Making a beeline

Beekeeping has been a male-dominated profession. The Tenacious Bee Collective by Malini Kochupillai and Kunal Singh has attempted to involve women in allied activities such as harvesting beeswax

Malini Kochupillai and Kunal Singh started the Tenacious Bee Collective in a small village in Kangra district near Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, in 2018. They wanted to bring unpasteurised Himalayan honey to consumers, while also addressing some of the systemic problems faced by the region. On the one hand was the lack of opportunities and exposure for the youth. On the other, were the problems faced by beekeepers in the state: a declining bee population brought about by the destruction of local ecology to make way for infrastructural projects, low financial returns causing beekeepers to leave the profession, exploitative methods that beekeepers were forced to practise with their bees, which included extracting honey before it matured and in excessive quantities. This would lead to circulation of low-grade honey in the market.

"It is a vicious cycle that affects everyone from the grassroots to the consumer," says Kochupillai, explaining how as part of large commercial operations, bees are often sucked dry of all their nectar and then pumped with antibiotics to increase their productivity. Further, in commercial beekeeping, the insects are also carried around as plants flower through seasons, this transportation stressing them out and in turn impacting their productivity and health. At the Tenacious Bee Collective, the founders, contrastingly, through a small and involved set-up, identify locals who keep bees, harvesting small amounts of honey while also lending the beekeepers year-round support and equipping them with the skills and exposure to become entrepreneurs themselves. Over their three years, the collective has been able to create a small network of beekeepers operating across the state, persuading them to follow good beekeeping practices and ethical standards of harvesting. "We give them premium rates so that they are not exploiting their bees, and the bees have enough food and sustenance for lean flowering periods and are, therefore, healthier in the next season," says Kochupillai.

The collective is currently offering three varieties: the shisham, litchi and Kangra forest honeys, and will source multiflora honey from Bharmour and Lahaul and Spiti, and Chichiri honey, made from the nectar of the Indian Borage, later in the year

Through extensive research, which involves digging through ethnobotanical and medical journals, as well as consultations with scientists and horticulturists, they go into pristine areas in Himachal Pradesh to harvest the honey. "The honey has the properties of the flower the bee makes it from. We go into areas free of pesticides or other man-made interventions," informs Singh. "If you go into Punjab to harvest sarson or jamun honey, with their industrial-scale operations and spraying [of pesticides], the bees will bring back honey, which will contain pesticides. Plus, the continuous inhalation of these pesticides make them sick." The collective currently has three varieties - the shisham, litchi and Kangra forest honeys, and will source multiflora honey from Bharmour and Lahaul and Spiti, and Chichiri honey, made from the nectar of the Indian Borage, later in the year. Kochupillai and Singh have also been able to train local women in allied activities such as harvesting beeswax to make candles and lip balms. Beekeeping has traditionally been a male-dominated profession, which they say, women have avoided for the fear of the sting.

Malini Kochupillai and Kunal Singh

The pandemic hasn't hit the collective too hard. While honey sales have steadily grown as people have become more conscious of its immunity-boosting properties, it has also brought them closer to the community, say the former Delhi residents. Being in the village helped them understand the ways in which they could intervene at the local level. "From the get-go, we wanted to develop a private limited company because we wanted to promote the idea that socially- and environmentally-conscious businesses do not need to be based on a neo-liberal capitalist model where you are only extracting for your profits," says Kochupillai, who believed that even within a commercial model, it was possible to work towards the advancement of all the players. Mountain homes have had the tradition of making niches in walls for bees to make hives in, she says, pointing out how reciprocity has been central to this inter-species relationship. "I think it is possible for businesses to be reciprocal in their actions [too]. If you're taking honey from the bees, it is only natural that you should do something for them in return."

To buy the honey sourced by the Tenacious Bee Collective, visit: https://tenaciousbee.com/shop