Meghalaya To Have NE’s First Honey Bee Development Centre

Staff Correspondent

Shillong: Meghalaya is all set to have Northeast’s first honey bee integrated development centre. This decision was made by the National Bee Board after taking into account the popularity of local honey in Europe and certain South Asian countries. The disclosure was made on Tuesday during an interactive programme held in Shillong where the Director of National Bee Board Dr BL Sarawat was present. An amount of Rs 10 crore has been earmarked for the centre.

Outlining the “Bee Mission”, State Additional Chief Secretary, who is also incharge of the “Farmers Mission”, KN Kumar said that the people involved in apiculture will be benefited from the announcement to start such a centre. “Notwithstanding the unscientific (traditional) way of bee keeping, their market has spread overseas and that is why we harped on the farmers to imbibe scientific ways to earn more from what they have inherited”, stated Kumar.

Referring to the bee colonies that stand at around 5 lakh in Meghalaya, Kumar said if the 7,000-odd trained farmers could live up with the knowledge, we can produce the honey demand from foreign countries.

BL Sarawat said in course of our evolution, we should also adopt scientific ways of maintaining our bees. “If you know the scientific art of bee-keeping, it is a gold mine”, he said.

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