Beekeeping and sustainable livelihoods

Abstract

There have always been people in communities the world over who keep bees for their products and services that they offer. Bees produce numerous products, the most popular being honey, as well as beeswax. Importantly bees provide for pollination services that not only ensure a good harvest, with increased yields, but quality of the harvested produce. More practically, however, a colony of bees provides food and income for the farm family and not only. This booklet is intended to raise awareness and promote beekeeping, among people and organizations involved in supporting small-scale farming, as a successful diversification enterprise that small-scale farmers in rural, peri-urban and urban centres can integrate into their farming systems easily.