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Learn about how to start beekeeping in Nigeria and about tips for honey marketing and sales for profit? Here’s what we want to share with our audience here in this article on B.Obialor’life experience on honey marketing, and beekeeping business, and teaching and also he will teach you how to start honey farming in Nigeria and how much it costs to start to bee farming:
Case Study: Agricultural School
B.Obialor studied agriculture at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. While at school, he researched into apiculture production of honey and bee rearing, got involved with an international NGO, Beesbroad, whose representative, B.Durk, came (from Wales, United Kingdom) to Nigeria to train him and others for three weeks gratis.
He was specifically mandated to train others in Nigeria for the purpose of reducing poverty. Bethel, as he was fondly called, was the CEO of NewBethim, a marketing and publishing company at Aguda, Ogba; he revealed that he trained a lot of farmers gratis also. His next plan is to go full blast into honey marketing and sales.
His farmers where he trained them before would provide him with natural and original honey. And he would sell nothing short of the original.
How Lucrative Bee Farming in Nigeria is?
He was asked a question: Are bee farming, marketing and sales of honey profitable? He responded, saying if you do not want to do farming, how can you know the original honey for packaging, marketing and sales?
Durk’s Bee Farming Training in Nigeria
B.Durk, Beesbroad trained Bethel and others from an Ughelli (Delta State) based Non-Government Organization ( NGO) overcoming the Poverty Network. Durk had also returned to Nigeria three more times to spread the gospel of bee keeping. The training was absolutely free. Durk and his organization had one thing in mind: to help Nigerians beat poverty since bee farming is easy, cheap and lucrative.
Before graduating, Bethel said he farmed a community based organization known as Better Honey Producers Society made of bee farmers who are still Bethel’s sources of original honey.
But if one is not into bee farming business, but into packaging, marketing and sales of honey as Bethel had been doing, and now intends to do soon on a large scale, then how can one know genuine or pure honey?
There are three ways to find whether honey is true or fake:
1. Get a transparent glass cup with water, drop some quantity of honey, maybe a teaspoonful or tablespoonful, into the water. The original honey definitely settles at the bottom without dissolving in the bottom..
2. Get a piece of cotton wool, dip one side of it into the sample (honey) and light the other end with a match. As the flame gets to the honey, if it is bad or fake, it will start burning noisily, with a cracking sound. If it is the original, it will burn noiselessly, yes, silently
3. Get a slice of bread, smear the top with a sample, the surface of the bread will assume a frosty texture after one to two minutes, though it will eventually disappear. The fake will not give that kind of effect.
High Demand
Is bee keeping profitable in Nigeria? This is what many people ask. But as an agricultural and experienced bed farmer, Bethel said, “Yeah, it is very profitable, and in high demand as long as your honey is genuine because there are a lot of sugar solutions in the name of honey today”.
And as regards demand for honey, he continued:” Honey is in high demand. I know pharmaceutical companies use honey to prepare cough expectorants and other syrups. I also know from the research I did that breweries overseas use honey. I do not know whether Nigerian breweries use honey or not.
Many small medium enterprise also use the bi--product of honey 🍯 🍯 🍯 for waz production. Show makers also use wax to strengthen their thread, even brocade manufacturers use bee wax too. And of course, we cannot afford to begin to itemize honey’s medical use. That area is almost inexhaustible.
Cost of Bee Farming
Bee farming is almost done without a cost, except the cost of constructing the beehives. You need no feed for the bees. As at two years ago, an average hive which could give you 50 litres of honey between three to six months, could cost between N2000 to N4000 to make. So it depends on the number of hives someone is ready to have. If you have 10 hives you are in real business. I know a farmer in Zaria, who has 90 hives.
Construction of hives is very technical; it must be made to obey the natural laws that govern honey production. That is where consultants, like Bethel and others, come in.
But if you do not want to go into bee farming, you can simply take to packaging, marketing and sales. Bethel’s advice is: The best or most profitable way to sell honey is *to educate and win”, meaning that you must educate people and demonstrate how originally good your honey is and that instills confidence which will have a multiplier effect on your sale.
But for you to achieve this, you must have your own honey supplier farmers, trained by you to do bee farming. And of course, you must also know how to know naturally good honey.
Packaging Costs
Bethel said, “It depends on what you want. Some people use glass bottles, others plastic and of course, the labeling differs, some are more colourful. But do not look at labeling from that angle. When you package honey, it must be geared towards increasing its shell life and how can you do it?
“It is done by using packaging materials that are not transparent. This is because honey gets denatured by light and thus loses its quality.
Minimal Cost
For packaging and sales, even with as little as N 50,000 one can start. ‘After all, great things start small. So go start small’. You can purchase honey for packaging. The prices of honey differ from time to time, depending on location, quality and season. It is also good to learn some tricks from the consultants.
To start with, you can start with 20 litres of original honey which costs N13,000 to N25,000, depending on the season. You can also start packaging with a few bottles; the bottles would not cost much and the labels, same too. One of the cheapest businesses to start today is bee farming with honey packaging, marketing and sales.
Honey Distribution
Bethel said, you should sell to those you know who will find this natural food supplement good and recommend it to those they know. Word of mouth marketing will ultimately spread your good product far and wide and before you know it, you will have a factory for the packaging approved by NAFDAC and a van may be there for wider distribution. Even distributors would come knocking at your door..
The best tools you can use to market your honey production online is Facebook (Marketplace) or Instagram or TikTok. Great things actually start small.
Happy Viewer! Happy Seeker!
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