Woman beekeeper from rural Georgia expands her business
September 26, 2022 Stories

Woman beekeeper from rural Georgia expands her business

Nana Dvalidze, a middle-aged beekeeper from the Alpine zone of Georgia has been producing honey products for years. Although the quality of her honey was excellent and she was distributing it across the whole country, the volume of the production was low as the work with outdated equipment required a lot of time. After Caritas Czech Republic granted Nana modern honey production equipment, honey-pressing became much easier and that enabled her to expand the business. 

Nana Dvalidze's beekeeping business

How modern equipment changed honey production process for the Dvalidze family 

Nana Dvalidze, a 57-year-old woman from mountainous Georgia, has been making honey products with her husband, son and daughter for years. The Dvalidze family lives in the small village of Bajikhevi which is located at 1350 meters above sea level in the region of Racha. The village is inhabited by only ten people which makes living here quite challenging, especially in winter periods during the heavy snowfall and frost. Except for honey, Nana’s family is actively involved in cattle breeding and pig and poultry farming. 

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The Dvalidze family owns 60 beehives and produces honey products not only for the villagers but sells them throughout the whole Racha and even in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Malkhaz, Nana’s son, tells us that honey production is not an easy job and requires scrupulosity and a lot of time. Speaking of time, it is worth mentioning the importance of modern equipment in this process which importantly contributes to saving time and making the beekeeper's job easier. That is why Caritas Czech Republic decided to support the Dvalidze family and provide them with modern honey production equipment – honey brace, honeycomb printing and candle-making machines. 

Nana Dvalidze - beekeeper

“Our honey is of high quality as the Bajikhevi village is in the Alpine zone full of field flowers and fresh air. Before Caritas Czech Republic supported us, we had a mechanical pressing machine and we spent one full month pressing the honey. Of course, this did not allow us to produce a large amount of honey. With the modern honey brace granted us within the project, we do our job in far less time, thus, we can increase our production, says Malkhaz. 

Malkhaz explains the importance of other equipment that the family received. He says that with the honeycomb printing machine, a candle plate is made to help bees in building honeycombs, hence the family does not have to buy ready-made bad-quality plates anymore. As for the aged honeycombs left after honey-pressing, Malkhaz’s sister melts them down with a new candle-making machine and makes church candles out of them. 

Except for honey, the Dvalidze family produces Rachian ham, cheese, butter, egg and meat which is distributed by Nana’s husband not only in the local market but among his regular customers. 

Malkhaz expresses gratitude to the project that contributed to the expansion of his family’s business a lot. He also shares with future plans and tells us that soon his family is going to open a guesthouse that will offer the visitors gorgeous views of snow-covered mountains, natural products and what is most important – peace.

Nana Dvalidze's beekeeping business

Caritas Czech Republic supports local entrepreneurs in mountainous Racha 

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Caritas Czech Republic rapidly tailored most of its activities to cope with the economic and social problems caused by the spread of the virus. With the financial support from the Slovak Development Agency (SlovakAid), Caritas Czech Republic’s country office in Georgia in close cooperation with the Slovak NGO Sosna, implemented the project “Mitigating the Negative Economic Impact of the COVID-19 on the Population of Racha” in the mountainous region of Racha-Lechkhumi Kvemo Svaneti.  

As part of the project, our organization supported 26 SMEs to maintain, revive, and diversify their economic activities, contributed to retaining 40 jobs, trained 40 SMEs representatives in online marketing, distributed 3040 poultries with their vet preparation and food to 152 vulnerable families. The Dvalidze family’s honey production was among the supported small businesses. 

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