Charge of the “LIGHT” Brigade…………………….

China has her Terracotta warriors, I have my beeswax candles. 🙂 There is something common between them. They are a gift from Mother Earth. Sharing with the farmers on the values of by-products from honey, they are able to have another source of income.

Previously, the methods the farmers used to extract honey were to squeeze it from the combs with their bare hands, or separating the honey from the wax by boiling the honey at a high temperature. This process will destroy the quality of the honey. After which, they throw the wax away.

With proper education and sensitization, their lives changed. They now know  the importance of proper handling of their harvest. Not only they can raise the quality for the honey, they found a new source of income and a ready market.

My beeswax candle warriors ready for market.

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New range ready for Christmas…………………….

Christmas is round the corner. Creativity plays a major role in keeping on par with market demands. We had just increased our range of beeswax candles for sale. More choices, more sales. 🙂

Here are some history about beeswax candles;

Candles have been used as an artificial light source for an estimated five thousand years. The first candles were made of boiled animal fat (tallow), a substance that when burned gave off heavy smoke, an inconsistent flame, and an acidic odor. It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that candle makers discovered the burning properties of beeswax, the substance secreted by bees to make their honeycombs. Beeswax candles quickly became preferred over tallow candles because when burned, the beeswax candles emitted very little smoke or odor; and beeswax candles burned with more consistency than tallow.

But bees weren’t cultivated. And this rare and prized substance could only be afforded by Europe’s nobility or by the Catholic Church. It later became canon law that candles burned inside a Catholic cathedral must be composed of at least 60 percent beeswax, a law still in effect today.

By the 9th century candle making had become so perfected that the nobility were using beeswax candles to tell the time. Candles were poured and shaped with enough beeswax to burn for exactly 24 hours. The candle maker then marked the candle with 24 lines. The candle’s owner could tell what time of night it was by the section of candle that was burning. In the 13th century, guilds of candle makers began springing up throughout Paris. The next notable innovation for beeswax candles came when guilds started using wicks made of twisted cotton instead of wicks made from rushes, linen, or flax.

The whaling industry provided the dominant fuel source for tallow candles in the 18th century. Sperm whale oil (spermaceti wax) was used more in North American and European candles than other animal fats. But compared to beeswax, the spermaceti candles still smoked more and emitted an unpleasant odor.

Cotton wicks improved next when candle makers began braiding their cotton wicks instead of just twisting them, allowing for a more consistent burn. Using braided cotton wicks is one of the only changes to beeswax candles since their original conception in the middle ages.

For nearly 1500 years, beeswax candles would be considered the cleanest and most pure form of artificial light until the popularization of electricity in the 1900s.

Original article from here.

All packed and ready for export.

Little angels taking flight…………………….

Little angels of hope.

Here are the first batch of angels made out of 100% natural beeswax, getting ready to take their maiden flight to Singapore.

Our little angel candles are all natural substance made by bees in contrast to paraffin, a chemical byproduct of the oil industry. The burning characteristics of beeswax candles differ from those of paraffin. A beeswax candle flame has a “warmer,” more yellowish appearance than that of paraffin, and the color of the flame may vary depending on the season in which the wax was harvested. It gets its aroma from the honey and pollen packed into each honeycomb cell. Every individual angel is created from our hand poured mold.

Beeswax candles burn with the spectrum of the sun emitting a brighter, longer burning flame. It is a well established fact that while burning, beeswax candles naturally emit negative ions which clean the air and invigorate the body.

Beeswax is produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Worker bees (the females) have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body) on abdominal segments 4 to 7. The size of these wax glands depends on the age of the worker and after daily flights begin these glands gradually atrophy. The new wax scales are initially glass-clear and colorless, becoming opaque after mastication by the worker bee. The wax of honeycomb is nearly white, but becomes progressively more yellow or brown by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about 3 millimetres (0.12 in) across and 0.1 millimetres (0.0039 in) thick, and about 1100 are required to make a gram of wax. Typically, for a honey bee keeper, 10 pounds of honey yields 1 pound of wax.

