Bijay Kumar Bir is a progressive bee-keeping farmer from Angul district in Odisha. He is owner of the brand "Minibala Beekeeping Production Unit" and has released his video on FTB. In the video he shares his knowledge and experience with you. He believes that practice makes perfect and with practicals you will learn much more. He shows us his tools of the trade to help you setup a bee keeping farm.
There are different type of bees you can work with, Indian or foreign and different types of bees produce different quantity and quality of honey, in different regions. Which bees are best for your area you will learn with experience. He received his training in bee keeping from OUAT (Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology), which is based in Bhubaneswar.
He applied what he learnt from OUAT into practice by starting a bee keeping farm. He started with 3 boxes, for bee keeping, and he did not have any experience but he worked hard. Today he has 120 boxes, out of which 80 are production boxes and 40 are nucleus boxes. Anyone can work in bee keeping, but you need to be confident when handling the bees.
If you are planning to start a bee keeping business, you must train yourself. In Odisha you can attend training sessions, of varying period, organized by OUAT and Khadi Board. After the training you must consult the bee keepers in your locality who will provide you guidance and advise which will be as useful as your training. The books from which you learn are important but practical knowledge is even more important.
He continued that there are two important things with bee keeping - one is the honey you get and the other is the bee sting that you have to guard yourself against. The bees don't attack and sting unless they sense danger. You will learn with experience, how to treat bees, how to handle them and to collect honey without being stung by the bees.
Another aspect of bee keeping is where you place your boxes. The type of honey you get depends on the plants that are around the boxes and from which the bees can collect nectar for the honey. Different flowers grow in different seasons in Odisha, hence you get different type of honey in different seasons. You can harvest honey 2-3 times in a year from your boxes.
Then he describes the process of collecting honey. You must always use mask and gloves. You must keep a smoke sprayer handy in case the bees get angry. You should use custom made stands to place boxes on, so that insects don't eat up the honey. You must be extremely careful while opening and closing the boxes, making sure that the bees don't get offended. You should have good outer coverings for the box. In rainy or other seasons when the nectar is not available for the bees, you can give the bees artificial food.
He said for purchase, training and advice you can contact him at 9861935529. You can contact him also for bee keeping equipments and for marketing of honey. He finally thanked Krishi Jagran for providing him the opportunity to showcase his experience and knowledge.