Hi all.

I intend to venture into apiculture or the beekeeping partly as commercial venture and partly a hobby. I have never been a beekeeper before but i know a little about those beautiful little honey manufacturing insects...

I have scouted around for information about the beehives and i came to conclude that there are three main configurations under use in kenya namely, the top bar, the langstroth and the traditional beehives. The traditional log and top bar beehives have been around for a very long time while the langstroth is relatively new in kenya...

A close look at the beehives and after further search of advice yielded the following results:

...the traditional log beehive is the cheapest to make as it is not complicated in its design and the materials are readily available. Although it is the cheapest, it is the worst bee hive, the main reasons being that it is very difficult to manage the bees because of the access limitation and difficult to harvest. Also, during the honey harvesting, you kill a large population of the bees (this is not desirable to a beekeeper). Traditional log bee hive has very poor honey yields in a given year and the quality of honey extracted is very low.

...the top bar beehive is the most widely used. It is cheap to construct, easy to manage and the honey yields are higher than the traditional bee hive. They are also easier to harvest. The main draw back is that the combs made by the bees are unsupported and easily breaks. Also bees here build a lot of wax and as such there is a lot of wax in the honey crop harvested, but the honey is of good quality.

...the langstroth beehive has not gained any much ground in kenya due to its complexity in construction and requires very experienced beekeepers. The biggest problem is the honey super frames whose foundation is not locally available, but with everything available, it is the easiest to manage, the size can be varied by adding the honey supers as the bee population increases . It has the highest honey yields and the honey is of high quality. The bee colony is also very easy to manipulate depending on the beekeepers intentions.

Having done that i settled for the top bar hive which is good for a beginner like me. I will not mind having a colony of anywhere between 2k to 5k bees for a start which i think is good enough.

My worry is if i go traditional method of getting a colony of bees for my hive it may take weeks or months before a swarm appears to colonize the hive, unless of course i go out there and start looking for a swarm to catch. Swarms are not a common scene nowadays.

Do we have honeybees breeders here who can sell a starter bee colony with a queen?

Over to you beekeepers in wazua. Please share your ideas and experiences.

I want to start slow with a flow hive. Very expensive and being plastic, might not be climatically conducive. I'm gambling with the fact that where they were invented in Australia, climate isn't far off.

Check out plastic mtungi hives, in youtube. A mtungi is around 2k, and from it you get 2 hives. With hives going for as much as 12k, for a start-up mtungi might serve well in testing the water

I got one Langstroth hive. already colonized. Planning for 20 more before the end of the year. The flow hive may not be cost effective but I guess its fun having one. I need an observation hive too. Where can we get a good market where we are not exploited?

I got one Langstroth hive. already colonized. Planning for 20 more before the end of the year. The flow hive may not be cost effective but I guess its fun having one. I need an observation hive too. Where can we get a good market where we are not exploited?