Kavita Yaduvanshi Beekeeper – Madhya Pradesh

Kavita Yaduvanshi, Beekeeper, Chhindwara, MP, is a 28-year-old-pioneer woman beekeeper from Umradi village in Jamai block. She lives with her family of eight consisting of her husband, three kids, parents-in law, brother-in law, and grandmother-in law. Prior to attending the awareness programme conducted by UTMT in her village in 2017, Kavita had no idea about beekeeping. She used to work with Saksham Swasth Samiti, a govt. healthcare scheme. It was after she saw Sanju (local master trainer) transfer bees into a box during the awareness meeting an interest grew within her and it was then that she decided to attend UTMT’s training on Bees for Poverty Reduction.

She is an enthusiastic and keen beekeeper and started performing division of her bee colonies after attending just the two-day basic training on beekeeping. In 2017, after placing her first bee box, within a few months she filled two more boxes with the help of division. However, as poor luck would have it, the queen in one box had died and the two other boxes absconded due to harsh weather conditions. However, this did not stop Kavita from continuing to be a beekeeper; she was determined to fill her bee boxes again. She continued maintaining and keeping the box clean which eventually led to a queen bee settling in. Since then she has again managed to do two more divisions and is again a proud owner of three bee boxes.

Kavita’s farm has vegetables such as Bottle Gourd, Lady Fingers, Tomatoes, Potatoes, Bitter Gourd, Mustard, Sesame and Green Peas and she has seen both quantitative and qualitative impact on her crops due to beekeeping. In 2018 – 2019, they earned a total income of Rs. 15,057 from the sale of crops while in 2017-2018, they earned a total income of Rs. 15,070.As it can be seen in the table below, although she has had a better yield after beekeeping in 2018-2019 her income has not increase much, this is because the amount of self-consumption of crops grown by them has also increased.

Tulsiram, Umradi – Madhya Pradesh

Tulsiram is another small farmer who lives in Umradi village of Jamai block with his wife and two kids. He owns 3 acres of land and has one bee box in his wadi.

Before UTMT’s intervention, he was not aware that bees canbe kept in a box. But now he is growing confident each day and getting over his fear of bees. For the last one yearsince he started beekeeping, he has seen an increase in both quantity and quality of his produce. The changes noticed by him in the field were so good that he does not feel the need to use fertilizers anymore. The fruits and flowers are of better quality with finer and bigger shape and color.

His Green pea (Batana) produce is shinier, bigger and riper and tastes better. Before beekeeping, he would get 0.5 quintals of it and now it is yielding 3 quintals on the same area. Bees can also be seen working on his pumpkin and sponge gourd.

Earlier, their farm’s produce would only suffice their own daily consumption but now with an increase in crop yields, he can sell the surplus of fruits and vegetables easily and earn R. 200-250 daily.

This additional income has helped him save for the family and kids’ future to give them a better education. He proudly recalls thetime when he was in an urgent need of money to pay the fees for his son’s school and he just went to the nearby market selling his surplus produce which he credits to the bees!