Evaluation of Beekeeping and Financial Benefits of Modern Beehive Adoption in Kitui County, Kenya

Kiiti M. Kiingwa, Muiruri Philomena and Protas Fwamba. Khaemba
Additional contact information
Kiiti M. Kiingwa: Department of Geography, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kenyatta University. P.O. Box 177-90200 Kitui
Muiruri Philomena: Department of Geography Kenyatta University. School of Humanities and social sciences Kenyatta University P.O. Box 43844. Nairobi
Protas Fwamba. Khaemba: Department of Geography, Oginga Odinga University, Kenya

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, 2024, vol. 8, issue 12, 3823-3832

Abstract: Beekeeping has developed into a multimillion export earning activity in countries like China and USA. These countries have embraced modern apiculture where beekeepers use modern beehives. The adoption of modern beehives is still a new idea in Kenya as most beekeepers use traditional log hives leading to low economic benefits from the beekeeping sub-sector. Traditional beehives produce low amounts of honey that is of low quality. Kitui county is within the arid and semi-arid climatic region in Kenya where the regular crop husbandry agriculture fails most of the seasons. Apiculture has been proved to offer substantive livelihood diversification strategy in such places. However, most of the beekeepers in the region continue to use traditional hives resulting to little economic benefits. This study sought to evaluate the performance of beekeeping and the financial benefits of using modern beehives in Mwingi Central Sub-County of Kitui County, Kenya. The study objectives were; (i) to investigate bee farming (apiculture) in Mwingi Central Sub-County (ii) to evaluate the financial benefits of adopting modern bee farming in the study area. Data was mainly collected through administering questionnaires to 110 sampled beekeepers from Mwingi Central. The collected data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25. The results proved that traditional log hives were the most common bee hives used in the area with quite few modern hives (langstroth hives) in use. Low honey bee occupation rate was observed in the log hives. Income from beekeeping was consequently low. The partial budgeting technique proved that adopting modern bee hives bring more financial benefits compared to use of log hives. The study recommends among other things; the county government should partner with non-governmental organizations to facilitate more adoption of modern bee hives by giving loans and donations and that there should be more training on modern apiculture to the beekeepers in the study area.

Date: 2024
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