High input costs sting beekeepers

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Jalandhar, June 29

Upset at low prices for their honey this season, beekeepers have started looking for other options. Those who had been doing beekeeping for more than two decades are also considering other jobs.

Reason: They had suffered huge losses this season (February to April) when they just got Rs 70 per kg for their honey when the input cost is Rs 100-110 per kg. There are some small beekeepers too, who left it 2-3 years ago because they could not sustain the business and are now doing menial jobs in factories and earning up to Rs 20,000.

Harjeet Singh from Kandhargarh village and Jatinder Singh from Meemsa village in Sangrur are the ones who are working as labourers in a factory. They said high input costs, including transportation costs, forced them to leave the work and instead join a factory. “Parivaar te chalana hai na (Afterall we have our families to feed),” they said. Beekeepers transport the bees to Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan every November for mustard honey. In March, the bees are transported back to Punjab and some sent to HP and Uttarakhand for floral honey. In Punjab, mustard honey is in abundance and exported out of the country.

Beekeeper Jatinder Sohi, president of the PAU Progressive Beekeeper Association, said he had suffered a loss of lakhs of rupees this season and was now thinking of doing something else.

“Feeding cost, transportation and labour cost and what not. It’s not easy at all. We have suffered a lot,” he said.

“In my village Kandhargarh, there used to be more than 50 beekeepers and there are now seven left. Aluna village in Ludhiana district, Tungwali in Bathinda and Fatta Maluka in Mansa also have the same situation” the president said.

Manjit Mahalpur from Hoshiarpur, who has been doing beekeeping for the last nearly three decades, said he was spending hours on the internet to see what else he could do. “I will either go abroad or will do something else,” he said. Another Sangrur beekeeper Aman Singh from Sangheri village said after not getting much prices this season, he brought pickle-making machine and left beekeeping.

The beekeepers also said the frequent use of pesticides in the fields was affecting the growth of honey bees.