Honey bees can provide income for people in marginalized countries. Beekeeping creates jobs, has low starting costs, does not require to own land and positively contributes to pollination of nearby areas, including farmland. Nevertheless, honey production is reported inefficient or below the production potential in many developing countries. The EU Horizon 2020 project SAMS aimed to improve the bee sectors of the target countries Ethiopia and Indonesia by involving the public in a) creating a SAMS hive monitoring system, b) contextualizing local systems, c) providing beekeeping training and d) business models. A User-Centered Design (UCD) approach guaranteed that the final SAMS products and solutions addressed the needs and requirements of beekeepers in the target countries. Within this article, three important public participation-related outcomes of the SAMS project are described: 1. How we applied UCD in the SAMS project, 2. co-creation of personas to classify beekeeper characteristics in Ethiopia and Indonesia and 3. local design and constructions of homes for bees. All (co-)created outcomes, like manuals, are freely available.