Honey biz goes sour for beekeepers

Honey is no longer a sweet deal for beekeepers of the region. Fed-up with the National Bee Board's (NBB) failure to ensure the sale of mustard honey to companies or address the issue of "massive adulteration", they have given a call for protest in Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan on March 10.

They are caught in a sticky situation as 30,000 tonnes of mustard honey, extracted in the past few months is lying stored in the three states as companies, including some of the big brands, have refused to buy, citing "zero demand." Pushed to the wall, they have also decided to return the registration certificates given by the NBB.

Beekeepers say that the companies and the middlemen tell them that there is no demand for honey in the market, but reality is different. "The truth is that most of the companies are selling sugar and corn syrup in the name of honey because they are getting it at Rs 40-50 per kg. We just want fair rates for our honey and an end to adulteration," alleged Rajesh Jakhar, who heads Madhu Kranti Bee Farmers' Welfare Society (MKBWS), an association that fights for the beekeepers' welfare. The adulteration can be detected only by using advanced techniques.

Jakhar said they had been demanding that the NBB get honey samples tested for adulteration using advanced techniques like Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS), but the board members have done nothing. "They did not intervene even when the companies pressured the beekeepers to lower the mustard honey rates in Jan," he pointed out.

companies agreed to buy mustard honey at Rs 118 per kg in Jan this year following protests from beekeepers, but only for a few days. "The viable rate for mustard honey is Rs 135 per kg after adding expenses, but we still agreed to lower the price. In 2020, beekeepers sold honey for as low as Rs 60 per kg, and after much effort, we brought the rates above Rs 100 last year, and now the companies are refusing to buy. The NBB should intervene, or otherwise, the beekeeping industry is finished," said Prafull Arya, a member of the MKBWS.

In winter, thousands of beekeepers from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab migrate with their colonies of Apis Mellifera bees, mostly to the plains of Haryana and Rajasthan, for the mustard honey season and spend the next few months till March setting up apiaries and extracting honey. It's a beneficial season due to comparatively higher honey production and good returns. However, this year, beekeepers have been forced to dump their honey with middlemen without charging a single penny.

Laxman Thakur, a beekeeper from Himachal's Kullu district, says this year has been the worst. "Instead of taking the honey back to Himachal, I have given it to a trader, who will pay me when the companies start buying. It's really a bleak situation for beekeepers," he added.

He suggests having a minimum support price for honey if the NBB wants to keep commercial beekeeping alive in the country.

Azhar Ali, a beekeeper from Kashmir, who extracted around 7,500 kg of mustard honey over the last three months has not been able to sell even a single drop. "The NBB gave me this certificate promising it would ensure my future. But I am going to return it, they can even keep my bee boxes if they want," he said.

Established in 2000 and reconstituted in 2006, the National Bee Board, which is under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, works to increase honey production in the country by promoting scientific and commercial beekeeping and creating financial opportunities for beekeepers.