Since Njongon village became involved in Beekeeping a few years ago it has gone from strength to strength, perhaps not so surprising as our partner Mr Momodou Joof is on the Board of BEECause which promotes beekeeping in The Gambia.
So successful has this year been that 90%+ of their 33 hives are colonised. Another group of beekeepers are in training and will manufacture the additional hives from wood they got from Gmelina trees planted some years ago specifically to provide timber for construction in the village. It is a blondish timber with a high resistance to termites and as the picture shows the trees are tall and straight. This forward planning by the village is now providing them with cheap timber, just the cost of slitting it, at a time when timber is quite expensive.
The new beekeepers are already converting last weeks trees into hives. The new timber dries out quite quickly in the warm ambient air. Within the next year Njongon area hopes to be harvesting from 50 hives! This is great encouragement to the newly trained beekeepers in Bafaluto who are just beginning.