Kisumu, 4/10/07
 
DOMINION FARM AT YALA SWAMP INTODUCES NEW HONEY PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY TO STAMP OUT POVERTY IN SIAYA AND BONDO DISTRICTS

By Leo Odera Omolo

Dominion Farms Limited in its ambitious plan to empower the local communities economically has established 156 beehives around Sigulu Hills in Adwa Division of Bondo district for the massive production of honey within the Yala Swamp and its environs.

Already over 120 of them are colonized .The company has already established a honey processing plant where it is processing honey which has entered the market under Prime Honey popular label.

The Kenya Bureau of Standards (KBS) is doing regular tests of the honey to ensure the quality remains high .The plant has also created dozens of more employment opportunities for the locals. The area has the potentiality of African wild bees roaming the swamp and nearby hills in thousands of swarms.

Honey production is a delicate but intricate affair, which begins at the apiary where bees are kept in hives, which are made at Dominion Farms Workshop. Bees attracted by sunflowers are trapped manually with catcher boxes from where they transferred to the hives after a cool off period of between one and two days.

Once the hives have been colonized a garget called smother is used to immobilize bees when checking hives or harvesting the honey. The hives on the other hand are compiled in two chambers called Super and Brooder with a thin separating layer called the Queen Excluder to ensure that the honey is clean and pure and unmixed with young ones and other impurities.

A chamber called 'Super' is where sterilized female bees or workers deposit the nectar and seal the combs after building nectar into cells. The brooder on the other hand is the chamber in which the queen lays the eggs and where the drones and the young bees are hatched.

After the honey has been harvested from the bees, the frames from the hives containing the combs are inserted vertically in a centrifugal machine, which removes the honey from the combs without interfering with the combs.

The centrifugal machine can either be electric of manual and as it rotates the honey from the combs flows to the bottom of the machine falls where it is retrieved through a tap and ushered into five different selves to separate the wax from the honey and to ensure the honey is clean.

And from the sieves, the honey is again taken to a nursling cloth, a special cloth with tiny holes, which act as a final sieve.

After this very slow but elaborate processes, the final product flow into a storage facility from where it is retrieved through a tap and packaged directly under very hygienic conditions before being sealed and labeled into quantities of 500 and 350 grams.

The honey harvested and packaged by Dominion Farms Limited according to the local consumer is ??very pure and highly medicinal value due to the unique nature of trees, flowers and nectar at the apiary.

The company is currently giving out hives at a cost price of Ksh 500 and since the price of a hive is Ksh 4000 the balance is recovered gradually when the honey is harvested.

And although out growers who are well spread on both sides of the Yala River, they own the hives, and sell the honey to Dominion Farm Limited when harvesting as part of extension work.

To spread awareness about this noble poverty alleviation program DF has been holding seminars for the locals and since last year almost 100 participants have graduated after two days workshops with articulates of attendance issues by Dominion Farms.

Monica Atieno who is in charge of the honey processing department is a highly trained beekeeper, and a crop production specialist with added knowledge in farm produce processing.

Dominion Farms Limited has already given out over 300 beehives to out growers and hundreds more are in the process of completion and will be ready soon for distribution.

One of the by products of honey is propolis which is the wax. The company intends to sell propolis at a later date to candle manufacturing firms or canvas making industries not to mention pharmaceuticals, which use propolis to coat some of their medicine.

Ends.

leooderaomolo@yahoo.com