CHANDIGARH: Punjab, which is the third largest producer of honey in the country, is now facing a peculiar situation. For the first time, a large number of honey bees have died in Punjab and Haryana. Due to spray of pesticides on crops like cotton, bajra, paddy, summer moong, at least 50 per cent of honey bees have died in both states. This has resulted in farmers staring at heavy losses this season.
Progressive Bee Keepers Association adviser Narpinder Singh Dhaliwal said there are around 4,000 beekeepers in Punjab alone. Each keeper has around 300 to 400 colonies (boxes) and each colony has 20,000 bees. That means that a beekeeper has at least 60 lakh bees. Dhaliwal is also the leading beekeeper in Moga.
Dhaliwal said, “The bees have died on a large scale due to pesticide sprays in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. The mortality rate of bees is between 25 and 90 per cent per beekeeper, depending upon his situation, thus on average, it is 50 per cent. While every year the bee mortality rate is between 10 to 15 per cent. Besides Punjab and Haryana, this time in Kota, Alwar and other districts of Rajasthan the mortality rate of bees was higher as in these bajra-growing regions pesticides were sprayed. Bees collect nectar from sunflowers and pollen from paddy and bajra. As per the data with National Bee Board Punjab produces 18,600 metric tonnes of honey every year and it is in the third position in the country with Uttar Pradesh with around 25,000 MT and West Bengal with 20,000 MT,” he says.
“We know that bees are dying in the US and Europe due to the use of pesticides. Sometimes pesticides are directly toxic to the bees in other cases they can basically reduce their immunity to diseases so they are adversely affected. So when bees die you can be sure there is the wider impact on other beneficial insects or other animals,” said Mark Davis, director
Agriculture and Regulatory Outreach at the Centre for Pesticide and Suicide Prevention, which is at the University of Edinburgh in the UK.While experts at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Punjab Agricultural University suspect that incidents of bee deaths were caused by insecticides and pesticides being used in bee flora of summer moong and paddy in both Punjab and Haryana and in sunflowers in Haryana and bajra in Rajasthan. As farmers depend upon pesticides to save crops and beekeepers should plan bee box migration accordingly, said an expert.