To bee or not to bee

The new buzz in urban circles in Bangalore is beekeeping

Last summer, Manoj PK, an IT professional in Bangalore, noticed a swarm of bees on his balcony. An Internet search on who could help him move the hive led him to Spruce Impex, a firm in the city that makes honey and also promotes beekeeping. He was asked to send a photograph of the bees so that the company could see whether they were wild bees, which cannot be transferred into a box. Fortunately, the bees were the Apis cerana indica, a species native to India that could be domesticated. Manoj was given a bee box, other equipment and training in how to handle the bees.

"Initially, I was afraid of getting stung, and I was a couple of times but I didn't mind. And it was amazing to harvest my first crop of honey," says Manoj, who still sounds exultant about his personal batch of honey. He now has two bee boxes on his apartment balcony and says they are very easy to maintain. "It's the star attraction when people come home," he says, with a laugh.

For Prasad Kanisetty, it was the family's passion for organic food that led them to beekeeping. Kanisetty, also a software professional, says they had seen beekeeping stalls at organic kitchen gardening demonstrations, and became interested. "But we thought about it for a couple of months and did a lot of research because of the fear that they would sting, and the widespread notion that a sting can even result in death," he says. Two months into the experiment, he says he has not yet been stung, but is still to get used to the sensation of bees on his hand when he opens his bee box once a week. "I should be able to harvest my first crop in a couple of months," he says.

The Kanisettys and Manoj are part of the small band of urban beekeepers in the city which, according to NS Bhat, professor at the University of Agricultural Sciences, is growing. "It is a good hobby for people in the city and allows them to take a break from their routine," he says. Striving to expand this tribe is Spruce Impex, launched by another IT executive. "My interest in bees was sparked at an endowment lecture on the behaviour of bees in engineering college," says Guruprasad Rao, head of operations at the firm. Rao met Apoorva, another bee enthusiast who was looking for a bee-related profession. The duo and Rao's wife finally started Spruce Impex in 2011. The importance of bees, says Rao, is not their ability to make honey but their crucial role in pollination. And that's where the crisis is brewing, he says. "In Coorg, there used to be 70,000 hives of wild bees. But entomologists have told us that over the last 4-5 years this has reduced to less than 10,000, one reason being the use of endosulfan in coffee plantations," he says. There are a lot of people in cities who are aware of this, so we thought we could get these people interested in beekeeping, Rao adds.

To get started you need a bee box, a colony with a queen bee, a stand to protect the box from ants and a bee veil to ensure your face is protected when you check the box. The firm also trains people to identify when the colony is ready to divide (in one season, half the bees will decide to move out and form a new colony, and will thus need a new box). The entire kit and the training comes to Rs 6,200. But Rao says the band of beekeepers in the city is growing very slowly, unlike in the US and Europe, where urban beekeeping is a burgeoning trend.

But those who have taken the plunge seem to be a satisfied lot. Manoj is encouraging his friends to get their own bee boxes while Kanisetty plans to have hives in the farms of his parents and in-laws in Maharashtra and Andhra. One of the most satisfying results for Kanisetty has been his seven-year-old's increased interest in nature. "He is not afraid of the bees. That's the most rewarding bit," he says.

If you are interested in trying your hand at urban beekeeping, contact Spruce Impex www.spruceimpex.