Tangail district is well known for growing the oilseed mustard, and yellow mustard fields now brighten almost every field in the district. Taking advantage of the crop, beekeepers have set up rows of bee boxes around the fields as a companion enterprise. The bees kept in these boxes collect nectar from the mustard flowers and store honey in the boxes, and beekeepers are now busy harvesting it.

Travelling around the district, bee boxes can be seen beside almost every mustard field, and farmers are extracting honey from them. The honey is bought by traders who come from different parts of the country, and the farmers are making money. But they say they would profit more from beekeeping if the government helped them.

Honey farmer Md Mamun said he had been extracting honey from mustard for the past 15 days using 250 boxes. Because of bad weather, honey output is somewhat lower, he said.

Aminur Rahman, a beekeeper from Santosh Ghoshpara in Tangail municipality, told Dhaka Tribune he had set up more than a hundred bee boxes in mustard fields this year and had so far collected 10 maunds of honey. Much less honey is being collected because of bad weather, and many bees have died, he said. Setting up the boxes this year cost him about Tk 1.5 lakh, and three labourers work for him every day.

Another farmer, Dulal Talukder, said he was harvesting honey with 370 boxes. "When the weather is bad the bees do not come out of the boxes, but production will rise once the weather improves in a few days. I collect honey from mustard fields for four months of the year, and for another six months honey is produced artificially by feeding the bees sugar. All my household expenses depend on this. If the government helped us, we would profit more from beekeeping," he said.

According to the district office of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), mustard was grown on 41,700 hectares in the district this year. But only about 5,000 bee boxes were set up this season, 5,000 fewer than last year.

"Although more mustard than targeted has been grown in the district this year, the number of bee boxes has fallen. This time the target is to collect 100 maunds of honey from the boxes. Farmers are not getting a price for honey in the market; many have still not been able to sell all of last year's honey. Because of this, many have changed profession," Abdur Razzak, deputy director of the Tangail DAE, told Dhaka Tribune.

"Keeping bees beside mustard fields raises mustard yields by 15 to 20 per cent through pollination. Mustard farmers used to stop beekeepers from setting up boxes on their land, but they no longer do so. We have a project through which we have helped farmers in various ways," he added.

Source: Dhaka Tribune. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.