Western honey bees use beeswax to build honeycomb cells in which their young are raised and honey and pollen are stored. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive has to be 33 to 36 °C (91 to 97 °F). To produce their wax, bees must consume about eight times as much honey by mass. It is estimated that bees fly 150,000 miles, roughly six times around the earth, to yield one pound of beeswax (530,000 km/kg). When beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from nearly white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity and the type of flowers gathered by the bees. Wax from the brood comb of the honey bee hive tends to be darker than wax from the honeycomb. Impurities accumulate more quickly in the brood comb. Due to the impurities, the wax has to be rendered before further use. The leftovers are called slumgum.

Beeswax is also used commercially to make cosmetics and pharmaceuticals including bone wax (cosmetics and pharmaceuticals account for 60% of total consumption), in polishing materials (particularly shoe polish and furniture polish) and as a component of modelling waxes. It is commonly used during the assembly of pool tables to fill the screw holes and the seams between the slates. Squeezebox makers use beeswax as an adhesive, when blended with pine rosin, to attach reed plates to the structure inside an squeezebox. Beeswax candles are preferred in most Eastern Orthodox churches because they burn cleanly, with little or no wax dripping down the sides and little visible smoke. Beeswax is also prescribed as the material (or at least a significant part of the material) for the Paschal candle (“Easter Candle”) and is recommended for other candles used in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church.

It is also used as a coating for cheese, to protect the food as it ages. While some cheese-makers have replaced it with plastic, many still use beeswax in order to avoid any unpleasant flavors that may result from plastic. As a food additive, beeswax is known as E901 (glazing agent)

Beeswax has been used since ancient times; traces of it were found in the paintings in the Lascaux cave and in Egyptian mummies. Egyptians used it in shipbuilding as well. In the Roman period, beeswax was used as waterproofing agent for painted walls and as a medium for the Fayum mummy portraits. Nations subjugated by Rome sometimes paid tribute or taxes in beeswax. In the Middle Ages beeswax was considered valuable enough to become a form of currency.

Uganda honey spreading wings…………………….

Ray and a display of "value added" honey and honey products that will be produced at Timothy Centre.

Another productive Saturday. I had a very fruitful discussion with Mr. Ray Sutton, the Executive Director of Pacific Academy Outreach Society, Canada. Timothy Centre is one of the many projects that he oversees. Its another one of his babies.

Our discussion touches on the development of agriculture products that will be exported to Canada and North America once Timothy Centre has fully develop the sector.

Meanwhile, honey products is already underway and this time round Ray will be introducing honey and beeswax candles into Canada and North America market. Following suit will be coffee and passion fruit as discussed with Karl earlier.

As our discussion took us further regarding the development of Timothy Centre, we concurred that we should also develop the eco-tourism sector where tourists can experience farmstay feeling. Waking up in the morning, strolling into farm, getting fresh vegetables and fruits, harvesting fresh raw honey for breakfast.

When I left Ray and his team in the evening, this thoughts came to my mind. In this fast pace society, Uganda should not be looking at production level only. Quality plays a vital role as well. This is where I feel financial institution can come in to assist the farmers financially in getting, not the most expensive equipment or tools but the RIGHT and appropriate equipment and tools, where the farmers are more adaptable and able to handle. We should help them with what they are familiar with and fine-tune from there, rather than giving them what we want them to have. Sadly enough, some financial institutions who engaged in such assistance got burned because they were not given the proper direction by the right people, ending up with bad debts. Those giving out the monies do not even understand a single bit of what is on the ground. They just simply wore their grey suit, sitting behind their grey desk, inside their grey office under the grey sky, waiting for their grey papers to be laid on their grey table. They only know how to  engage PAPER, they don’t engage PEOPLE.

Many a times when I moved around the villages, I do come across a lot of “Signboard Projects”. The signboards are there but you don’t see any projects. One reason it could be that the project had ended, so are the equipment. The locals do not know how to use them but since it is free, might as well take it. After which the tools and equipment might had found its way to a nearby market.

Uganda should also start picking up ideas on value adding in order to be more competitive with the rest of the World. Once I met an old man and he shared this with me, “The earth is always revolving forward. We have to keep pace with time and not to stand still. If we were to do that, we are in fact moving backwards”. Interesting analogy.

I felt that I am very blessed to be invited to work with Timothy Centre. It is well organized with an achievable and amazing vision. I can foresee Timothy Centre will be one of the most talk about destination in Uganda once it is fully developed.

“Global Servants in Christian Education”