey for some bee farmers at a fee.

“Most people do not know that not all bee keepers can harvest quality honey. And that is where I come in. Bees are sensitive and if they have not ‘accepted’ you, you cannot harvest their honey in peace. I am a natural with bees,” she says with a smile.

To hire her honey harvesting services, she charges Sh1,500 irrespective of the number of hives harvested.

“Most farmers practise apiculture on a small scale, so it would be expensive to charge them per hive harvested, and that’s why I set a flat rate even if I harvest from 20 hives. That is a way to encourage them to seek my services,” she explains.

Honey harvesting she explains, is best done at night when bees are less wild.

But this service has not been without its stings.

“There are times when bee keepers seek my services just to ‘test’ how good I am at my job. Some are surprised that it’s a woman doing this manly stuff, “they often ask, are you the one who really harvests honey or there is another man?” she says jokingly.

She has proved her doubters wrong and has since gained trust of many.

She also harvests bee wax which she uses to make various finished products like what she calls designer candles.

She makes her designer candles into unique designs from magnificent houses, to Christmas trees, rose flowers designs to specific designs a client requests for.

Some of her long and beautifully designed candles cost as much as Sh7,000 while the simple ones go for Sh650.

“My candles are popular with churches. I have a number of orders from a number of Catholic Churches in Nairobi. My clients love my candles because they last longer than the regular ones and have a sweet aroma when burning. I also have Indian clients,” she says.

REFINED HONEY

Lubira sells raw wax to clients in Tororo, Uganda where shoe makers use it to soften their kneading threads.

A kilo of raw wax sells at Sh 500.

“To make wax, I buy crude honey from West Pokot, Lokichogio and Gulu in Uganda where bee farmers use traditional hives. The kind of hives I use (Langstroth) produce refined honey. Crude honey gives more wax,” she says.

Raw honey in Kakamega goes at Sh 200 per kilo and the price doubles after processing.

Lubira also makes petroleum jelly from the wax by mixing it with sunflower oil. A 100 grams of the same goes at Sh 120.

“This jelly softens skin and kills acne, scabies and nappy rashes,” she says. As a way to give back to her community, she also teaches church congregations on bee keeping.

So far, she has taught faithful at Friends Church Chekalini, Earthquake Ministries church in Mombasa, Catholic Church in Bungoma Cathedral and Salvation Army in Shamitsi.

After this interview, she tells us she has to go to Church of God in Maragoli to teach the faithful on bee keeping.

Lubira’s entrepreneurial exploits do not end there, she also traps and sells bees to those willing to start a bee project. And is she lacks a market, she usually transfers them to her apiary.

Why this aggressiveness in agribusiness? We pick her mind as we conclude the interview.

“I don’t want to see anything go to waste in this business. Many farmers are stuck with the raw product which is honey and they forget there are sweeter end products they can make from the raw product. In these hard economic times, value addition is the way to go.”