Uganda Australia Honey Connection

Australian beekeeper Simon Turner established Malaika Honey in Uganda in 2006 with the aim of developing a sustainable beekeeping industry. The Australian High Commission in Kenya has recently awarded Malaika Honey a grant under their Direct Aid Program.

Simon has had an informal association with the Inner West Beekeepers since 2018 when he attended our meetings. Pre-Covid, he travelled regularly to Australia and during these visits developed friendships with amateur and professional beekeepers in NSW and Victoria. He gave a presentation on the work of Malaika Honey at a monthly Inner West club meeting in early 2019.

Malaika Honey is a social enterprise and has a wide range of international partners and supporters including, the UN Industrial Development Organisation, Jane Goodall Institute, and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Malaika Honey provides farmers throughout Uganda with the beekeeping training, equipment and tools to become self-sufficient producers of high-quality honey and hive products. Malaika has also developed a retail and online market for beekeeping equipment that enables the farmers to become small-middle income earners. He has written a guidebook that focuses on transitional beekeeping methods using Kenyan Top Bar beehives.

Australia’s Direct Aid Program will help fund the building of a training and research centre and the establishment of a beekeeping association, with the aim of engendering a high degree of skill sharing among local beekeepers. Simon would like to model the association on the Amateur Beekeepers Association in NSW as he admires the premise of better beekeeping through knowledge.

Simon Turner will be our guest speaker at our monthly meeting on 1 March, 2022. He is going to talk about Malaika Honey’s recent work, including the introduction of a successful queen bee raising program, as well as the Covid-19 challenges they have faced.