Farmers, who received honeybees under the National Horticulture Mission, say that the boxes supplied by the government were of substandard quality. They say many of them had ‘bad wood’, aged queen bees and lesser combs than required to start off.However, the vendor who supplied the boxes says she can vouch for quality. She says many farmers do not attend the required training for honeybee rearing.Deputy director of the horticulture department Uma said 750 farmers in the district bought honeybee boxes from the department since April 2018. Pollachi-based honeybee rearer and farmer A Vivek said, “Government's honeybee box is popular because it is 100% subsidized. We pay Rs 1,600 to buy a box from the horticulture department. The money is refunded into our bank accounts within a month.”“Around 100 farmers in Anamalai block collected the honeybee boxes. Queen bee was missing in 5% of the boxes,” L Subramania Gounder, a farmer, said. "Many boxes have only two honey combs instead of requisite three or four combs,” he said. “Most of the farmers who were given boxes, were not even trained in bee rearing. They don’t know how to check for the presence of the queen bee, its age, number of combs present or even how to maintain an apiary,” he added.Mahalakshmi, another farmer in Thadagam, said the boxes were made of unsuitable wood. “The wooden boxes have gaps and looks like it will get affected by infestation if rainwater falls on it,” she said. M R Srinivasan, in charge of the apiary and bee keeping training in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, dismissed complaints against the wood used to make the boxes. However, he agreed that the other concerns were genuine.“While any dry lightweight wood can be used for the boxes, a young or young and mated queen bee is required, and you need at least three combs to create a colony successfully,” he said.“However, no honeybee box supplier would give less than the above. The farmers seem to lack training to identify the above,” he added.Josephine Selvaraj, founder of VIBIS, which supplied the honeybee boxes under the scheme, said they had conducted training for farmers.“We were there on November 13 and 14 and conducted training in five horticulture offices for farmers from all blocks. I also gave them my number to call me directly for any doubt or issue,” Selvaraj, one of the most successful honeybee rearers in the state. “However, in every block hardly 40 farmers turned up for training,” she added.Josephine said not a single box her firm supplied had less than three combs.“We used the wood of Punnai, Vengai and Pazha trees to make boxes, which are commonly used species. If any farmer’s box does not have a queen bee they can contact us for a replacement. We have given only young queen bees. We are willing to conduct more free training programmes,” she added.Meanwhile, Uma said, “Farmers can’t complain about quality. They can buy honeybee boxes from any vendor and just give us the bill.”

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