New Institute opened in India Beekeeping in India took a further step forward with the formal opening of the new building of the Central Bee Research Institute in Pune, on 28 April 1985. India’s Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, the Honourable Mr. V. N. Gadgil opened the building at a function held under the presidentship of Mr. A. M. Thomas, Chairman of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission, the parent body of the Central Bee Research Institute (CBRI). The Minister, expressing his happiness over the pioneering work done by CBRI, said that it was important to take the results of beekeeping research to the field, with a view to increasing production. Beekeeping is one industry which can be taken up by everyone and its expansion will lead towards the village upliftment and independence visualised by Gandhi. Tracing the history of beekeeping in the country, Mr. Thomas mentioned the significant achievements made by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission in the field of development of beekeeping. There are now 800,000 bee colonies kept in 35,000 villages by nearly 200,000 beekeepers, who yearly produce over 6,000 tonnes of honey valued at RS 90 million.
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The new building of the Central Bee Research Institute in Pune.
The New Building
The new building is double storeyed, and built in a ‘T’ shape. The administration wing is in the head of the T on the ground floor, and the scientific sections are in the stem portion. There is a library wing on the upper floor accommodating books, reprints and journals from throughout the world, and also a reprographics section. The scientific sections include apiculture, bee breeding, instrumentation and rockbee on the ground floor and pollination, palynology, botany, pathology, entomology and biochemistry sections on the upper floor. A spacious seminar hall is being furnished for monthly seminars, workshops and other meetings.
A
museum is being developed in the
ground floor hall. The Institute premises also have separate buildings for a workshop and guest house. The workshop will be used for design and development of beekeeping equipment, and for testing honey processing outfits.
The origins of CBRI
The opening of the new building marked the end of the 23-year problem of accommodation for the Institute, which has up until now been housed in several small residential premises. The CBRI began in 1952 as a small apicultural research centre with Prof. G. B. Deodikar and Shri.
C. V. Thakar starting an integrated bee research programme. This was at Mahabaleshwar and was founded at the instance of Shri S. G. Shende, the then Regional Organiser of Beekeeping for the Bombay Village Industries Committee. Up until then the development programme using movable-frame bee boxes had been show-
a Honourable Mr. V. N. Gadgil, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, opening the CBRI building watched by Mr. A. M. Thomas, Chairman, Khadi and Village Industries Commission (centre) and Dr. R. P. Phadke, Director, CBRI. The Minister inaugurated the building by unveiling the plaque, cutting the ribbon at the entrance to the building and lighting the traditional lamp.
ing indifferent progress, although they had been introduced in the early 1930s. The Indian beekeeping industry had been largely forest-based, while that in the western countries was farm or orchard-based. The Indian hive bee (Apis cerana) is about one third smaller in size than the western bee (Apis mellifera), so there were great variations in beekeeping between east and west, in climate, soils, vegetation and in the bees themselves, and a new type of beekeeping management was re-
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