Enthused by the success of its venture on cage fish culture, the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Ernakulam, has now forayed into new areas such as Meliponiculture or stingless bee-keeping.

The idea is to take up the programme as an entrepreneurship development initiative to attract youth to agriculture. Meliponiculture will be a promising enterprise for youngsters, especially women to help generate additional income. The honey collected through this method is 10 times more costlier, especially due to its high medicinal properties, says Shinoj Subramanian, Programme Coordinator.

Stingless honey bees – Trigona iripipennis – are India’s native breeds and their nests consist of many small honey pots instead of honeybee’s regular combs. This 3-mm size insect is not stingless, but its sting is poorly developed. The bees make nests on the ground, hollows of trees, bamboo, rocks or cracks of walls.

Medicinal properties are the main attraction of honey from stingless bees, he said, quoting reports of its antibiotic properties and cancer cure. Besides, its wide usage for eye infections and wounds by tribals proves its healing nature.

Stingless honey bees are effective pollinators as they visit around 1,500 flowers a day to collect honey and pollen. Hence, meliponicluture will be a promising venture which can go along with homestead and high-tech farming in poly houses. They are better than bumble bees, species of bees used exclusively for pollination.

Anyone can handle these bees easily since they do not have sting. They are less aggressive than honeybees and can be kept as pets. Thus Meliponiculture will be suitable for women and children, he said.  

Pushparaj Anjelo, Subject Matter Specialist, pointed out that honey from meliponiculture is in demand and fetches ₹1,500-2,000 a kg. A farmer with 10 hives could collect around seven kg of honey worth ₹12,500. The facility will have zero maintenance cost.

The cost of single wooden hive including colonies will be ₹1,500 and an empty hive costs ₹300. On an average, a bee colony can provide 300 gm to one kg of honey in a year. Splitting the hive into 2 or 3 colonies a year can also fetch income at the rate of ₹1,500 for each colony.

KVK has already commenced the programme in Kothamangalam near here by extending a preliminary training to 100 candidates. Apart from the culture, it also envisages to develop capacity building on honey processing, obtaining small scale industry food safety licenses, packing, test marketing, etc.

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