Bees are perfectly predictable. They are most active in the heat of the day and quiet at night; they like flowering trees such as silk cottons, baobabs and cashews; the females do all the work; and a colony will do anything to protect its queen.
Yet, bees can be unpredictable too. And as unpredictably as our bees came, they left. A massive storm knocked our first hive to the ground, causing the colony to abscond a few days later. Over the next few months, we tended to two more colonies that would eventually leave for reasons we would never discover.
If you missed the bees, you would have mistaken us for one of the teams who had swarmed the region in the wake of Ebola just a few months earlier. Mesh face masks, red rubber gloves, black rubber boots and bulky jumpsuits exposing nothing, hiding even the fear. But there was no missing the bees
I am now an amateur beekeeper. And so is my brother, Bailo! Why we started raising African bees is a long story, and I want to tell it right. I need more time to collect my thoughts, but for now, I want to show you a little glimpse of what we have been up to.
