Market concerns for beekeepers

But he said that 70 quintals of honey are now stored at home as the honey produced in recent times did not find a market. Basnet, who carries bees in the hive and goes all over the country to forage bees at the places where the flowers bloom according to the season, has been foraging bees in Bardiwas of Mahottari since last February.

Since February, since the season of flowers such as sweet sugar (Vicks), lychee, gumpate etc. blooms in this district, not only Basnet, but dozens of beekeeper farmers are in various villages and forest areas including Bardiwas of Mahottari for beekeeping. Basnet said that in just 3 months of this season, 22 quintals of honey were produced by keeping bees in different places of Bardiwas. "There is production, but there is no sale," he said.

Arjun Karki, who came to Bardiwas for beekeeping, said that there is no day for farmers to be happy that honey has been produced. He said that the government of Nepal is not interested in the fact that the honey beekeepers are dying because honey imported from India is being sold cheaply as a Nepali product. He said that if the tax on honey from India is not increased, the honey produced by Nepali farmers will not get the market.

He alleged that various companies are misrepresenting the honey imported from India as Nepali honey in the Nepali market and selling it by adding different colors and chemicals even to the purity of the honey.

Farmers who have been raising their families by keeping bees have stopped selling honey and now they have to go to foreign jobs to support their families, he said. Not only from Chitwan, now dozens of farmers from East Jhapa to the West are producing honey with great effort by grazing bees in Mahottari. But instead of selling honey from the production area, it is taken to the farmer's house and stored. He said that there is a situation.

He lamented that the honey produced by beekeeping in Dang, Rupandehi, Jhapa and other districts was not sold before February. Karki said that now in Mahottari, commercial beekeepers with more than 2200 beehives are conducting beekeeping. Karki said that it is too late to return home after selling the honey produced from Mahottari, but when the honey is not sold, it is creating a sad situation that one has to take the honey home and store it and find a loan to support the family.

Ramprasad Paudel, former president of Nepal Beekeepers Federation and head of Chitwan Bee Zone, said that not only one or two farmers, but 28 to 30,000 farmers who produce honey as a whole, are not selling honey. He said that in the previous years, international companies such as Dabur Nepal, Patanjali and others bought honey from Nepalese farmers and did business with up to 2.5 million farmers a year.

Honey produced in large quantities from India comes to Nepal at a low cost and when the companies start buying it cheaply, the companies start demanding the same price from them and the cost doesn't even rise. Paudel said that the sale could not be made. Paudel said that initiatives have been taken with the local level, state and federal government for the honey market, but it has not been easy yet.

He said that the honey business is becoming very poor after the covid.

From April to August, the flowers do not get juice, wind and rain affect the bees during this time, the farmers said that it costs 462 rupees per kg to save the bees, the transportation costs and the wages of the farmers. Arjun Karki, a farmer, said that honey could not be sold because the companies have set the price of honey in a way that does not raise the cost. Farmers say that because the honey produced from Chiuri and Tori starts freezing normally after a few months, people are misled that the honey that freezes is adulterated and sold by different companies with chemicals.