Queen Elizabeth Beekeepers Venture

Is an innovative   Social enterprise of Empowerment for the Poor- Uganda that promotes organic wild honey and other bee by-products to support livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and environmental sustainability. Our brand Ameth Bees is meant to provide extra organic wild honey and other bee by-products (wax, venom and propolis) with high healing properties to prevent and heal diseases to end-users as a venture to create job opportunities for youth and women surrounding Queen Elizabeth National park

Our Background.

The venture is a response to rampant killing of wild animals in the park for economic survival to an extent of killing rare species line climbing lions, African elephants and chimpanzees which was disastrous to the ecosystem and nature biodiversity.

Equally worrying, this practice of poaching had resulted into death of over 300 household heads having been killed by wild animals in the park as they doing poaching and charcoal burning, hence leaving behind many widows and orphans who were helpless and prone to starvation.

A social venture to create an alternative source of income for these communities through beekeeping was therefore created. This venture aim at harvesting   huge quantities of 100% organic honey, add value on other bee products, creating many bee related businesses to empower the community, conserve the environment and the same time transforming the lives of many orphans and widows

The market gap

Uganda is underutilizing its potential in organic wild forest honey production tapping only 1% (5000 metric tons) of its estimated 500,000 metric tons annual capacity. Meanwhile, the global honey market faces a significant deficit of 3.6 million metric tons per year. Locally, contaminated honey and low production volumes fail to meet domestic demand, underscoring the need for sustainable beekeeping practices that support livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and environmental sustainability.

Furthermore, although East African countries (Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania) and Ethiopia are licensed to export honey to the European Union.  Domestic honey demands in these countries exceeds available supplies of honey hence unit prices per kilogram are elevated.

More still, the markets for other bee-products are still underdeveloped and this provides potential for expanding end-markets for the honey sub-sector. Most of these products which include: propolis, venom, wax are underexploited, in spite of available end-markets and proven technologies to utilize them. Therefore, our bee keeping venture has an enormous potential to galvanize the income of poverty-stricken local people.

Our services

We aim to provide the following services:-

• Training of  bee farmers in modern beekeeping practices
• Support beneficiaries with  bee hives, bee suits and other beekeeping equipment
• Apiary setup and management
• Extend credit facilities to bee farmers to enable them ably engage in seasons, purchase modern beekeeping equipment, fight pests and diseases among other issues
• Engage in honey transportation, collection, packaging, branding , marketing, promotion and distribution
• Value addition of other bee products like wax, propolis and venom
• Quality control to enable production of extra organic wild honey
• Form partnerships and collaboration

Benefits:

The benefit of this venture is to:

• Increase access and availability of high quality organic wild honey and other bee products for improved health as honey has health and medicinal properties which are opportunity to market honey as organic or fair trade product.
• Contribute to creation of jobs and income generation among women and youth surrounding Queen Elizabeth National park as well as biodiversity and environmental conservation.
• Support environmental Sustainability by planting trees to create foliage for bees and at the same time increasing the forest cover and habitat for wildlife. Beekeeping is sustainable and helps conserve the natural environment and vegetation where bees live and forage.
• Support pollination services hence increase  food security and fight malnutrition as bees pollinate flowering plants to increase yields of many crops

Relevance of the venture to the target beneficiaries

• Growing Demand for Organic Products: Increasing awareness of health and wellness is driving demand for organic and natural products, including honey.
• Shift Towards Sustainable Practices: Consumers prefer products from companies that demonstrate commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing.
• Innovation in Honey-Based Products: There is a rising trend in developing new honey-based products, such as honey-infused skincare items, functional foods, and beverages.