Gramajanya FPC launches ‘honey at every home’ initiative by promoting stingless bee keeping

Gramajanya FPC promotes meliponiculture in urban areas, offering stingless bee colonies for honey production and value-added products.

Gramajanya Farmers’ Producer Company (FPC) Ltd., Puttur in Dakshina Kannada, which is into promoting apiculture has launched ‘honey at every home’ initiative to promote meliponiculture (stingless bee keeping) in urban areas of the district.

The target of the FPC is to promote it mainly in Mangaluru city among other urban areas, Ramapratheek Kariyal, a director of the company told The Hindu.

The average annual yield of honey from a stingless bee colony stood at 300 grams. Since it is in high demand due to medicinal properties the honey is being sold between ₹2,000 a kg to ₹3,000 a kg “If it is sold at ₹2,200 a kg in Karnataka the honey fetches ₹3,000 in Kerala,” he said.

The FPC will arrange the bee box with the colony of stingless bees to urban dwellers on demand on the price fixed by the FPC. Since there is no fear of sting bite anybody can go for meliponiculture. People living in apartments, individual homes and gated communities can take up this bee keeping, he said.

Meliponiculture does not demand much maintenance, but if bee keepers need, the FPC can maintain it.

In the local parlance stingless bees are called mujenti jenu.

The FPC makes value-added products of honey and bee wax. It is into contract farming of apiculture in Karnataka since 2021 and is in the process of setting up a honey and bee wax processing unit with an in-house testing laboratory, cold storage and marketing centre at Puttur. The National Bee Board (NBB), under Mini Mission II of the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission, has extended financial assistance to it for the purpose through the Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium.