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Nitin Gadkari flags off 'Apiary on Wheels'

For the first time, a novel initiative taken by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has infused exuberance amongst the beekeepers and farmers across India. 'Apiary on Wheels', a unique concept designed by KVIC for the easy upkeep and migration of bee boxes having live bee colonies, was flagged off recently by the Union Minister of MSME Nitin Gadkari in Delhi, in the presence of VK Saxena, Chairman KVIC and KVIC Senior Management and staff.

Congratulating the Chairman KVIC, Nitin Gadkari said, "Bee Keeping looks easy but has many intricate difficulties which only a beekeeper would understand. I congratulate VK Saxena for thinking of such a novel concept for making the lives of beekeepers easy. 'Apiary on wheels' will make the migration easy, the maintenance easy, easy feeding of bees and it will also help the bees to sustain even in extreme summers."

Aligned with the vision of Prime Minister, KVIC launched Honey Mission in 2017 and has been training beekeepers, distributing bee boxes and helping rural, educated but unemployed youth to earn extra income through beekeeping activities, at their doorstep. However, bee keeping involves laborious and mentally challenging tasks such as placing the bee boxes in a strategic position so as to provide enough nector from flowers to the bees and migrating the bee boxes accordingly to fulfill the nourishment needs of the bees etc. KVIC has been continuously evolving new ways so as to make this process more easy and less laborious.

Highlighting the benefits of the Apiary on Wheels, VK Saxena said, "Apiary on wheels is a holistic approach to address the challenges faced by the beekeepers. It is designed so as to reduce the labor and cost of maintaining and upkeeping bee boxes and live bee colonies across India. This is an example of 'out of the box thinking' which KVIC has adopted to benefit maximum number of people in India and help generate livelihood at the doorsteps."

Apiary on Wheels is platform which can carry 20 Bee Boxes from one place to another without any difficulty. Two large wheels on either side of the Apiary on Wheels and 4 separate compartments with independent doors, having 5 bee boxes each help the platform to remain intact without disturbing the live bee colonies. The Apiary on Wheels is also connected with a solar panel system which automatically triggers a fan inside the compartment as soon as the temperature reaches 35 degree centigrade or above. Not only this, the Apiary on Wheels also has sugar drips which help to feed the bees in the summer season.

Saxena said, "The Apiary on Wheels is like an attachment which can be easily connected with a Tractor or a Trolley and may be pulled to any suitable destination. Especially in summers, the beekeepers usually adopted crude methods to feed the bees and many bees used to die in the process. This concept of migration, cooling with the help of solar panels and sugar drips with zero risk to the lives of bees, will prevent any damages to the bee boxes or bee colonies and help produce quality honey."

As a pilot project the Apiary on Wheels will be placed near the mustard farms near the Delhi border under the supervision of local bee keepers and KVIC and after successful implementation the concept will be replicated on a mass scale across India.

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