Ernest Simeoni the proprietor of African Beekeepers Limited introduced the Langstroth Beehive in Kenya in 1994, he then founded   Honey Care International Limited, which the changed to Honey care Africa. in 2000 he formed African Beekeepers Ltd which he currently runs, during his early days of Honey Care International he set up the first commercial langstroth bee hive manufacturing factory. His current factory manufactures and produce high quality Langstroth beehives and related equipment with a capacity to produce 1,000 beehives of both fully assembled and knockdown kits.

During his thirty (30) years of experience, Ernest has worked with numerous International & Local N.G. O’s towards the promotion of the honey business in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda , Sudan Uganda and Namibia to develop modern bee keeping methods  in the region, so as to assist the small scale farmers in the rural areas in the generation of an extra income from honey, and to increase food production by pollination of crops from keeping well managed Langstroth beehives.

During his years of operation Ernest has gathered vast knowledge of particular types of African Bees and their behaviors, for honey production from the Langstroth hive. He has also studied the local flora that produce the nectar flows in different zones of Kenya, and also has been documenting the information through years of data collection including understanding the flowering seasons of the different vegetation making it possible to plan for honey production accurately.

Commercial crop pollination has not been practiced in Kenya, Ernest has formulated systems and procedures to carry out commercial pollination using the Langstroth system, and is already working on several contracts 

Owing to the presence of various ethnic groups in Kenya, Ernest has been able to study and understand the traditional economic activities of the various ethnic groups, therefore making it easier to introduce the modern technology of beekeeping so as to improve quality and quantity of honey production.

He has also taken a lot of time and effort in modifying the Langstroth beehive to suit the local conditions for example, developing the comb starter sheets for the African bees’ size, increasing the number of brood frames which reduces the bee space between frames, preventing the burr comb which is a normal characteristic of the African Bees.

Ernest is involved in the development and manufacturing of a hive monitoring equipment (Bee Hive scale) which monitors temperature, both inside and outside the bee hive, bee hive weight, the information works both on SMS or web base, transferring data on real time to a computer of smart phone.

Ernest has also developed a web base program (HIVE TRACKS) to monitor and track all field apiary site including out growers who are contracted by African Beekeepers Ltd to track honey production, environment behaviors, geo tagging, bee hive activity and weather, including  payments of honey to out growers, all the information is recorded on a central computer on real time.

Given the harsh conditions, and predators existing in the local environment, Ernest has over the years designed several systems of placing the Langstroth beehives to prevent damage to the colonies from pests such as the notorious Honey Badger. He has also introduced a bee suit that withstands the aggressive bee sting making it more user friendly to work with African bees.

In order to achieve high production of honey from the Langstroth beehive it has been a major objective for Ernest to embark on the rearing of queen bees. He has successfully produced queen bees and is currently looking into the possibilities of artificial insemination of queens.

Through the careful and constant management of Langstroth beehives, Ernest has been able to achieve production of high quality honey which is produced from his own apiaries and markets locally and internationally.

Ernest believes that there is great potential in the honey industry in East Africa if bees are managed well, bee keeping is one of the best agricultural activities that can be practiced in rural areas were honey is considered as a valuable commodity and never ending market right at one’s door step and also plays a major role by increasing food production through pollination by bees.

Bee keeping is hard work which requires trained skills on managing and the use of high quality bee keeping equipment. And most importantly Ernest believes it is not only about the bees, the KEY is the environment, and MANAGMENTthat will produce honey.