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NorthEast Oklahoma Beekeeper's Association

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International Outreach

As you may know NEOBA’s International Outreach committee, works to help Africans improve their lives through beekeeping.

While working in Guinea, West Africa we discovered that the honey producing potential there is huge, but there is no reliable market. It has come to our attention that a pastor/ beekeeper in Sierra Leone has organized many beekeepers, and is shipping ONE MILLION pounds of honey to Freetown, the capital, to be packaged and purchased by General Mills...... A million pounds harvested using stick and straw hives hanging in trees! The honey potential in Guinea, which is only 50 miles from Sierra Leon, is even greater.  It’s large enough to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people if a market could be developed.


Susan Bigelow and Lloyd Ziegler have volunteered to go to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia on a month-long mission to make the necessary connections that would help set up an international market for Guinean beekeepers. The potential to change people's lives is enormous; the beekeeping forage in Guinea is so good that in many areas almost all men are beekeepers! Vast numbers of families would benefit and be pulled out of poverty.

We need your help. These countries are rough, not tourist destinations. Susan and Lloyd are able to provide only part of their expenses. With your help we can raise the rest of the money needed for this mission.


Your contributions have the potential to change the lives of many people. This is not charity-- these beekeepers just need a reliable, fair market for the honey they already produce. Please consider helping!