PODCAST EPISODE 105: Kristofer Fricke Travels To Africa! Beekeeper and Traveler, Australia and Abroad

When we last met Kristofer Fricke, some months back in episode 94 of the Bees with Ben podcast, he was preparing to head to Africa to work on a couple of beekeeping aid projects. Well, he has just got back, and Ben couldn’t wait to hear what he has been up to. This episode of the podcast is also being broadcast on YouTube, and Kris is aptly dressed for the occasion in what he describes as a ‘Ghanaian smock’. Ghana was in fact his first stop, where he was to spend three weeks working on a project funded by the German government, in partnership with QSI, a major European food testing laboratory. The objective was to make Ghanaian honey fit for export, and the enterprise was rather unimaginatively entitled the ‘Make Ghanaian honey fit for export project’! The problem was that although Ghana has lots of beekeepers that are reasonably proficient at their craft, the honey simply doesn’t measure up to international standards. Kris stayed a week in three different locations talking to groups of 50-70 trainees about the best practices for harvesting honey, as well as common problems associated with the top bar hives, which are universally used by Ghanaian beekeepers. Quality issues are created by the common practice of harvesting honey at night - primarily because the bees are less aggressive. However, in the dark, it is easy for beekeepers to contaminate the honey with brood, or uncapped honey. Kris says that he saw a lot of honey that was cloudy - indicating the presence of brood - and tasted some which was part fermented, or unripe. Testing also indicated the presence of significant amounts of smoke in the honey, but Kris doesn’t believe this is attributable to the use of smokers. It is more likely to be due to the traditional method of lighting a fire under the hive to chase the bees out before harvesting honey. Undaunted by the beekeepers’ reluctance to work their hives during daylight hours, on the first day Kris inspected some hive in which the bees did indeed seem quite agitated. On the second day, three hives were opened. The first two were reasonably easy to manage, but the third quickly became very aggressive. Kris admits to perhaps becoming a little complacent due to his previous experiences in Africa, and was unwilling to admit defeat due to the adverse effect this would have on the local beekeepers, so he attempted to power through, but was soon forced to abort as people within a 200-metre radius were being harassed by the bees. It took 45 minutes for the enraged insects to calm down! A similar incident happened the next day, at a different location. Invoking the mantra that ‘I do not run from bees’ Kris was attempting to beat a dignified retreat from an angry hive, but soon his face became covered in bees, and he was forced to run for it. These events compelled Kris to admit that Ghanaian bees were far more aggressive than those that he had experienced in other parts of Africa. Consequently, after that, hives were generally opened in the last hour of daylight, and not around people working, and there were no further problems. The local beekeepers were convinced that their bees would be more docile in the early morning, so they also ended up opening a lot of hives between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. and this worked quite well.