Honeybees provide a variety of goods (honey, wax, pollen, royal jelly, propolis etc) and services (pollination) to human society and ecosystem. Across the world the bees support millions of livelihoods while also enriching the ecosystem. Beekeeping is an important enterprise to rural communities and related to agricultural and horticultural production. Even though, Uttara Kannada district has over 60% of its lands under forest cover, and about 15% under farming, the honey production is far below its expected potential. The case study conducted highlights that beekeeping could be elevated into much more profitable venture requiring small investment of capital and skilled labor for realizing high yield in comparison to other rural employment and poverty reduction programmes. We have taken into account the static performance of the bee-keeping societies, which had in their earlier days played vital role in spreading awareness on scientific bee-keeping and its profitability and assisted people in setting up bee-keeping units in their homes and helped in marketing the products.  Presently there are several individual entrepreneurs in the district who have realized the importance of bee-keeping, in a consumerist society where there is steady and rising market demand for honey as a health food, as medicine, for use in confectionaries, in pharmaceutical industry and so on. We make here certain recommendations for promotion of bee-keeping:

I. Training programmes

1. To spread awareness on the importance of honeybees and bee-keeping
2. On using wild colonies from the jungles for domestication through traditional expertise.
3. On populating new boxes in potential beekeeping regions.
4. To regulate the number of queen bees per box and screening for healthy queen bees
5. For awareness on ideal time for setting up new colonies
6. On the importance of shifting bee boxes from one place to other, say for instance from the coast to the interior and vice versa so as to maximize production taking benefit of the different times of flowering.
7. Training in dis-infestation and disease control
8. Training in protection of bee-hives from predators
9. On the importance of providing supplementary food to bees during lean periods and on the composition of such supplementary food
10. Creating awareness on pollination benefits
11. To bring home the benefits of organic farming for healthy bee keeping, for health of humans and ecosystems and for enhancing market value of farm products.

II. The role of the Forest Department
The Forest Department, controlling over 60% of the land area of the district (>6000 sq.km) has to play major role if bee-keeping is to be nurtured as an important enterprise. The departmental involvement can be envisaged as:

1. Designing the vegetational composition of the forests in the immediate vicinity of villages so as to give premium to specially bee-forage plants
2. The department to take lead in raising bee forage plant species, particularly nectar trees (an indicated in the list included in this report) in its nurseries.
3.  The coastal minor forest belt on lateritic terrain also to be enriched with bee forage plants
4. Soapnut trees (Sapindus laurifolius), indigenous to the region, needs to be raised in lakhs for planting in a variety of habitats, including household gardens, considering the high value of soapnut honey (Rs.700-1000/kg). The trees can come up even in degraded and rocky habitats  and can also provide other benefits, such as shade, water and soil conservation, leaf litter for organic manure etc. in addition to the soapnut which has market value as NTFP.
5. Many species recommended for bee-keeping has also NTFP value - for eg: Adhatoda vasica, Alangium salvifolium, Strychnos nux-vomica (medicinal), Mangifera indica, Spondias mangifera, Tamarindus indica (food value), Emblica officinalis (food and medicine) Canarium strictum, Vateria indica, Anogeissus latifolius, Acacia catechu and A. nilotica (resins and gums), Pongamia pinnata (biofuel and pesticide) and so on.
6. Forest Department to permit bee keepers to keep their bee-boxes in the peripheral forests of villages and also allow them to shift their bee boxes to other similar forest areas without affecting National Parks, Sanctuaries and other such specially protected areas.
7. The department to take lead in improving betta forests for furtherance of bee-keeping.
8. Certain special types of large trees such as Tetrameles nudiflora, on which numerous large bee-hives of Apis dorsata may be found to be declared as ‘Heritage Trees’ under the provisions of the Biodiversity Act 2002, or under any other suitable category to ensure their continued protection.
9. On realizing the potential of mangroves in production of rare kinds of honey it is recommended that the department increase the population of nectar producing mangroves like Avicennia spp. Excoecaria agallocha etc.

III. Government assistance for bee-keepers

1. People aspiring to take up bee-keeping may be given training and equipments at subsidized rates. On proper utilization of infrastructure granted the entrepreneurs of especially poorer class may be given more assistance.
2. Government to help the entrepreneurs with testing and certification of the genuineness of honey produced so as to fetch good market price for them.
3. Guidance for forest honey collectors on sustainable and safe harvesting methods.
4. Importance of organic honey production.
5. Government assistance for honey quality improvement through making available moisture reduction technique.
6. To make available ready expertise to deal with bee diseases.

IV. General recommendations

1. Honey being a nutritious food the local populace in the honey producing belt should get benefit of honey production. It is recommended that at least once a week, some sweetmeats prepared using honey, may be included in the mid-day meal programmes of the schools.
2. Contract system for collection of wild honey may be dispensed with as the contractors have only short term interest and look for maximization of profit using non-sustainable methods. The VFCs and forest dwelling traditional communities be empowered to do honey collection. The honey should be marketed as ‘forest honey’ after due purification and dehydration by the Government agencies such as the local beekeepers society. Reasonable price should be paid to the honey collectors by the societies.
3. Honey packaging to be done scientifically and in attractive cartons/bottles so as to fetch good returns for the producers/collectors. Honey from forested villages should be marketed as ‘forest honey’ so as to fetch better prices
4. Bee-keepers be trained in hygienic collection of royal jelly, bee-pollen, propolis etc. which have much higher value and demand in foreign countries, for pharmaceuticals and as health products.
5. Efforts should be made to preserve nesting sites of honey bees in the wild, as the wild bees constitute important germplasm for the domesticated ones. Branches of certain large trees in the forests and domestic gardens, tree holes, termite mounds etc. are used by bees for build their hives (Plate7.1)