What does Noochii mean?

The name Noochii is derived from the word “Nyuchi”, the Shona word meaning honeybee.

I grew up near Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, and was a fluent Shona speaker. Shona is a Bantu language made up of many dialects, including Zezuru, Korekore and Karanga, and is the most widely spoken language in Zimbabwe.

My young daughter came up with the idea of using a Shona word – thanks to her!

I’ve been living in the UK for over 20 years and my Shona is rather rusty. As the saying goes, use it, or lose it. I remembered that nyuchi was either honey or honeybee, so we looked it up.

“Nyuchi hive” was perfect, it translated directly to “honeybee hive”. It says what we’re doing: designing and making hives for honeybees.

We really liked the feel of the word and decided to play the spelling to make it a little easier to read and pronounce, and, hopefully, more memorable!

And that’s how we came up with the name Noochii Hive.