> The plantations — sealed off with bee boxes on metal stands dotting its boundaries — have also reportedly improved crop yield by 30 per cent through increased

> The plantations — sealed off with bee boxes on metal stands dotting its boundaries — have also reportedly improved crop yield by 30 per cent through increased bee pollination while beekeeping is helping farmers supplement their income with the sale of ‘organic’ honey and beeswax. > “At first we installed Apis Mellifera or the European honey bees because they’re large and therefore create a bigger buzz and yield 50kgs of honey in a year. Unfortunately, those bees don’t survive in Maharashtra because they’re easy prey for bee-eater birds. So, we replaced them with Apis Cerana Indica, a smaller subspecies of the Indian honey bee which has lower yield of honey but better for pollination,” says Kaginkar who is also developing the technology to track and interpret elephant movements, and looking at better “land-use management” to reduce human-elephant conflicts while allowing the animal’s continued access to their forest range in the Tillari jungle. What an innovative idea and interesting research!