This is one of the supported groups of beekeepers based in Kabare location of Kirinyaga County with a primary objective of increasing fruit production for group through bee pollination as the group name suggests Yellow Ripe.

Yellow Ripe is a Self Help Group whose initiative is fruit farming and source for marketing as a

group within Kihanja Village, Kiritiri Sub-location, Kabare location of Kirinyaga County. The

fruits are mainly mangos and bananas; this is where their group name was derived from (Yellow

Ripe). The group has taken Beekeeping activities in their fruit project mainly to improving agricultural productivity for their fruits and other crops through pollination as well as provide the target households with a less vulnerable source of income.

The group comprises of to 15 group members (11men and 4women). The group has 65 top bar box hives where 42 hives are already colonized by February 2024. During the last harvest in early January, the group got 35kg of crude honey from 13 hives.

Bees Abroad through Bees4kenya as their local implementors, the group was supported with a table saw machine and a sewing machine purposed for group sustainability activity. As at February 2024, Kiini enterprise has been able to make a total of 256 top bar box hives and 26 bee suits sold to member at subsidized cost to sustain the workshop.

256 Top bar hives

• 65 hives are sold to group members
• 18 donated to a neighboring Secondary School (Ngungu Secondary School).
• 122 hives sold to individual beekeepers
• 51 hives in the workshop not sold yet

26 Bee suits   

• 4 bee suits purchased by the group
• 2 donated to the neighbor school Secondary School (Ngungu Secondary School).
• 20 sold out to individual beekeepers

Through the intervention of our capacity building trainings, Kiini group members have been able to train a neighboring Ngungu Secondary School. Through the school, the group members are ensuring that the young generation are well equipped with beekeeping knowledge. We extended our visit to Ngungu Secondary School (neighboring school) apiary with 18 top bar box hive managed by the school Agriculture club with 18 hives all colonized. The school club managed to get 16 kgs of crude honey from 4 hives during the last harvest in early February.