By Lanre Omotoso
Governments at all levels should engage youths in beekeeping to reduce the country’s unemployment rate.
A bee-keeper, Mr Daramola Akinwale, advised while speaking with Radio Nigeria in Ado-Ekiti on the occasion of World Bee Day.
Mr Akinwale noted that, aside from employment generation, bee-keeping would help the country to diversify the economy from petroleum and generate more revenue.
The bee-keeper said that a litre of honey costs over six thousand naira, compared to petroleum products, which is less than one thousand naira, hence the need for aggressive investment in bee-keeping.
Mr Akinwale, who is also a retiree, identified by-products to be derived from bee rearing to include honey, wax, propolis and pollen, saying that the wax derived from bees could also be made into medicinal candles, shoe polish, as well as cream which clears body rashes.
The retiree who emphasised that beekeeping is not energy-sapping stressed that a keeper only needed a bee house, known as a hive, where he would be drawing income quarterly without stress.
He, however, identified bee-keeping challenges to include poaching, bush burning and finance, calling on the authorities to help create a bee-village to be equipped with necessary security gadgets in order to reduce vandalism.
The United Nations had in 2017 designated May 20 as World Bee Day to highlight the vital roles played by bees and other pollinators in Ecosystem Restoration, Food Security, as well as Sustainable Agriculture, and the theme for this year is “Be inspired by nature to nourish us all”.
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