Dil Bahadur Khatri and his bees depend upon mustard for the production of honey. Khatri owns 20 hives of bees in Surkemela of Myagdi.
Khatri, who had been cultivating oranges for 11 years at Surkemela in Beni Municipality-4 of Myagdi, has started beekeeping since 2015. Khatri, who went to Dubai in 2002 for work, came back to Nepal after two years. Khatri even went to Malaysia for foreign employment. After returning from Malaysia, Khatri started thinking of cultivating oranges in his own backyard. Khatri says that he was interested in orange farming and later beekeeping as he was not earning well with foreign employment. The 200 orange trees in his 10 ropanis of land are providing stable income.
He has sold six lakh oranges this year alone. Seeing a decent income in oranges, he has rented 10 ropanis of barren land near his house and has now planted 200 new orange saplings. Khatri's house is also in Baglung Municipality-4 Rametar. He is focused on expanding bee farming in Rametar and orange cultivation in Surkemela.
Khatri, who has been rearing bees of the local Serena species, has chosen Baglung as his beekeeping area for the past two years. He has been earning more from bee hives than from bee honey. Khatri said that he earned Rs. 1,045,000 from the sale of hives with 110 bees last year alone and Rs. 113,000 from the sale of one quintal of honey.
"Our income is annual. This year, I have earned more than Rs 1.7 million by selling oranges, beehives and honey," said Khatri. "My investment has reached Rs. 2 million."
The hive with bees is more profitable than the hive with honey, the hive with bees costs Rs 9,500, the empty hive costs Rs 3,500. "It costs Rs 1,300 per kg of honey," said Khatri.
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