Aunt Robina's Ssese Island Honey

Vickie’s aunt Robina was excited to see these fresh faces. A woman with character, charm, and hips that can move (ask Rachel about this), she joyfully showed us around her Ssese Island Honey bee farm and treated us to samples. Having tasted these samples many times, I can say that her processing system is improving with every visit. Yum!

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Aunt Robina's Honey Bees

Better understanding the honey harvesting process enables us to work toward a plan for raising funds to equip these Ssese Island ladies to produce the best honey in the country. Unfortunately, the only way to learn the harvesting process, according to Aunt Robina, is to…suit up.

Hand packed and sealed.

You should see my stripidy socks. Aunt Robina had
to help me into my suit.

Vickie gets some help from Aunt Robina too.

Brave Aunt Robina.

I'm not sure how this ends up in a jar but Aunt Robina was very happy.

Vickie and I fought over the dung smoker, the bees were psyching us out.

The smile was only for the camera. Those bees were freaky!

After finishing with the honey, Aunt Robina directed Vickie and me to a dark area. The theory was that she’d dung smoke the bees and they’d leave us and fly toward the light. In practice, this usually works for her. Today, the bees would not leave us. Aunt Robina suggested we walk home and then take our suits off. Surely the bees would leave by then. What this meant was walking through the center of Kalangala Island to Julius’ house IN OUR BEE SUITS. Yes, we looked like astronauts…or aliens. No, the bees didn’t leave easily. We swatted and shewed until we thought they were gone. The good news is that we escaped with some fresh honey still in the comb.

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Ssese Islands: Three Businesses Part 2

One of the beautiful and influential women of Vickie’s life was her Aunt Robina. Aunt Robina, you may recall from a previous post, is the woman who started Ssese Island Honey with several other women on the island of Kalangala. I was quite impressed by the business planning and strategy skills of Aunt Robina…not to mention the delicious honey. The simple website we developed will serve as a reference for mainland businesses and as a communication tool for them to place orders. Truly, you must try this honey.

Opportunity #2

We’ll be meeting with Aunt Robina to watch the honey harvest and to develop a mainland distribution strategy for her small business. Likely the work will require Aunt Robina and Vickie to make contacts on the mainland at various restaurants and small tourist shops where the honey will be in demand.  We also hope to develop a financial model by which the equipment needed to take the business to the next phase can be obtained. Aunt Robina is a keen business strategist and I look forward to learning more about her current business plan.

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Ssese Island Honey

Another organizational development ministry opportunity came in the form of honey. The beekeeping group began in 2006 with three members. Vickie’s Aunt Robina started the group from her home in the Kalangala District of the Ssese Islands. She has notebooks full of visions, plans, notes, agreements, goals, expenses, sketches, and more. The women started with a system of contributing money and that was 5,000 UGX ($2.50 USD) per member per month. Each member was given one month 15,000 and at the end of the month she had to bring back the money with the interest of 5,000. They did that for a year. After that they thought of rearing bees out of the profit they had collected.

The stated vision is to train the ladies in the Kalangala district to:

1.      At least we should make sure that we encourage them to have one beehive in each family.

2.      A lady can get that honey from one beehive that works as medicine in the home.

3.      She can get honey out of that beehive and get money which can help sustain her in the home. That is to say that will help the whole district to have ladies who have some money on them and are not depending on their husbands all the time.

These ladies have accomplished much since their inception including having achieved the #4 position for Uganda’s best honey. Their honey is sold in retail stalls throughout the island. I must admit, pure honey tastes much better than the kind that comes in a plastic bear. Gabriel and Vickie can attest to that. Watch for Aunt Robina’s Ssese Island Honey coming to the internet soon.

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