Every Old Hive Cost a Tree. He Gave Zambia's Beekeepers a Better One

In the forests of north-western Zambia, a traditional beehive starts with an axe. A beekeeper cuts down a mature miombo tree, then two smaller ones, to make a single hive. Miombo wood takes about 40 years to grow back.

Harry Malichi grew up with that, and for a long time nobody questioned it. "We didn't realise it was an unsustainable model; it was simply ingrained in our culture as a way of life," he told Climate Tribe.

His company, Wuchi Wami, set out to keep the honey and spare the trees.

A boy from Mwinilunga

Harry comes from Mwinilunga, in Zambia's North-Western Province. As a child he sold vegetables from the garden and sweets to earn money. He went on to study mechanical engineering at the University of Zambia, and paid his fees by selling imported goods.

At university he learned what the old hives cost the forest. At home he saw friends who had dropped out of school. He wrote a business plan built on what his province had: its forests and its bees.

In 2018 he started Wuchi Wami with two partners, Kapesha Sandu and Kathryn Mwondela. They began with ten farmers.

A lighter hive

The change is in the hive. Instead of hollowed trees, Wuchi Wami's beekeepers use top-bar hives made from pine. Pine grows back in under ten years, and one hive lasts eight years or more.

The new hives are also lighter. That matters, because the old way was heavy work that kept women and older people out. With hives they can lift, more of the village can keep bees.

And they hold more honey. The company reports more than 30 kilograms from one of its hives, against about seven from a traditional one.

At the end of each season Wuchi Wami buys the honey from the beekeepers it has trained and equipped, then processes and packs it.

What is in the jar

The product is raw, unpasteurised honey from the miombo woodland: single-origin, from one forest region, collected by the people who live there. Wuchi Wami sells it under its own brand and also packs it for other labels. Beeswax is the second product, and has been shipped as far as Norway.

For a buyer, it is honey with a clear address: north-western Zambia, a cooperative of smallholders, and a hive that did not cost a tree.

From ten farmers to thousands

The numbers have grown fast. By 2021 about 2,500 smallholders had joined the company's Kwasha Indimi cooperative in Mwinilunga. That year Wuchi Wami won a SEED Climate Adaptation Award, and its honey was in wellness shops such as Umoyo and on the shelves of the Choppies supermarket chain.

The company's own evaluations put the difference in plain money: close to fifty dollars a month for a beekeeper, where three was once normal.

By 2024 it had expanded to Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. By October 2026 Wuchi Wami was working with more than 6,000 beekeepers and over 19,000 top-bar hives, and selling to shops and food makers in Zambia and across Southern Africa.

New money for a bigger harvest

In September 2026 the investment firm Inside Capital Partners invested in Wuchi Wami. Neither side said how much.

The plan is to bring more beekeepers into the network, process more of their honey and reach more shops across the region. There is room to grow. By the company's figures, Zambia makes about 14,200 tonnes of honey a year, and around nine tenths of it is traded informally.

How to buy

Wuchi Wami honey is sold in Zambian shops and supplied to food makers and retailers across Southern Africa, under its own label or theirs.

• LinkedIn: Harry Malichi, Wuchi Wami

What's next

The plan is to buy and process more honey and move more of Zambia's harvest out of informal trade and onto shop shelves.

Key Takeaways

Wuchi Wami shows how a small change in a tool can change a whole value chain.

• Fix the tool, and more people can join. A lighter, reusable hive brought women and older people into beekeeping and spared the trees that old hives used up.
• Buy the harvest, then build the brand. Training beekeepers and buying their honey at season's end gave Wuchi Wami a steady supply to pack, label and sell.