“How to pollinate?” For an increasing number of farmers, that’s the biggest question.
If you don’t have them, hire them. It was this answer to the farmers’ big question that turned scientist turned-apiarist Nitin Kumar Singh of Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, into a bee-entrepreneur. Now, Nitin’s stash of 600 boxes — each containing over 1,25,000 bees — travels across the country to help out whoever needs them. From litchi growers in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur to sun-kissed apple orchards in Himachal Pradesh’s Kinnaur, Nitin’s bees bring a promise of good harvest wherever they go.
For, these bees help out with pollination, which can boost crop yields. The practice, known as ‘rent-a-bee’ or ‘pollinator rental’, is a godsend in areas where natural bee populations are insufficient to pollinate crops effectively. And it’s not just about the money. Nitin, who has published over 30 peerre viewed research papers in international journals such as Nature, Elsevier and PLOS One, says his main motivation is to save the environment.
The 42-year-old PhD in environmental biotechnology used to work as a research fellow at Integrated Functional Genomics at University of Munster in Germany, and as a postdoctoral researcher at the Agricultural Research Organisation in Israel, before he moved to India and began renting out his bees.
“Bees are our allies,” he says. “Without them, there will be no us. We just have to understand them better and let them do their job.”Geetanjali Misra, a zoology professor at Lucknow University, says India has seen a 20% decline in bee population in recent years. In some regions, such as Odisha, the drop is by nearly 80%. This, she says, can be attributed to factors like lack of pollen and nectar sources, pesticides and climate change.Lack of pollen and nectar sources have affected bee health and survival while fluctuations in temperature and rainfall patterns have also disrupted their foraging and nesting behaviour, she explains.
Misra says that given their role in pollination, a decline in the bee population can lead to reduced crop yields and potential food security issues along with a reduction in plant biodiversity since many species depend on bees for pollination.
Nitin’s apiary in Barabanki’s Damaura village, nearly 27km from Lucknow, is a riot of colour: bright sunflowers, ripe red tomatoes, a crop of millets, patches of mustard and mint, a distant treeline of tall mango trees. The soundtrack to this vista is provided by the constant hum of bees.
Bees, says Nitin, need fresh nectar to stay healthy. There are no high-tension cables or phone towers nearby, nor is any pesticide used in the apiary, he adds.
Nitin’s bees have travelled to almost every part of the country, from Manipur to Maharashtra, on mission pollination. “My bees are basically tourists,” Nitin says. “Depending on the month and cropping season, they have to travel as and when they are hired. There’s little demand among locals, but there’s a huge demand of bees from apple orchards in Himachal. Similarly, we also rent bees to orange growers in Nagpur.”
Most of the bees are of Italian origin, Apis mellifera ligustica. “When we give bees on rent to other states, we make sure that they travel only between sunset and sunrise because bees have their own inviolable routine,” Nitin says.
Bees leave their boxes — also called moveable-comb hive or Newton hive — at sunrise to collect nectar from surrounding areas and return to it at sunset. Farmers who hire the bees don’t need to do anything special. They just place the boxes in their farms or orchards; the bees go out when the sun rises and return to their boxes by sunset, after collecting nectar and performing pollination.
One bee box costs Rs 2,500 a month. “An area of 15,000 sqft requires around 10-20 boxes for pollination,” says Nitin. “The price of these boxes depends on the time of the year. For example, Oct to May is the season for beekeepers to harvest a hive. During this period, the price of bee boxes is higher, compared with the June-Sept period.” The bee-renting business, however, is far from easy. Akhilesh Kumar from Lucknow’s Gomtinagar, who runs Bhavana Agrotech, told TOI that he had to eventually discontinue his business, thanks to the many challenges that kept cropping up.
“There are only a few players in this business due to a lack of awareness about its benefits,” says Rajasthan-based apiarist Ram Kishor Yadav, who runs his venture, ‘Shahadwale’, from Behror district. “Bees are usually hired by companies that are into seed production, or by advanced farmers.” Yadav says seed-production firms rely on honeybees primarily for pollination as bee pollination can improve the quality of seeds and the overall yield of some crops. “Bees are also used by advanced farmers, who take help from scientists — especially apple and pomegranate growers. Bee pollination can increase crop yields by 20% to 35%,” he explains.
