Gardens fill with litchi buds

Budding ceremony in Litchi Gardens in Meherpur. From every branch of the tree, the fragrance of the buds is spreading around. Bees are flying from one flower to another humming with the scent of the buds. Litchi farmers are busy tending to the trees. On the other hand, beekeepers are spending day and night labor in collecting honey. Beekeepers have come from far and wide to collect honey. They are collecting delicious honey by putting boxes in the gap between the trees. This is the scene of litchi gardens in Rashikpur of Meherpur Mujibnagar Upazila. It is known that the honey collection starts at the beginning of March.

Beekeepers from far away started bee cultivation by contracting with various local garden owners. 2-3 laborers work in a garden to collect honey. It can be seen that the farmers have installed bee boxes in the garden to increase the production of litchi. Besides the small huts made by themselves, the bee farmers are supervising the boxes. The wooden boxes are arranged in a row under the tree. From there, swarms of bees are sitting on litchi buds. Collecting honey from the buds, the group of bees brings the honey to the hive and stores it in their respective boxes.

Farmers are collecting honey from each box every 7-8 days. Honey collected from litchi gardens is as pure as it is delicious. It is in high demand due to its good quality. Every year, beekeepers from different parts of the country come to different gardens in Meherpur to collect honey. Meanwhile, local and distant traders are buying delicious honey from the garden.

Buyers who came to buy honey said that honey farmers are collecting honey here as well as selling it. Farmer Roni Hasan and his team came here from Dinajpur after a month. Roni Hasan has been involved in this profession for 14 years. He said, we work for six months in a year. We can collect honey 3-4 times a month. Depending on the weather, more can be collected. There are 150 boxes. Each box contains 4-16 frames. We collect 250 grams to 2 kg of honey from each frame. So far we have collected 290 kg of honey. There is a possibility of collecting another 200 kg of honey.

After the collection work is finished here, the work of honey collection will start again elsewhere. At the local level, honey is being sold at Tk 600 per kg. When the honey collection is over, they take the bees with them, said Roni Hasan, a bee farmer. He also said that each box contains a queen bee, a male bee, and numerous worker bees. Worker bees flock to litchi buds to collect honey. Agriculture officer Alamgir Hossain said the yield of litchi is better by the pollination of buds by bees. As a result, bee farmers can collect more honey and earn huge amounts of money commercially, just like litchi trees that have more bees have a bumper yield.

ZH