Designing a rogemma bee house: improving apiculture in Sheema district in Uganda

Abstract

Production of honey in Uganda is a remunerative business. Honey has high demand both for medicinal and nutritional importance across the entire world. Majority of apiculturists use indigenous beehives that are a target to thieves and vandals who raid the beehives resulting to devastation of many bee colonies. Besides that, these hives have a limited capacity to host bees therefore bee keepers are compelled to buy multiple separate beehives so as to boost the quantity of honey produced making the business overall expensive. Land is continuously being fragmented and farmers have limited land for spreading beehives. The Study was intended to design and produce a model RBH with a manual which will ensure safety of the bees against vandalism and theft. Secondly, the design is intended to enable apiculturists improve quality and quantity of honey, and provide a manual for production of the RBH. The study was qualitative and used an exploratory approach whereby apiculturists were interviewed and observed on how they engaged in apiculture. The study hopes to raise the production, quality and quantity of honey in Sheema District and generally in the entire cattle corridor in the Western part of Uganda where households are engaged in honey production. The success of this project is expected to contribute not only to the body of knowledge, but also to the increased food supply for sustainable development as bees are primary pollinators in agriculture.