Where have all the bees gone? Farmers rue abandoned hives

Mzee Kiborek Chelelgo sits pensively on a tree stump in Radat in Baringo South, wishing he could turn back time to the years when the flowering of acacia trees would inspire hope. 

They would say of the season “Kiwo tapta goret”, meaning: “The flower has come home”, and this meant that soon, there would be plenty of honey.

The flowering tree was the acacia mellifera, which would paint white the landscape of Radat and other parts of Baringo South.

“The hives would be full of bees. We would be celebrating in anticipation of money,” Mr Chelelgo says.

owadays, however, although the entire Radat and parts of Mogotio, Kimorok, Kapkuikui, Kaptombes, Kamar and other parts of Baringo South are dotted with white flowering acacia trees, there is little to celebrate. The seasons no longer buzz with life.

Beehives are as empty as the people’s pockets. Villagers have resorted to cattle rearing. Others have ventured into other farming activities.

Everyone here blames charcoal burning and the invasive prosopis juliflora shrub for the massive decline in bee population. However, scientists blame it on climate change.

A scientist, Mr Jackson Kinyanjui, says climate change has led to the introduction of invasive species such as the prosopis juliflora, commonly known as “mathenge”, which has killed bees and their breeding grounds. Humans have been using techniques like burning and spraying to control “mathenge”, which have destroyed the ecosystem.

Beekeepers' tribulations

Mr Kinyanjui says air pollution from burning of “mathenge” for firewood and use of chemical fertilisers as opposed to organic ones, has decimated bees around Lake Baringo. 

“This has scientists like us worried since without bees, no pollination will be possible and without pollination, then plants will never be able to reproduce. Since plants are regarded as the primary producers on earth, then life as we know it will be extinguished,” Mr Kinyanjui says.

And the effect is felt by beekeepers. In their heyday, Mzee Daniel Kotut, 87, David Chebii, 79, and Arap Chelelgo, 92, would carve beehives and sell them in Radat. It is a skill they honed back in 1965.

“These days, people do not buy hives. You can only buy another hive if the ones you have are full,” Mr Kotut says in Radat. Their tribulations, they say, started when the number of the slow-growing acacia tree, locally known as “ngoror”, started plummeting due to charcoal burning.

The Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro) says there are extensive correlations between farmers’ daily practices, and the declining bee populations. The organisation says erratic weather patterns are affecting plant phenology (cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena) and flower calendars.

“Prosopis juliflora has managed to out-compete other plants and smother them. Therefore, these native plants and trees that provided diverse feed resources year round for bees are becoming rare,” says Entomological Society of Kenya Chairman Muo Kasina. 

Increased population has resulted in frequent land subdivision, which has opened up more land for crop production, causing loss of native plants, which flower at different times of the year, providing good bee forage sources, Dr Kasina says.

Acacia mellifera, also known as blackthorn, is native to many semi-arid regions and can be widespread in dry bushland, thorn-veld and wooded grassland. It encroaches on rangeland but is not invasive.

Baringo honey is known to be almost transparent and viscous, but once crystallised, is considered high-quality because of its high amount of fructose. The honey is available in the dry seasons around January to March, and September to December.

The indigenous acacia was used as a shelter for the hive and would provide food for the bees. Its branches would also be cut and used to make hives, but locals say that greedy business people now cut down the tree to make charcoal.

Mr Titus Rotich Siliga, a bee farmer who owns 30 hives, blames charcoal burning for the low population of bees, saying, people have been felling the acacia without considering that it is a slow-growing tree. Out of the 30 hives Mr Siliga owns, less than 10 are occupied.

He remembers that his father had more than 100 hives and they were always all occupied, and the honey harvested from them would generate a lot of money for the family, enabling them to go to school.

Mr Justin Kiprono Chebii, who is also the chairman of the Baringo Beekeepers and Honey Producers Association, says initially, farmers would sell up to two tonnes of honey a year.

“We would survive on beekeeping and honey production only. But these days you could have empty hives throughout the year due to low population of bees,” says Mr Chebii, who owns 80 hives at the Bogoria Belt.

He laments that, even though scientists have proved that bees are the chief pollinators and that a reduction in their population could lead to low production of food, little is being done to conserve the insect.

He says Baringo South has three species of the acacia tree; acacia mellifera, acacia senegal and acacia tortilis. The first two, he says, are beneficial in honey production. Acacia tortilis, he says, are used by bees to feed the broods.

Desert locust invasion

Apart from charcoal burning and the felling of acacia, honey producers say the use of chemicals in farms and the recent locust invasion drastically reduced the population of bees.

Mr Fergusson Saning’o, a French beans farmer at the Perkerra Irrigation Scheme, says farmers use a lot of insecticides and other pesticides.

“I spray my crops with insecticides four times a week, depending on the resistance. Harvesting from my farm is done after three months,” he says.

Since 2019, the desert locust invasion in East Africa has forced Kenyan authorities and farmers into a massive spraying campaign to save crops, but this has had devastating effects on bees and other insects. The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology says the unregulated use of pesticides is killing off the pollinators on which the crops depend.

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warns that the bee is under threat, and that present species extinction rates are 100 to 1,000 times higher than normal due to human impacts.

FAO says bees and other pollinators are declining in number due to intensive farming practices, mono-cropping, excessive use of agricultural chemicals and higher temperatures associated with climate change.

If this trend continues, FAO warns, nutritious crops such as fruits, nuts and many vegetables will be increasingly substituted by staple crops such as rice, corn and potatoes, eventually resulting in an imbalanced diet.

FAO estimates that bees and other pollinators such as birds and bats affect 35 percent of the world's crop production, increasing outputs of 87 of the leading food crops worldwide.

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