World Bee Day

World Bee Day was celebrated recently with great enthusiasm with the Union Agriculture Minister stating that the government is working very seriously under the guidance of Prime Minister to bring about a “Sweet Revolution” in the country.

Details –

• The centrally funded scheme, ‘National Beekeeping and Honey Mission’ aims to establish 5 big regional and 100 small honey and other Bee Products testing laboratories, out of which 3 world class state-of-the-art laboratories have been setup, whereas 25 small laboratories are in the process of being set up.
• The Government of India is also providing assistance for setting up of Processing Units. More than 1.25 lakh metric tonnes of honey is being produced in the country, out of which more than 60 thousand metric tonnes of natural honey is exported.
• In order to bring qualitative upgradation of domestic honey to attract the world market, the Government of India and the State Governments are making concerted efforts and focusing on capacity building of bee keepers for production of honey by adopting scientific techniques.

About the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission –

• Keeping in view the importance of beekeeping as part of the Integrated Farming System in the country, government approved the allocation for Rs. 500 crore for National Beekeeping & Honey Mission (NBHM) for three years (2020-21 to 2022-23). The mission was announced as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat scheme package.
• NBHM aims for the overall promotion & development of scientific beekeeping in the country to achieve the goal of ‘Sweet Revolution’ which is being implemented through National Bee Board (NBB).
• The main objective of NBHM is to promote holistic growth of beekeeping industry for income & employment generation for farm and non-farm households, to enhance agriculture/ horticulture production, developing infrastructural facilities, including setting up of Integrated Beekeeping Development Centre (IBDC)s/CoE, honey testing labs, bee disease diagnostic labs, custom hiring centres, Api-therapy centres, nucleus stock, bee breeders, etc. and empowerment of women through beekeeping.

About the World Bee Day’ –

• The United Nations (UN) celebrates 20th May as World Bee Day. It was earlier proposed by Slovenia and accepted by United Nations as ‘World Bee Day’.
• Slovenia plays an essential role in the beekeeping industry worldwide. It also helps the country in the development of its agricultural industry.
• The World Bee Day 2022 theme is: “Bee Engaged: Celebrating the diversity of bees and beekeeping systems.”
• Bees play an important role in food and food security, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity, and also contribute to the mitigation of climate change and the conservation of the environment. It’s useful for the agricultural industry as protection of bees helps in indirect cultivation of certain plants which preserve a healthy environment and biodiversity.