Hand Holding Entrepreneurs in Honey Processing and Value Addition

Abstract

Honey is a supersaturated sugary material produced mainly by honey bees from the sweet substances of plants or insect. Sources show fossilized remains of honey bees of 150 million years. At some point, humans attempted to domesticate the honey bees in artificial hives made from hollow logs, wooden boxes, pottery vessels and woven straw 'skeps'. A beehive is any container provided for honey bees to nest in. Unless the honey is consumed raw, it needs processing for prolonged storage. Honey processing involves the removal of wax and any other foreign materials from honey. Recent data shows that more and more entrepreneurs are entering into the honey processing business. India is one of the major producers and exporters of honey. Diversity of bee flora and varied agro-climatic conditions in the country offers enormous potential for the development and growth of apiculture. Asian honey bee or the native bee as it is otherwise called is the widely domesticated species in India.