Busy as a bee? Learn more about their lives.
As you know honey has long been used in various foods and beverages as a sweetener and flavoring agent. It has high nutritional and medicinal properties too. So it is used in various medicinal traditions to treat ailments from times immemorial.
A group of children of Nirmala Higher Secondary school at Kabanigiri near Pulpally have produced a 30 minutes documentary titled ‘Thaen Thully' (Honey Drops) on different aspects of apiculture (bee keeping).
“Apiculture is a growing industry in Wayanad district, especially the Pulpally area as the environment is quite suitable for it and even children can do this under the supervision of their parents,” P. V. Roy, a teacher and director of the documentary, said.
This 30 minute documentary depicts all the aspects of apiculture including the basics of apiculture, separating honey bee colonies, the honey extracting from honeycombs by the help of modern gadgets and interviews with the honey keepers and the tribal men, who collect wild honey using traditional methods.
Honey bees play an important role in the natural process. Their study can be fascinating. Children too can be bee-keepers.
“Though we were afraid to approach the honey bees, first, as we feared they would sting us, after a few days with the bee keepers and the tribal people who collect the wild honey from the honey hives on the top of huge trees in side the forest, the fear vanished,” said Ashly George, a Std IX student of the school.
“When we learned more about the methods they followed the fear became fascination,” said Neema Zachaiya, another student.
The honey collection methods of the tribal men from the hives on top of huge trees inside the forest in the night is the main focus of the documentary.
The documentary also depicts the various species of honey bees usually seen in the district .The wild honey bees make their honey hives on the branches of big trees.
Rock Bees (Apis Dorsata), Indian Little Bees (Apis florea), Small sting less Bees (belong to the Trigona species) and the common Honey Bees (Apis Cerana Indica) are the wild honey bees commonly seen in the Wayanad forest.
The 30 minute documentary has been produced by the Honey club and Film club members of the school as a part of their science project.
P. Madhu, teacher of the school and script writer, was the cameraman.