Bhim Bahadur’s Bees
Bhim Bahadur’s Bees

Bhim Bahadur, 35 years old, is a poor but energetic and hard-working farmer from Ghanteswwor VDC in Doti. He moved from a different ward in his VDC around 15 years ago, in search of ‘a full stomach’, as he puts it. Bhim Bahadur initially raised goats to sustain his family. Later on he also started to keep bees, employing the traditional method of using hollow logs as bee hives. He used to earn between NRS 20,000 and NRS 25,000 per year (AUD 266-333) from 20 conventional hives, which yielded 70 to 80 kg of honey per annum.

In a sense Bhim Bahadur was doing quite well, but he was not satisfied as he started to see the potential of using modern bee hives. As a member of a savings and credit co-operative (Bar Pipal Savings and Credit), he saved money regularly. Seeing his curiosity and knowledge about honey production, the co-operative helped Bhim Bahadur to participate in a training on bee hive construction and safe and clean honey production. He immediately adopted the technology and shifted from using conventional hives to using six modern hives. He plans to keep bees for honey production in 20 to 25 modern hives within a year. Due to this shift, he sold 100 kg of honey in just six months, thus potentially doubling his income. Bhim is confident that he will be one of the leading farmers in the honey production sector in Doti district. . According to Bhim, the local area is full of resources; the only thing lacking is to harvest the available resources in a sustainable manner.

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