Trevor asked:
> Can Peter fill us in on how they "extract" and "process" their honey?
> What equipment is used etc.?

The equipment that I saw was very basic - hand-operated extractors (I guess
that labour is cheap) and honey stored in galvanised tanks holding perhaps
500lbs each.  Bottling was done manually into old spirit bottles (but one
beekeeper did use new caps!) - conveniently, a 75cl bottle holds 1kg of
honey (goodness knows who empties that many Scotch bottles!).
To be fair, I was out with small(ish) outfits in the forest, with up to 2500
hives and concentrated more on the beekeeping (mellifera, cerana and
Trigona) than on the extracting and marketing side (the holiday was not
primarily a 'beekeeping' holiday and coincided with the very start of the
flow from rubber - so there was no extracting in progress).  I am planning
to return next year and will hope to find out much more.

Tamil Nadu is probably much more advanced than Kerala as far as beekeeping
is concerned (it has the highest production of the Indian states) and I hope
one day to be able to explore there.  It would certainly seem that Tamil
Nadu is more likely to be in a position to export than Kerala at present,
but there is tremendous potential; most of the honey in the south comes from
the rubber plantations - and Kerala has 550,000 acres of them!

In 2003 we were in the North of India and saw many hives beside the road
from Jaipur to Agra - mile after mile of mustard in full flower and apiaries
with hundreds of colonies (mellifera) at intervals of perhaps 1/4 or 1/2
mile.  Production must have been good, given the conditions, but extracting
honey in a tent on-site would probably not go down too well with our
authorities!
 http://www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/Newsletters/March2003.htm

Peter Edwards
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www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/

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