There was a time when beekeeping was not considered to be a source of earning in rural Assam of India. People never bothered about beekeeping except for its medicinal proprieties .They were considered nature’s gift which came in and swarmed out at their own will. As there was no use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides some decades ago ,honeybees swarmed in particularly in the season of mustard ,coriander and maize flowering and made their hives in the trees near the mustard cultivation, in ceilings of nearby houses, tables , almirahs ,in the cowsheds and wherever they found it suitable for pollen collection. Some families made holes in logs of timber and hung them around houses .Honeybees were synonymous to honey only .People did not know that honeybees are major pollinators in plants leading to the yielding of fruits , vegetables and crops .The contribution of honeybees towards feeding the rest of the creature including human beings was not known to the common people .The traditional beekeeping and unscientific process of extraction took a big toll to the lives of honeybees leading to their dwindling population .Since there was no system of reinserting the honey combs into the bee boxes after honey extraction ,as it is done in the scientific beekeeping today , it took plenty of time for the honeybees for making new combs and filling it with nectar .Young people burnt the bee hives for pranks .It was followed by another threat to the honeybees in the last two decades of the twentieth century when chemical fertilizer and pesticides started to be used.
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