LIFESTYLE

Krishnapada Sarkar, a 'crazy' honeybee keeper

One may call him crazy but 21-year-old Krishnapada is not so. He is a lover of honeybees. When one gets terrified hearing noise of bees this young man hears music. His love to bees is turning him a successful honeybee keeper.

Mr Krishnapada Sarkar is a resident of Dawaguri, about five kilometres from Cooch Behar town. He is fond of honeybees from his school days. He had undergone a vocational course on agriculture from Nripendra Narayan Memorial High School in Tufanganj. Since then he became a lover of honeybees and started beekeeping. His beekeeping started with two small boxes only. It became his duty to care the bees before and after the school hours.

After his father's death, Krishnapada took up beekeeping as the source of income to run the almost helpless family. One of his elder brothers runs a grocery at Dawaguri market and Krishnapada had to earn some additional money to feed the family members.

When asked, Krishnapada said he was in touch with Ramkrishna Math in Cooch Behar since his childhood. After his father's death he underwent a six-month training on beekeeping there. Later, he took training at Ramkrishna Mission Samaj Sevak Shikshan Mandir of the Belur Math at Howrah. The ten-month training under NABARD sponsored Rural Entrepreneurship Development Programme helped him a lot to learn all aspects of beekeeping. He also took a two-and-half-year special training on beekeeping at the District Industries Centre in Howrah.

As he was already familiar with honeybees, the training courses inspired him to take up beekeeping as a profession. Prior to the trainings he had to suffer many times, as he had no knowledge how to handle the bees safely. Now, he lives with the bees on his body. The friendly bees do no harm to him.

At Dawaguri, he is caring three different species of honeybees in more than ten boxes. From a box he yields about 12-kilogram honey in a year. He sells it against Rs 200 a kilogram. His love is now turning to a profitable profession. Demand to his honeys of seasonal flavours is growing up.

Though Krishnapada is known as a 'crazy boy' in his locality he had to attend calls to evict honeycombs or collect honeys from neighbours' residences. These days, Krishnapada is turning a professional beekeeper leaving his 'crazy boy' image.