Last Thursday it was time for the 2nd honey harvest. This time we went to a small RUDEC apiary near Mbingo were Joshua has 5 colonized hives. During the first harvest a couple of weeks ago I was a bit anxious about getting stung since I did not know if I was allergic or not. Well I did get stung and I am not allergic :)

So this time I could go for the full Monty and be there to harvest as much honey from the hives as our bucket could hold (and the state of the hives would allow for).



Amazingly the bees in these hives were much less aggressive then the hives I encountered last time so I had some time to get up close and personal so I could study their behavior a bit and snap some nice pics:



By the end of it all, we ended up with 15 liters of sweet golden natural honey...hmmm.. I'll bring some back to Europe!

Reinoud opening a hive

Joshua harvesting combs

In other bee-related news, some of you might remember our plans to build a large RUDEC apiary that can house up to 30 hives in order to generate sustainable income to support the orphan project and provide some salaries for our Cameroonian field-workers.



Well, good news because Tilek gave us a sizable donation with money he raised through his Kyrgyzshop. Thank you! This means we can now definitely purchase the land for the apiary and be able to build 7 additional wooden KTB hives.

So this Saturday I'll hike to Baicham (the village nearest to the apiary) to close the deal and construct and install some new hives!