African Honey: Nutritious, Earth-Friendly, and Changing Beekeepers’ Lives

Honey from Africa is now available at The Work of Our Hands. With six different flavors and two jar sizes, it is flavorful, unpasteurized, and certified organic. 

Harvested from wild hives in remote forests, the newly arrived honey has a complex and robust flavor with hints of caramel and molasses. The wild bees gather honeydew nectar, made by other forest insects, and this nectar contributes to its rich flavor.

Harvested in Tanzania and Zambia under a fair-trade organization named 10,000 Beekeepers, sales of this honey now account for 3% of Zambia’s GDP (Gross domestic product). These sales provide income for Africans who have few options for making a living.

As a sweetener, honey is a healthy alternative to sugar. It is antifungal and antibacterial. It helps promote wound healing and support the immune system. Raw honey has trace amounts of 22 amino acids, 3 minerals, 30 polyphenols, and a range of vitamins and enzymes. It is free of chemicals and does not have other sweeteners such as corn syrup added to it. When pasteurized, honey may lose some of its beneficial properties.

A half teaspoon of African wild honey has just 11 calories. Because African Honey has more flavor than other honeys, you need less of it to achieve the desired sweetness.

Using fair trade principles, Dan Ball, the son of Canadian missionaries to Tanzania, started his beekeeping business in 2002 as a way to provide income for Tanzanians having difficulty supporting themselves. By 2020 he had trained 10,000 Tanzanians to harvest honey from hives that bees had built in remote forest regions. Many of them are women, and they often use their incomes for the education of their children.

Zambia followed Dan’s example, launching its beekeeping business in 2020. The beekeepers’ practice their trade without damaging the environment. They use recyclable and reuseable glass packaging. They minimize human intervention. In fact, since 2020, the Zambian forests have increased in area by 3 percent.

Some of the flavors available at The Work of Our Hands are: Cinnamon and Honey, Honeydew Forest, Miombo Blossom, Julbernadia Blossom, and Hot Honey. A percentage of each honey sale is used to train new African beekeepers.