Fifty women from indigenous communities across Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been trained to rear honeybees, providing them with a better alternative to traditional wild honey collection.Women report that beekeeping is strengthening their financial independence while fostering community resilience.Using native Asian honey bees offers ecological and agricultural benefits beyond honey production.
Neelavathi (37), an Irula woman from Vazhaithottam village in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris district, has had several reasons to celebrate over the past few months — a new occupation, a higher income, and enough money to celebrate the annual festival at her village temple, Mariyamman Kovil.
“I have already sold around six litres of honey,” she says with pride. “Since I am the beekeeper at home, my family lets me keep the income for my own needs.” Apart from buying new clothes for herself and her kids, Neelavathi could buy two stone dosa griddles with the income from honey sales over time.
Nine Irula women from the Sigur Plateau, including Neelavathi, gathered in a small community hall in Vazhaithottam to share with Mongabay-India their experiences of learning beekeeping. Over the past year, they have been trained to manage bee colonies in hive boxes, grow fruit trees that provide nectar for the bees, and harvest honey — an enterprise that has significantly boosted their household incomes.
