What's the buzz in Kodagu?

Apiaries

Kodagu’s honey is known for its aroma, flavour and colour. M A Siraj points out that a GI tag for the region’s honey may well earn the district and its industrious beekeepers a place in the global market. 

The picturesque land of Kodagu and its distinct cultural flavour have never ceased to enchant visitors. Apart from memories, most visitors like to carry back with them packs of the region’s coffee and bottles of honey. While coffee plantations were introduced by the British following the occupation of the district in 1834, the honey produced in the region has sustained the livelihoods of a vast number of farmers.

One variety of honey is produced by the Coorg Honey and Wax Producers’ Marketing Cooperative Society Limited in Virajpet. The Society that was established in 1936 has stepped into its 75th year of existence. Situated in a quiet bylane of the scenic town nestled in the lap of a majestic hill, the Society’s office has an old-world charm about it. Its moss-ridden walls, wooden staircase and beam-supported tiled roof are as iconic of the edifice as the sweet merchandise it has been dispensing all through the past decades.

The Society was founded by one Shambhavanandaji in 1936 and was the first to be registered as a beekeeping society in the country. Currently, over a thousand beekeepers are enrolled as members of the Coorg Honey Society who together produce about 60,000 kg of honey a year. The Society distributes beekeeping boxes and trains the farmers in their upkeep and hygienic extraction of honey. According to K V Thimmaiah, manager at the Society, the colonies are distributed between January and March. Each farmer is given a colony of four frames with a queen bee.

The frames are filled with honey within three to four months. Thimmaiah says the Society maintains two collection points, at Bhagamandala and Birunani. In Bhagamandala, a box usually produces 50 to 60 kg of honey annually, while in Birunani the yield ranges from 30 to 40 kg. Besides, a box may yield half a kilogram of wax annually. The produce is finally brought to the Society’s office in Virajpet where the honey is filtered and heated in a refinery to be eventually sealed in bottles.

Training beekeepers

The Society has been training farmers in beekeeping, apart from providing them boxes, frames, veils, gloves and smokers used for extraction. D B Raju, the senior field trainer of the Society, has been training beekeepers for the last 24 years and has never been absent from work during his tenure.

Apis cerana is the main breed of bees used for beekeeping in Kodagu. But the district has yet another breed that is known as rock bees (apis dorsata) which build their hives either on rocks or trees, usually mango, uppali (taxillus tomentosus or hairy mistletoe), sampige (champaka)  and dhoopa trees (ailanthus malabaricum). They are large, very ferocious and produce a greater quantity of wax. Their sting could be fatal too.

The honey from these hives is extracted by the Forest Department or the Adivasi communities in the region. The district has yet another species of bees known as tetragomula or stingless bees (mulijenu in Kannada) which collect their nectar from smaller flowers. Honey extracted during different seasons and in various parts of the district carries the flavour of seasonal and regional flowers.

According to Kencha Reddy, Professor of Beekeeping at the College of Forestry, Ponnampet, beekeeping could be a highly profitable occupation with less investment, little land and virtually no use of energy. A beekeeper need not spend more time than a couple of hours a day at his apiary.

Success story

Medappa Gowda, a beekeeper from Madikeri, and a former employee of the State government’s Department of Industries and Commerce, is known for his exceptional success story in beekeeping. Gowda maintains around 350 boxes and produces about 2,000 kg of honey a year.

Practising migratory beekeeping, Gowda has been moving his boxes between Madikeri, Sullia, Gundlupet and Devarakundi to provide the bees a wider forage area and benefit from the varied seasons and flora over diverse areas. Winner of many awards at various honey festivals in the region, Gowda has been instrumental in training a vast number of beekeepers in the district.

According to Kencha Reddy, Kodagu’s honey is distinct for its aroma, flavour and colour that ranges from dark to light amber. He says that over the years, the forage area for bees has been declining because of the disappearing foliage and dwindling diversity of trees. Bees require shade-giving trees for nesting. Use of pesticides and insecticides in coffee plantations too affect the bee population.

Asked if mobile towers affect the bees, he says studies to this effect need to be undertaken in India though there have been such indications from abroad. Reddy points out that Thaisac brood disease (the disease originated from Thailand) wiped out nearly 90 per cent of the bee colonies in Kodagu in the 1990s. It was checked soon, but a constant vigil needs to be maintained.

The professor says beekeeping societies need to boost production through training in hygienic practices and safeguarding bee colonies from predator wasps or wax moths. He says squeezing of hives could even bring larval content or pollen in the final produce which could be avoided by use of honey extractors.

If Darjeeling Tea could have a GI (geographical indication) tag, why not Kodagu’s honey? Reddy says the Agricultural Scientists’ Forum at the Forestry College in Ponnampet has initiated the process and correspondence is on with relevant fora to ensure that Kodagu honey gets GI tag, which is known for its characteristic flavour.

Honey bees are effective pollinators and it is said that they contribute as much as 33 per cent to the effort involved in coffee production in the district. Rock bees are more prolific pollinators than the more common apis cerana. A GI tag for Kodagu’s honey may well earn the district and its industrious beekeepers a place in the global market.