Tiwai Island sits in the Moa River in the West African country of Sierra Leone. The island is a wildlife sanctuary, and it is covered in ancient rainforest. It is part of the Upper Guinea rainforest. Pygmy hippos, smaller cousins of the common hippopotamus, live in the Moa River. Tiwai Island is also an important home for chimpanzees and many other species of plants and animals.
In 2022, Aruna Bangura observed changes to the environment and land use around his community. Aruna is from the Boma community next to the Tiwai Island wildlife sanctuary. Aruna decided he needed to take action. “I observed that the bee population was declining, and starting a beekeeping initiative was the only alternative in sight,” explains Aruna.
The bees in this area face many problems. Deforestation removes trees that the bees need for their nests. Pesticides used on crops kill bees. Extreme weather causes crop failures, which means people cut down more trees to expand fields, meaning less habitat for bees.
Beekeeping is an important part of the local economy where Aruna and his community live. They depend on the native Western African honey bee (Apis mellifera adansonii), a sometimes aggressive bee. Farmers sell the honey they get from keeping their beehives.
Traditional beekeeping in Sierra Leone uses hollow logs to build natural beehives. The honeycombs the bees create are fixed in place within the hive. The downside of traditional beekeeping is that it can produce relatively little honey for the farmer to sell.
Aruna Bangura founded an organization called Bangs Circular. The group’s purpose is to improve beekeeping practices in eight communities around the Tiwai Island wildlife sanctuary.
Bangs Circular started the Tiwai Honey Project to build modern hand-made beehives with removable honeycombs. These modern hives are good for several reasons. They hold more bees than traditional log hives. That means more honey. A study from Tanzania found that modern beehives can produce four times as much honey (20 kilograms/44 pounds) per hive as traditional hives do.
The honey in the modern hives can be easily harvested. Beekeepers can also check in on the bees to watch their behavior and make sure they are not getting sick or getting ready to fly away.
The Tiwai Honey Project started with less than 20 beehives in eight Indigenous Mende communities around Tiwai Island. The project has so far built over 300 beehives. Each beehive can house up to 60,000 bees, including the queen, drones (males), and worker bees.
The Tiwai Honey Project has so far trained more than 400 local beekeepers. Members of the community say they have become more aware of the impacts of deforestation and the use of pesticides on the bee population.
When the honey is harvested, the beekeepers work with Aruna Bangura and his team members to sell the product in the market. Most of the honey is sold to nearby supermarkets. The remaining honey is sold to tourists who visit Tiwai Island.
Massah Koroma is a beekeeper from the Boma community around Tiwai Island. She explains the importance of beekeeping to her family: “I feed my family with the honey made organically by the local people, and the income I generate selling honey goes for my children’s school fees.”
The honey production from the Tiwai Honey Project may be helping slow deforestation and the destruction of bee habitat. Community members say that the project has reduced the pressure on baji trees. These trees are often cut down for charcoal to sell in the market. The Tiwai Honey Project has planted 5,000 trees, including baji and silk-cotton trees on community lands.
“We have plans to scale up,” says Aruna Bangura. “But in order to make it possible we need to continue preserving native bees, realizing the enormous value these species have in ecosystem restoration and our entire food system.”
David Brown adapted this story for Mongabay Kids. It is based on an article by Sonam Lama Hyolmo, published on Mongabay News:
