Bill Bell, like Duncan Carmichael and Bill Evans, was in Accra when he attended the First National Workshop on Beekeeping in Kumasi in January 1981 organized by the Technology Consulting Center (TCC) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology ( KNUST). Shortly afterwards, however, he met his Ghanaian friend, Joe Allen, at adjacent farms in Mankessim, in the Central Region, not far from the old colonial capital, Cape Coast. Here they had all the space they needed to introduce new agricultural activities, including the establishment of commercial beehives.

Bill Bell was an Englishman who had made his home in Ghana. When he first came into contact with the TCC, he lived on the outskirts of Accra in Achimota, near the University of Ghana, Legon campus. Although he had a relatively large piece of land on which he had built a pond and started fish farming, Bill was looking for a much larger space to set up an integrated multi-purpose farm. Joe Allen had similar ambitions, and because he was a native of the Midlands, he had purchased a large farm in Mankessim. No doubt he helped his friend get the land he needed too and the two farmers set out to pioneer some agricultural innovations with shared knowledge and ideas.

The TCC had already been involved in fish farming and was setting up a pilot project at Lake Bosomtwe, Ashanti’s sacred lake, the site where the fetish high priest, Komfo Anokye, is said to have lowered the golden stool from heaven. The Center was happy to draw on Bill Bell’s experience with his Achimota project and to keep in touch with fish farming and beekeeping. It soon became apparent that successful commercial farming with local tilapia required an inexpensive feed produced from locally available raw materials, and the research effort at KNUST soon turned to addressing this problem.

Both Bill Bell and Joe Allen established commercial apiaries which, like James Moxon’s Akuapem apiary, introduced good quality, locally produced bottled honey to their local market. Bill Bell was one of the first commercial honey producers to announce that he had broken even on his investment and expressed amusement when this was reported in TCC’s Bee News under the headline ‘Bill Bell in the Black!’

One problem facing both beekeepers and fish farmers was the theft of their product by unauthorized clandestine collectors. In the case of hive robbery, this amounted to traditional honey hunting using fire to scare away the bees and generally resulted in the destruction of hives and bee colonies. There were even some cases of extensive and destructive fires as a result of this activity. Bill Bell once reported that she used to sit on his terrace overlooking his fishponds and apiaries in the valley in front of him, a loaded rifle across his knees. His stated goal was to shoot any crocodile that came out of the river and threatened to invade his fish ponds. Word would soon have spread and it can be assumed that hive and pond robbers were unearthed for this stance.

The Central Region, although located on the southern coast between Accra and the port of Takoradi, is one of the least developed regions of Ghana. In the early 1980s he was in dire need of commercial projects that would provide employment and economic activity. By establishing their farms and apiaries in Mankessim, Bill Bell and Joe Allen made a brave attempt to address the needs of this impoverished community and provided an inspiring example of how beekeeping could bring benefits to communities in need throughout Ghana.