“For them to have a spoonful of honey, they have to approach at least 200 flowers. During this time, it can only collect a spoonful of honey from a colony. According to Udayan, the lifespan of a stingless bee is 60 days. Due to its small size, it can even enter tiny flowers of medicinal plants, herbs, and shrubs. The honey procured from stingless bees are of high quality and have many medicinal properties, but the quantity harvested at a time is less. One colony costs at least `1500,” he adds. This year, Udayan sold at least 496 colonies to organisations such as National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and Agriculture Technology Management Agency. All other holes will be closed using the wax secreted by the bees and the resin they collect from trees. Only one entrance of the wooden box will be open. In one batch we can get at least ten eggs, repeating the same could help us make many colonies,” says Udayan who mainly gets his income from selling the colonies. So before that happens, we can create another colony either by taking the queen bee, pollen, nectar and bees or eggs. The bees themselves will go in search of other spaces once their shelter gets full. Then he picks virgin bees, a few male, and many female bees or the worker bees to form a new colony. From among the many stingless bees, Udayan carefully picks a Queen bee first. They enter even small flowers, making them ideal agents for augmenting farm productivity and thereby increasing farmers income,” says Udayan. “Stingless bees improve pollination and will enhance biodiversity in a farm. They live in enclosed spaces and are found mostly on bamboo poles. All they require is a dark space that can store at least 2 litres of nectar,” he says. This practice requires immense patience and skill. The 60-year-old also mastered the art of giving and collecting bees from the wild. Apart from keeping empty boxes in his house for the bee to form a colony, Udayan also sources bees from the wild too. After the three-day training programme, Udayan arranged bee boxes of standard specifications and started having natural colonies. That’s when I came across an advertisement in a local newspaper about training programmes on stingless beekeeping at Krishi Vigyan Kendra,” says Udayan.Īs stingless bees can be reared in small places, it is convenient for farmers.
“I was on the lookout for a job that could help me earn additional income.
CARTOON BEE DRIVER
He was struggling to take care of a family of four with the meagre income he earned working as a temporary bus driver with KSRTC. Due to his living conditions, almost a decade ago, it was hard to make it a part of his life. Udayan wasn’t familiar with beekeeping at all.
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