The currently unregulated beekeeping sector is in for a major shakeup as the government pushes mandatory registration for anyone who sets up a beehive, failure to which they face a one-year jail term.
The Livestock Bill 2024 will require anyone keeping bees for honey to be registered and will also regulate the standards and branding of bee hives that can be used in Kenya and the disposal of bees, honeycombs, and hives. Anyone found to have broken these regulations faces a half a million shillings fine and/or a 12-month prison sentence
A study conducted in one of Kenya’s main honey-producing regions, Makueni, showed that almost all farmers who practiced apiculture did it as a small additional source of income. “Individual farmers harvested an average of 83.53 kg of honey/year and sold on average 60.67 kg/year. The income generated from this was an average of Sh15,166.67 per year” read part of the report.
“Beekeeping is a lifeline for poorer farmers who mostly keep two to three hives. Many of them will not have the money to travel to get a license to keep bees, which the law demands, let alone be able to pay whatever fee the government will set for one to be registered as a beekeeper,” said Kyalo Mutua, the CEO of Kenya’s top beekeeping company Savannah Honey.
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Speaking to a county government official in the Ministry of Agriculture, they pointed out that these new regulations will help to streamline a subsector that has existed with absolutely no guiding policies or regulations.
“They will increase the country’s quantity and quality of honey as well as bee equipment and related products which we import like bee wax, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, and bee venom. Beekeepers currently produce around 25,000 metric tons of honey against a production potential of 100,000 metric tons. It will also open up the honey and bee products export market. Farmers in Kenya currently export just two per cent of their honey,” they said.
Kenya has been delisted from the list of countries that can export honey to the European Union since 2008 because the country’s honey was tested to have unacceptable levels of pesticide residue.
“Despite seeking an audience with them, for the close to two decades our honey has been barred from entering the EU, the government has not held one stakeholder meeting on how bee farmers can be helped to improve their honey production or worked with us to reenter the EU market which is delivering lucrative returns for Ugandan farmers. But now they have developed regulations we weren’t consulted on but are meant to fix Kenya’s beekeeping sector?,” Kyalo asked incredulously.
Currently, The Livestock (Bee Industry) Draft Regulations, 2023 remain the only fully developed regulations with respect to beekeeping in Kenya.
Part of the provision within the regulations is that when setting up a hive with bees it cannot be left thirty meters from where people live. It also cannot be placed within two hundred meters of a public amenity such as a school, hospital, highway, community center, public park, or any other place where people meet or a recreation area.
According to the Savannah Honey founder, if this act becomes law, it would effectively spell the end of smallholder beekeeping in Kenya. This is because most people keeping bees in Kenya do so precisely because they do not need much space. This means most hives are put up on small quarter to an eighth or even less plots of land.
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“At our offices in Utawala, we have hundreds of hives and about 40-50 workers and quests regularly walking past them. We have rarely had an incident of bees attacking someone. Bees are mostly busy making honey, not going out of their way to attack passersby,” he said.
Savanna Honey is also working with schools that supply it with bee byproducts propolis and pollen. Such an initiative will be outlawed and out of the reach of many schools once this act becomes law.