Honey farming getting popularity in Rajshahi

RAJSHAHI, Jan 1: Honey farming on mustard fields in different areas of the district has increased for the last couple of years.
It made many people, especially a good number of unemployed youths, self-reliant in the district.
Every year, when some cash crops, especially mustard and litchi, are flooded with flowers, work of the professional and amateur honey-collectors along with their appointed workers is usually geared up. Many farmers of the district are being engaged in honey cultivation on the aisles of mustard fields which added a new dimension to the agriculture, according to field sources.
Now the famers here are passing very busy time in box system bee cultivation and producing honey at different mustard fields across the district.  
According to the information of Godagari Agriculture Extension, many farmers have started box system bee cultivation and honey collection in different areas of the upazila here. In the scientific box system, there are around 50,000 to 60,000 bees in a box where one bee is female. There are five to ten bee frames in each box. These frames are called beehive.
While talking to The Daily Observer, Sumon Ahmed, a successful honey farmer in Hatnabad area under Godagari Upazila here, said that he was a poor carpenter in profession. But now he has become a self-reliant honey farmer of the village. He has built a stone house after farming bee in a scientific way. He started honey cultivation in 2013. He learnt bee farming from Jarjis Ali, director of Bengal Honey.
He stared 'Italian Apil Mol Flora' bee farming taking loan Tk 10,000 from a NGO and set up 35 bee boxes in his mustard filed. He gets 25 kilograms of honey from a bee box whereas he spent Tk 15,000 in taking care of each box in a year. He earned Tk 20,000 from per bee box, he added.
Ataur Rahman, a box system bee farmer, said that he has set up bee boxes near the high way of Rajshahi-Chapainawabganj area.  Bees go to mustard fields for collecting honey in six times per day. Bees can collect honey from one or two kilometre away from his box system beehive.
Farmer can collect one or 1.5 kilogram of honey in eight to ten days. Now per kg of honey is being sold at Tk 300. Box system bee cultivation and honey farming can be a money spinner sector if the government supports the farmers. In commercial cultivation, it can produce much honey and export it after meeting the local demand, he added.
Godagari Acting Agricultural Officer Moriam Ahmed said that farming bee at mustard filed helps increase the yield of the crops. It is very easy to set up bee box to cultivate honey in mustard filed with a little cost.
Meanwhile, farmers here have set up bee boxes in mustard fields in different areas for honey cultivation. Around 6,140 hectors of land were brought under mustard cultivation in the  year  2017, and it was 5,750 hectors of land the year before. Taking proper care of the bee, a farmer can get 300 to 400 gram of honey from an Italian Apil Mol Flora bee, she added.