About 70 per cent of the pollination in the world is carried out by bees.
Yet, the lack of awareness is responsible for a sudden fall in the population of these yellow-black little agents of pollination worldwide, threatening the very balance of our ecosystem..
A city-based engineer turned Apiarist has now devoted all this time to the conservation and protection of honey bees.
The wake up call for him was his housing society summoning a pest control service to kill the bees and remove their hives. To add to this, was the alarming decline of the bee population here and that swung Amit Godse into action. Today, he has taken it upon himself to save the bee population.
“This was really depressing for me. Since then, I have been researching about bee-keeping and bee-handling,”
“I travelled across India to learn the technical aspects of beekeeping from experts. It was then, that I realised that honey bees were not conserved anywhere in India. Honey hunters are called to burn the bee hives and extract honey. I wanted to conserve these agents of pollination across the city.
“Hence, I came up with the idea of relocating bee hives myself without killing the bees and destroying the bee diversity,” Amit adds.
Hundreds of people across Pune and Mumbai have connected with Amit for the relocation of beehives. He visited many research centres and took a month’s training at The Central Bee Research and Training Institute in Pune.
A child handling the bee box.
“My main intent is to educate people about the importance of honey bees for the ecosystem. There are a lot of misconceptions around them, the most common being that they might sting you. But the fact is bees are not harmful unless we provoke them.”
Four out of 10 beehives are safe to breed domestically. There are only six such hives that need to be relocated or breaded in bee boxes.
Talking about the kinds of bees and their relocation process, Amit says,“There are five types of bees found in India.
Three of them can be domesticated in bee boxes as they prefer staying in the dark.Two of them are wild bees that make their hives in the sunlight.
“The box bees make their hives in closed areas like air conditioners, wall cracks, bird houses, small holes etc so it is easy to capture and put them in a box. For the protection of these bees, we relocate then into wooden boxes where they can reproduce.
“The wild bees make houses in open areas under sunlight like balconies, tree trunks, terraces etc. These cannot be kept in boxes so we try to relocate them with the hives,” he adds.
After being trained professionally himself, Amit now trains people across Pune and Mumbai in the art of bee keeping. “I conduct special workshops and presentations in schools, colleges, residential societies and corporates to educate people about the importance of bees and bee keeping.
“Hands-on sessions are also provided to ensure that they are not afraid of handling bees any more. With the help of my team, I also organise various awareness programs across the city,” says Amit.
“Now we are getting calls from across the country by people keen to learn the technique of bee handling. Farmers are also interested in breeding honey bees in their farms so that their yield can be increased with the help of natural pollination of honey bees.
Amit says that bees can be kept as pets at homes.
Bee colony harvested in-house.
“Bee boxes are safe and can be kept in households and societies. This provides the household with the pollinating agent that can boost up the production of the flora in the surroundings. Also, the honey made by the bees can also be used by the family.”
To provide organically extracted honey and honey products, Amit also started his company Bee Basket Enterprise Limited. It provides honey and honey-based products to people across the country.
#You can also send a WhatsApp message on 8308300008 if you wish to relocate a bee hive from your place.
She loves travelling, dogs, sarcasm, humour and anything that spells F O O D, in that order. A writer on a journey to make positive stories a morning ritual and give society what it needs the most - optimism !!
Reach her at loveleen@pune365.com or tweet @KaurKaur18
