| Friend of bees
By NWAGBO NNENYELIKE, Ilorin
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
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Badmus showing the bees
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As you walk into the bush of the Biological Garden in the
Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin, the first question,
Lanrewaju Badmus, a bee therapist, who cures diseases with
bees, would ask as you approach the bee keeping section is:
“Did you spray perfume?” If yes, he would tell
you that you cannot be his guest. If no, he would host you
with the bees flying around, but counsels: “Please if
the bees fly around you, do not wave them. They are friendly
when you obey their rules.’’
There are other questions. He asks: “Did you eat or
drink any sweet thing, like pineapple or juice?” If
yes, he would prefer both of you stay out of the hives because
the bees do not accommodate sweet items.
But if you say no, he allows you inside the bush.
Satisfied, he would tell you: “sorry that I bordered
you with all the questions as you were entering. Those are
the rules of the bees. If these rules are not obeyed, they
sting with annoyance.”
Badmus tells Daily Sun that “there is no disease or
problem on earth bees cannot cure. You name them; high blood
pressure, diabetes, pains, strokes, paralysis, asthma, cough,
barrenness, fibroid, ulcer, low sperm count, irregular menstruation,
and even HIV.
“We have not had HIV. But I can tell you that if there
is such a patient, I can cure it. Before I tell you how we
apply the bee medication, let me explain to you that bees
comprise of the queen, the workers, and the drones. There
is always one queen in the hives. It lives a life span of
eight years. We have four hive boxes at the moment in this
garden and we intend to have more.”
On the possibility of producing thousand of bees on daily
basis, the bee therapist goes into a simple mathematics to
arrive at the fact that the queen produces between 2,500 and
2,800 eggs everyday and each of the eggs has one bee. Then
with the four hives boxes at the moment, we have 10,000 to
11,2000 on daily basis, then 70,000 to 124,000 bees every
week, adding, “in bee keepers Association of Nigeria,
we encourage members to get more hives boxes, so that we produce
more bees in Nigeria. Apart from curing of disease, there
is money in bee business, because the venom sells for millions
of naira abroad where they know the use and value.”
The Epe, Lagos State-born Badmus continued, “the bees
produce four items; propolis, royal jelly, venom and honey.
And all of them can treat one ailment or the other. Combination
of venom and honey can cure sickness you can think of. With
royal jelly, a woman who has never done abortion before, but
is barren can be cured when I mix the jelly with honey. Both
of them fertilize the womb.
He said that honey alone could cure asthmatic patient and
any kind of cough when he takes two spoons for three times
daily. Then combination of honey and hot water can make somebody
to sleep well without sleeping pills, while mixture of honey
and cold water can keep a student or journalist who wishes
to read or write from night till morning awake instead of
using kola or coffee to control sleep. Also, if somebody is
bedwetting, two spoons of honey at night before he goes to
bed would stop it, while an obsessed person should sip two
spoons of honey early on daily basis, before talking to anybody.
This will give him a good shape. “I have travelled virtually
to so many parts of Nigeria to administer these and people
were healed of their sickness,” he said.
On whether, the bees do not sting him, or if he has a protection
against them, he said: “There is no protection against
bee stinging, like the snake charmers have charms. Bees sting
me, but I enjoy their stinging. I obey and observe all their
rules. With that I control the bees. I arrest and invite them
any time I want honey. Let me tell you the truth, it is interesting
for bees to sting somebody.”
What I shall advise, he further stated, is that people should
not allow bees to sting them in bush with annoyance. In such
a situation, bee stinging becomes dangerous. “But no
matter how dangerous it is, I am always ready for bees to
sting me, because it is an opportunity to cure myself of any
ailment. I must say there are some parts of the body we should
not allow the bees to sting. That is from the neck to the
head, including nose, ear and lips. If bees sting any of these
places, it will swell up.
However, if it stings somebody, the way I treat it is that
I apply rectifier, which is the venom of the bees.
This rectifier cures a lot of ailments in the human
system.
Expressing his happiness to Dr. Adedayo Yusuf Abdulkareem,
the provost, Kwara State College of Education and Alhaji Saleem
Shehu, the director IJMB, the bee keeper noted that beekeeping
in the college as an avenue to train more students of Biology.
This is advantageous for the school authority, because agriculture
benefits from it too.
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