Ryots get bee boxes to keep jumbos away in Karnataka

The mangaluru the khadi and village industries commission (Kvic) distributed bee boxes and live colonies to 35 farmers in sullia as part of a project to reduce elephant attacks using bees. The chairman of Kvic, Manoj Kumar, spoke on the sidelines of a program to handover the boxes. He said that through the project, bee fences are created by setting up bee boxes in the pathways of elephants to block them from entering human territories. He said that the boxes are connected with a string so that when elephants attempt to pass through a tug or pull causes the bees to swarm the elephant herds and dissuade them from progressing further. Ramasamy said that the project is taken up in kodagu and sullia and aims at providing sustainable employment and income to rural and urban unemployed youth, conserving the honeybee habitat, and tapping into unutilised natural resources. He said that it promotes beekeeping for increasing crop productivity and pollination as well as provides an avenue for beekeepers to farmers. According to an estimate, over 1000 people have died in elephant attacks in the country in the last three years, around 500 people are killed in elephant attacks and 100 elephants are killed in retaliation annually. There have been several instances of crop damage in sull