Decline in honey production frustrates farmers

By Our Correspondent,Bardibas, Apr. 20; Honey production from the Mahottari forest witnessed a decline this year. According to bee-keeping farmers in Mahottari, honey production has unexpectedly decreased due to adverse weather conditions and attacks by predatory birds and diseases. 

After the all-around problems were seen, the bee farmers returned home before the scheduled time. The honey farmers from Khaireni of Chitwan district come to the forest area of Mahottari every year in February with hives of mellifera bees.

Along with the spring season, many plants like eucalyptus, rudilo, jamuno, camuno, sakhu, gumba, sisau bloom in the forests of Mahottari and they are considered suitable for honey production. 

Again litchi and sahijan plants begin to bloom from February in the villages of Madhesh, so honey farmers take their bees for grazing. As honey worth millions is produced from these wildflowers, honey farmers have been coming to Mahottari for bee grazing since 2007.

Suresh Basnet, a honey farmer from Khairini, said that this time, 20 beekeeping families went to Mahottari forest with 1,800 bee hives from Chitwan. 

According to him, based on last year's production, this year, the target was to produce 43,200 kg of honey worth Rs. 21.6 million from the 1,800 hives taken to Mahottari forest. He said that the production was limited to 18,000 kg.

"At the wholesale price of honey is Rs. 500 per kg, this product is only worth Rs. 9 million," Basnet said, "We have to bear a loss of Rs. 12.6 million because of the decline in the production.” Last year, Basnet recalled that he alone collected around 15 quintals of honey from 117 hives.

 This time, even though 192 beehives were brought, the production was only 7 quintals. The production has dropped by 50 per cent this year compared to last year’s production.

According to the beekeepers, honey production was affected when the nectar of the flowers dried up due to forest fires. After that, it rained two or three times in a row, so the bees could not graze smoothly and production decreased.

Arjun Karki and Ramnath Chaudhary, both honey farmers, said they had to return prematurely because they were disappointed when losses started happening everywhere. They said that due to these problems, they could extract honey only twice this year.

Ashok Basnet, another honey farmer, recalled, "In the same season of previous years, we extracted honey three to four times".

Although honey was collected in Mahottari forest till the second week of June last year, the bee farmers who are frustrated with many problems have started returning to Chitwan from the second week of April.

They said the honey collected from the forest was qualitatively and quantitatively of high quality, so they came from Chitwan.