Your guide to beekeeping in Mumbai
Did you know that you can be a professional bee rescuer? Yes, that’s actually a job; ask Thane’s Tare Shree Sugandha Chandrakant. The former Tata Consultancy Services employee discovered this passion while overseeing a beekeeping project in Murbad for the Paryavaran Dakshata Mandal—an environmental awareness NGO. With a background in Physics and a Master’s in Biodiversity and Wildlife Conservation, Tare is now a nature educator at Golden Spiral School in Dadar, and a professional bee rescuer.
He also teaches beekeeping in Thane. “Beekeeping in a city requires planning and patience,” says Tare. “Urban areas can be surprisingly suitable for beekeeping on a small scale if there is sufficient access to plants and flowers around. Greenery is a basic requirement so that bees can get their food from plant nectar.” The closer the food source, the less effort the worker bees need to put into producing honey.
Tare advises against seeing bees as pets. “You are basically giving them an artificial home around you in which they flourish, and you are using their produce, i.e. honey, for personal use,” he explains. Tare conducts weekend beekeeping sessions over two days for groups
You can start by raising stingless bees that are less intimidating and easier to manage. The first step is to acquire an artificial beekeeping box. Purchasing these boxes online may or may not work, so it is best to consult an apiarist who can guide you about the exact size and the wood variety suitable to the bee breed. “Most people fail at beekeeping because they watch general videos on YouTube that do not take the climate, humidity, and even the bee breeds into consideration,” Tare says.
A standard-sized box for a balcony or terrace garden typically has eight wooden frames with wires (costs about Rs 5,000), and can yield about 250 grams of honey from each frame over three months. As the bees settle in and build their storage cells, the honey production cycle can shorten to just 15 days between harvests.
“Most people fail at beekeeping because they watch general videos on YouTube that do not take the climate, humidity, and even the bee breeds into consideration,” Tare says. It is crucial to understand the specific requirements of the species one chooses to tend, as a hive would abandon improper or unsuitable conditions. Even the placement of the box depends on the breed—only five breeds live in colonies; of these, three prefer light, while two thrive in darker environments.
Another important aspect is understanding hive behaviour. “Bees are wild; they don’t recognise the person who keeps them, unlike other pets like dogs and cats,” Tare says. Also, bees, like most animals, communicate through pheromones, and any sign of fear or panic can trigger a defensive response. “If a person is scared or panics, bees sense it, get defensive, and start stinging. Things can go wrong within a fraction of a second as once a bee stings, other bees attack the same spot,” he says. They do not attack by nature, says Tare, only becoming defensive when they feel threatened.
Beekeeping in Mumbai has its own set of challenges: “It rains for about four months and bees struggle to get food. Apiarists keep them alive by giving them about 50 grams of sugar and water when natural food sources are scarce,” Tare explains. Bees could flourish on leftover sugarcane pulp from juice stalls, or flowers at flower markets.
