Honeybees are no longer just reared for their honey but for boosting crop yield in a big way through cross pollination.
Honeybees are no longer reared solely for producing honey though honey remains a good source of income for bee-keepers because of its high demand from pharmaceutical and household sectors. The honeybees’ role as crop pollinators (carriers of pollen from male to female flowers for fertilisation) has assumed greater significance as good pollination leads to higher crop yield and better quality of seeds and fruits. Commercial scale bee-keeping (also called apiculture) also produces other valuable byproducts, such as bee-wax, propolis, pollen and royal jelly which have varied uses, including pharmaceutical preparations. The contribution of honeybees to the gross domestic product in agriculture (agricultural GDP) through pollination-driven increase in crop output is, indeed, incalculable. Scientific studies have revealed productivity hikes ranging from 10 per cent to over 200 per cent in different crops, especially oilseeds and fruits, as a result of improved pollination through bees.
“Of all the common insects that serve as pollinators, honeybees are amongst the best,” maintains T P Rajendran, assistant director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). “Studies have also conclusively shown that, in addition to enhancing the crop yield, bees also contribute to improving the quality of seeds and fruits,” he adds.
Consequently, bee-keeping is now acquiring a new commercial hue, markedly different from just being a subsidiary occupation for farmers to supplement their income through sale of honey. Most of the new entrepreneurs are adopting the western and European business model of ‘migratory bee-keeping’ — moving their bee colonies from one area to another to pollinate crops on the farmers’ fields and charging them for this service. The southern states, including Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, are taking a lead in this business.
According to Rajendran, migratory bee-keepers fan safely begins from the rubber plantations in northern Kerala or southern Karnataka in February and move on, chasing the flowering seasons of cardamom, tamarind and coffee plantations for being in lucrative business for at least seven months in a year. Coconuts, that grow in abundance in the south, support bees in lean periods. Apart from individual entrepreneurs, many self-help groups and farmers’ organisations are also coming forward to initiate migratory bee-keeping as a means of boosting farm production and income.
In Jammu and Kashmir, commercial migratory bee-keeping is catching up in the apple-growing belt for boosting production as well as the quality of the produce to fetch better prices. The growers are willing to pay Rs 500 an acre to bee-keepers for getting their orchards properly pollinated.
In fact, bee-keeping is now being integrated into all the horticultural development projects that are supported by different official organisations, including the National Horticulture Board, National Horticulture Mission and the Central and state horticulture departments. The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), which has traditionally been entrusted with the job of promoting apiculture, is also encouraging migratory bee-keeping in the horticultural belts. The ICAR is providing the much-needed R&D support for this purpose.
Realising the significance of honeybees and for that matter also of other insect-pollinators as growth-drivers in the farm sector, the ICAR has expanded its all-India coordinated research project on honeybees and renamed it as the ‘all-India coordinated research project on honeybees and pollinators’. Research under it will focus increasingly on migratory bee-keeping as well as on other aspects of apiculture, such as determining optimum number of colonies in a unit area, averting adverse affects of modern farm practices (like pesticides use) on insect pollinators and studying the compatibility of crops and insect pollinators like honeybees. Rough estimates indicate that about 1,75,000 people are currently employed in the bee-keeping sector to manage about 14 lakh beehives which, together, produce about 52,000 tonnes of honey annually, besides other products. This is far below the actual potential of this sector, considering the vast area under crops (notably cross-pollinated crops) which require insects and other pollinating agents to bear optimal number of seeds and fruits.
As many as 15 million bee colonies can easily be maintained in the country which will employ about 1.6 million people and result in a several-fold surge in honey and, more significantly, overall farm productivity and production. What is needed really is putting in place the required supportive infrastructure (including multiplication of bee colonies for distribution) and favourable policies to realise this vast potential.
