Number of words: 923<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MUMBAI: After several failed attempts, Dhanesh Parashar, a 36-year-old cashew farmer from Dodamarg in the Sindhudurg district<\/a> has finally found a new ally in his struggle to keep free-ranging elephants from chomping down on his crop: honey bees<\/a>. In Maharashtra<\/a> because they\u2019re easy prey for bee-eater birds. So, we replaced them with Apis Cerana Indica, a smaller subspecies of the Indian honey bee which has lower yield of honey but better for pollination,\u201d says Kaginkar who is also developing the technology to track and interpret elephant movements, and looking at better \u201cland-use management\u201d to reduce human-elephant conflicts while allowing the animal\u2019s continued access to their forest range in the Tillari jungle. For a state with no record of resident elephants for over 100 years, the Western Ghats came to harbour around 10,000 Asian elephants since 2002 when wild tuskers \u2014 especially from the Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka \u2014 started to intrude the forests of Sindhudurg and Kolhapur<\/p>\n\n\n\n following the construction of a hydroelectric project. \u00a0While 500 active bee colonies stand guard against the behemoths at present, to fence the Tillari forestland entirely would require \u201c2000 bee boxes,\u201d points out Kaginkar. To enable more marginal farmers to adopt beehive fences, the CBRTI has joined forces to organise a series of boot camps for farmers in the next few months that will train them in modern techniques of beehive keeping and fencing. Excerpted from <\/em>https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/city\/mumbai\/bees-halt-hungry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NSyes, elephants \u2014 the largest animal on land \u2014 are afraid of bees. So intensely that the tiny insect is helping farmers shoo away marauding elephants that could wipe out a year\u2019s harvest in one night.
A \u2018beehive fencing\u2019 initiative in affected villages spanning 200 hectares of the Tillari forest land \u2014 a conservation reserve in the Dodamarg-Sawantwadi range for elephants that had wandered into Sindhudurg<\/a> from neighbouring Karnataka almost two decades ago \u2014 is bringing relief to local farmers who have desperately tried to thwart elephant incursions for years \u2014 beating drums, shouting, bursting firecrackers, tying chilli ropes, and even swinging fireballs at elephants \u2014 with little success.
This human-elephant conflict mitigation tool developed in Africa where farmers build barricades with beehives \u2014 a natural deterrent for its low-frequency buzz and pheromones that repel elephants \u2014 has turned out to be a humane way to fend off the endangered Asian elephants in Sindhudurg. The plantations \u2014 sealed off with bee boxes<\/a> on metal stands dotting its boundaries \u2014 have also reportedly improved crop yield by 30 per cent through increased bee pollination while beekeeping is helping farmers supplement their income with the sale of \u2018organic\u2019 honey and beeswax.
Parashar recounts the time when he returned to his farm one morning to find his cashew plants that had just started to flower, chomped and trampled. \u201cIt was frustrating. I thought I\u2019d abandon farming and look for an alternate livelihood when I came to know of this new technique to save crops from elephants. I erected 20 honey bee boxes around my plantation in October 2019 and since then even if the elephants wandered nearby, they never breached the fence,\u201d says an Parashar, optimistic once more about his future. \u201cMy cashew yield has increased, and as a bonus, I\u2019ve started selling honey produced by the bees.\u201d
At the helm of taming elephant crop-raiding behaviour and making a difference in the lives of small-scale farmers devastated by loss and trauma caused by it, is wildlife veterinarian couple Yuvraj Kaginkar and Madhurita Gupta of Myvets Charitable Trust and Research Centre in Mumbai who has been helping tribal communities in the Western Ghats generate livelihood through honey bee farming.
\u201cOur \u2018Asian Elephants and Bees Project\u2019 exploits the relationship that elephants have long shared with bees in their natural environment and therefore an effective way to reconcile elephants with communities with whom they share their land,\u201d says Kaginkar who is working in collaboration with the Central Bee Research and Training Institute (CBRTI).
\u201cAt first we installed Apis Mellifera or the European honey bees because they\u2019re large and therefore create a bigger buzz and yield 50kgs of honey in a year. Unfortunately, those bees don\u2019t survive I<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The elephant influx over the years led to an intense human-wildlife conflict that was novel for the forest department as well as locals. A 2019 research paper titled \u2018Trends and Patterns of Elephant Crop Raiding in Sindhudurg District, Maharashtra\u2019 by College of Forestry, Dapoli shows 9148 records of crop-raiding between 2002 and 2015. While 36 different crops were damaged with coconut (44%), rice (22%) and banana (20%) the most vulnerable, the villages worst affected were Kudal, Sawantwadi and Dodamarg. \u201cNominal compensation of around Rs 150 for a tree despite an overall loss of over Rs 2000 was another human cry,\u201d adds Kaginkar.
Although the beehive fencing project implemented in 2019 injected fresh hope among farmers, sustaining the bees in the monsoon months and intense summers was a challenge. \u201cIf the summer heat caused the wax to melt and bee colonies collapsed, monsoons washed away all the nectar,\u201d says Kaginkar who after initial trials found a resolution last year. \u201cIn May, we migrated the bee boxes to urban and hilly areas nearby and brought them back in September. This habitat restoration helped conserve both elephants and honeybees which benefited farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe main raw material required to get started is five bee colonies, honey extractor and protective equipment like bee veil and smoker which amounts to Rs 50,000. We\u2019re providing financial aid under the \u2018Honey Mission\u2019 to help beneficiaries set it up,\u201d says Sunil Pokare, assistant director, CBRTI in keeping with Kaginkar\u2019s goal of training 500 farmers in the next one year.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n