The Khadi and Village Industries Commission has created a world record by giving away 1000 honey bee boxes to tribal residents in Kaziranga. According to reports, the distribution was done to mark the World Honey Bee Day on 20th May.
The distribution of the 1000 boxes was claimed as a world record for giving away the maximum number of Honey Bee boxes. The previous record was of 841 boxes distributed in Israel two years ago. KVIC chairman Vinay Saxena distributed the boxes among members of the Minshi tribe in Kaziranga.
Excellent work done by #KVIC in distribution of 1000 Bee boxes to the Mishing tribe in Kaziranga.This is a world record. Previous record was of 840 boxes by Israel. In a unique initiative KVIC will buy back honey,wax, pollen, royal jelly & bee venom.Major earning 4 beneficiaries pic.twitter.com/e31fdJ92j6
— Amitabh Kant (@amitabhk87) May 29, 2018
The KVIC also distributed 200 gram Honey bottles to schoolkids on the occasion.
Celebrated World Honey Bee Day today by distributing 200 gms Honey bottles to 500 school kids of Sankar Dev Sishu Niketan,Kohera,
Kaziranga. In all 25,000 honey bottles distributed across the country by KVIC today to celebrate the day. #worldhoneybeeday,@PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/ogWbCERFT1— Chairman KVIC (@ChairmanKvic) May 20, 2018
The KVIC has reportedly stated that it has a target of distributing 1 lakh 30 thousand honey bee boxes across the country by November 2018. So far they have distributed 27,000 boxes. KVIC is reportedly the nodal agency in the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Program (PMEGP) and it also provides loans for setting up units in villages for processing, packaging and labelling of honey. Prime Minister Modi had last year called for a ‘sweet revolution’ in the line of previous white, green and blue revolutions, to increase production of honey in the country.
We saw the green & white revolution. Time has come for the blue revolution, for fishermen & sweet revolution, for more honey production: PM
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 24, 2017
KVIC also imparts training to locals for honey production. Bees have great environmental significance and their population helps to maintain the diversity of flora and fauna. The KVIC is hopeful that the honey bee boxes would help to achieve the target of at least 30,000 kg of high-quality honey in the area.
The KVIC has selected 100 individuals for the training in Kaziranga and provided 10 boxes to each. Beekeeping in the forest areas not only help the tribals to earn a decent livelihood with minimum investment but also helps in the conservation of natural habitats in ecologically sensitive areas. The ‘Honey Mission‘ data by the KVIC states that at present India has about 2.5 lakh beekeepers and wild honey collectors maintaining about 25 lakh bee colonies and producing roughly 70,000 metric tons of honey annually. The value of the total honey produced is estimated at Rs 770 crores.
