PATNA: Honeybees are fast disappearing from parts of Bihar and Nepal. So suggest reports collected by Tarumitra, which works to promote healthy environment and preservation of bio-diversity at the national level.
According to these reports, a cooperative society of Bihar’s Vaishali district engaged in apiculture, is in trouble as due to fewer honeybees, the cooperative’ honey output has nosedived. The number of boxes used here for bee keeping has come down from about 100 to less than 20.
At K R High School in Bettiah town, the number of bee-keeping boxes has come down from 25 to one. Bee keepers of Sasaram too have reported reduced fewer bees making hives in their orchards. Even on the Tarumitra campus at Patna, the number of beehives today is one, from earlier six.
An identical trend has been observed in Nepal which shares quite a long border with Bihar. Reports from Godavari, east of Patan in Nepal, suggest the societies engaged in bee keeping at two places there are facing problems due to reduced number of honeybees. Their business of honey is on the verge of closure.
Those running these societies approached a Japan-based research centre for finding a solution and were informed that the honeybees were dying due to a disease called `sac brood’. No reasons, however, were cited for the spread of the disease. Nor was any treatment suggested, Tarumitra national coordinator Robert Athickal told TOI.
Athickal attributed the declining number of honeybees to two factors __ monoculture and widescale use of pesticides to protect fruit trees from paste infestation.
“Over-emphasis on plantation of a particular variety of trees, particularly those bearing fruits which have market value, denies regular supply of food to honeybees as a particular tree species has fixed period of flowering,” Athickal said and added honeybees thus starve during a major part of the year.
Regarding use of pesticides, he said parts of pesticides are consumed by honeybees. Less number of honeybees would adversely affect the pollination process, which is a must for having fruits on trees as honeybees, being key-stone species, play a vital role in pollination.
The Tarumitra coordinator pleaded for polyculture for supply of food to honeybees throughout the year and generating awareness among fruit-growing community about the long-term losses of widescale use of pesticides.