Honey bees to ward off elephants in north Bengal from raiding crops, reduce human deaths

Wild honey extracted from the tiger-infested mangrove forests of the Sunderbans in West Bengal is widely known for its purity and therapeutic uses. Now for the first time, honey will be produced through apiaries in the villages located inside and in the fringes of the Buxa Tiger Reserve and Jaldapara National Park in north Bengal.

Located at the foothills of the Himalayas, while Jaldapara is known for its elephants and rhinoceros, a tiger was recently spotted at the BTR after almost two decades. Man-animal conflict is high in the region because of its ever growing elephant population and fragmented forests.

“This is for the first time that honey will be produced though apiculture by villagers living inside and in the fringes of Jaldapara and BTR. Around 10,000 kilos of honey would be produced in the first year and then we intend to scale it up,” said Surendra Kumar Meena, district magistrate of Alipurduar.

Officials said that the project is intended to bring down the man-elephant conflict in the region. West Bengal accounts for the second highest number of man-elephant conflict incidents in the country after Odisha. Between 2015-16 and 2019-20 at least 430 people have been killed by elephants in the West Bengal. Most of the deaths took place in north Bengal.

With conservation efforts the elephant population in the state has shot up from around 175 in 1989 to around 700 at present. In north Bengal the elephant population is more than 600.

“While on one hand it would help generate alternative livelihood for the villagers and stop them from going inside the forest thus cutting down chances of encounters with wild animals, the beehives in the villages may also prevent elephants from coming into the villages,” said Parveen Kaswan, deputy field director of BTR.

Reducing human interference in the BTR may also go a long way in bringing back the tigers. While on one hand the dwindling prey base of tigers like chital and sambar, because of fading grasslands, has been cited as one of the reasons behind the disappearance of the big cat in BTR, human interference in the forest has been another primary reason.

“Since a tiger was spotted in the BTR in December 2021, efforts are being taken to increase the grasslands. But we also need to minimize the human interference in the forest. Providing an alternative livelihood in the form of apiculture may help us to achieve this objective,” said a senior forest official.

The project is being funded by the district administration and the forest department is providing all the support. The district administration is also coming up with an apiculture training centre where villagers could be trained to scale up the production in the next few years.

“To start with we are providing around 600 boxes each in Jaldapara area and BTR area. The district administration has already provided a fund of more than ₹2 crores. A few thousand people would be benefitted. We would be also launching a brand to market the honey in a day or two. First it would be sold through stalls in the district and later it would be available online too,” said Meena.

Experts, however, have a different view when it comes to warding off elephants with the honey bees even though they said that apiculture would certainly help them with an alternative employment thus preventing them from going inside the forest.

“Beehive fencing may work at a very local scale, may be to save a few individual houses, but it won’t work on a large scale past experiences in Africa and Sri Lanka have shown. Elephants tend to come back through alternative routes to raid croplands. But the effort will certainly help the villagers with alternative livelihood and is a welcome measure,” said Raman Sukumar, elephant expert and noted ecologist from Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru.