Honey cultivation on mustard field aisles gains popularity

RAJSHAHI, Dec 27: Honey cultivation on the aisles of mustard fields in the district has increased for the last couple of years.
Meanwhile, it made many people, especially a good number of unemployed youths, have become self-reliant through cultivating honey
Witnessing continuous success of others, more farmers of the district are being engaged in honey cultivation on the aisles of mustard fields which added a new dimension to the agriculture.
Now the famers here are passing very busy time in setting up honeycomb boxes beside mustard fields at different areas in the district. According to Godagari upazila agriculture office, many farmers have started box system bee cultivation and honey collection in different areas of the upazila here.
Applying scientific box system bee cultivation, around 50,000 to 60,000 bees make honey in a box where one bee is female. There have 5 to 10 bee frames in the box. Those frames are called beehive, sources added.
 Talking to The Daily Observer, Ataur Rahman, a honey cultivator of the upazila, said that he has set up bee boxes near the highway of Rajshahi-Chapainawabganj area this year.  Bees go to mustard fields for collecting honey six times a day. Bees can collect honey from one or two kilometres away from his box system beehive.
 Farmer can collect one or 1.5 kilogram of honey in per 8 to 10 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.
He demanded government's support including adequate bank loan facilities and ensuring fair price of the highly nutritious item, to help develop the prospective industry.  
Godagari Agricultural Officer Toufiqur Rahman said that there have three targets in the honey cultivation- collecting pure honey, increasing agriculture production in pollination and creating employment.
 Around 5,700 hectares of land were brought under mustard cultivation in this year and meanwhile farmers here have set up 1,000 honeycomb boxes for honey cultivation with the target of getting 9,000 kg of honey this season.