Honeytrap: Tariffs Threaten India's Bee Team

Bees earned India millions in export dollars. But it's gotten sticky of late

- Sayantan Bera

Bablu Saini took to apiculture—beekeeping—many moons ago. Living next to the Chidiyapur forest range in the hill state of Uttarakhand, not far from the popular pilgrimage site of Haridwar, Saini would avidly watch roving beekeepers who arrived with their bee boxes every year when the forests were in bloom. They came to collect multi-floral forest honey, a highly sought-after delicacy.

From migratory beekeepers, Saini learnt the primordial rules of a bee colony. That there can be only one queen in a box. That she may be killed by worker bees or will have to leave the colony when she gets old and her egg-laying capacity declines. A new queen is raised by workers whose lifespan is just a few weeks.

The endless cycle, where the success and productivity of a colony supersedes the wellbeing of its individual residents, fascinated Saini.

In 2015, then an intrepid 22-year-old, Saini decided to take the sting. He began with a modest 24 boxes, each housing thousands of worker bees, a fat queen, her abdomen swollen with eggs, and male drones whose only utility is to mate and die immediately afterwards.

A decade on, Saini owns 300 boxes and travels long distances, from mustard fields in Haryana and apple orchards in Himachal Pradesh to Alwar in Rajasthan when pearl millet and sorghum are in bloom. Last year, Saini's beehives produced five tonnes—5,000 kg—of honey—valued at close to ₹6 lakh.

Apart from selling honey, Saini also provides rent-a-bee services to farmers. In the apple orchards of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, bee boxes are in high demand during the flowering season as pollination by bees greatly improves the fruit yield. Orchardists pay beekeepers up to ₹1,200 per box.

A couple of weeks in an orchard can mean earnings of over ₹2.5 lakh. But it's risky too: sudden snowfall or an abrupt drop in temperature can decimate colonies.