Raviprasad Kamila / The Hindu
Mangalore, Jul 18: Apiculture, which suffered a severe setback following a viral disease in the coastal belt in 1992, is all set to get a boost from the Pilikula Nisargadhama Society.
The society will soon set up a centre for apiculture, including a honey processing unit and a honey museum. Bee-rearing methods will be displayed pictorially at the centre and training camps for beekeepers will be organised from time to time in an effort to revive apiculture in the coastal belt.
The activities of the centre at Pilikula will begin from October, J.R. Lobo, executive director of the society, told The Hindu.
Mr. Lobo said apiculture provided supplementary income to farmers and was under severe threat in the coastal belt owing to various factors.
The society wanted to educate people on the importance of sustaining apiculture and providing a platform for its revival, he added.
K. Puttanna Gowda, a beekeeper from Ubaradkka-Mittur in Sullia taluk, said apiculture was a lucrative occupation if taken up with dedication. He said he had harvested 30 quintals of honey from 300 beehives last year.
His average harvest of honey ranged between 25 and 30 quintals a year for the past five years. He took to apiculture in 1972.
Mr. Gowda said the Thai sack brood, a viral disease that hit bee colonies in 1992, had subsided in Dakshina Kannada now. Apiculture should be revived as honeybees, in addition to pollination, helped control some crop diseases. Honey was used for medical purposes as well as in the cosmetics industry, he said.
Conducive atmosphere
Mr. Gowda, who has received many awards for beekeeping and has attended international conferences on the subject, said arecanut, coconut and rubber plantations, the Western Ghats and other forest areas in the coastal belt provided a conducive atmosphere for apiculture.
“You can count 15 beekeepers who have taken up apiculture seriously in Sullia taluk,” he said. The number of beekeepers was declining in the district. Although many youths used to attend beekeeping sessions, only a few pursued it seriously, he said.
Mahabala Bhat, managing director, Dakshina Kannada Beekeepers Cooperative Society, Puttur, said the society sold 400 beehives and 75 honey extracting machines during the last fiscal year.
The society also purchased 10,910 kg of honey from local beekeepers at Rs. 70 a kg last year.
There were 18,750 families that had taken up beekeeping in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts.
The annual honey production in the two districts was probably around 420 quintals, Mr. Bhat added.