Union Minister of MSME Shri Nitin Gadkari on February 13, 2020 flagged off ‘Apiary on Wheels’ in New Delhi.
What is ‘Apiary on Wheels’ ?
- Apiary on Wheels is a unique concept designed by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) for the easy upkeep and migration of Bee Boxes having live Bee colonies.
- According to the KVIC, Apiary on wheels is a holistic approach to address the challenges faced by the beekeepers.
- It is designed so as to reduce the labour and cost of maintaining and upkeeping Bee Boxes and live bee colonies across India.
- It is a platform which can carry 20 Bee Boxes from one place to another without any difficulty. Two large wheels on either side of the Apiary on Wheels and 4 separate compartments with independent doors, having 5 bee boxes each help the platform to remain intact without disturbing the live bee colonies.
- The Apiary on Wheels is also connected with a solar panel system which automatically triggers a fan inside the compartment as soon as the temperature reaches 35 degree centigrade or above.
- The Apiary on Wheels also has sugar drips which helps to feed the bees in the summer season.
- The Apiary on Wheels is like an attachment which can be easily connected with a Tractor or a Trolley and may be pulled to any suitable destination. Specially, in summers, the beekeepers usually adopted crude methods to feed the bees and many bees used to die in the process. This concept of migration, cooling with the help of solar panels and sugar drips with zero risk to the lives of bees, will prevent any damages to the bee boxes or bee colonies and help produce quality honey.
KVIC launched Honey Mission in 2017 and has been training beekeepers, distributing Bee Boxes and helping rural, educated but unemployed youth to earn extra income through beekeeping activities, at their doorstep.
