The Buzzy Tale of Thachampara...

(work of fiction)

In Thachampara, a small village in Kerala, Shobha didi is known for her fearlessness when it came to buzzy matters. Let's see what happens when Byju, a boy from the villages accompanies her to work on one such day.

13 years old Byju had seen enough videos to know that the situation he was in required him to be brave. 

No, he did not have to jump off a cliff to avoid being eaten by a panther. Rather, the threat here was the ‘Bees’.

He stood in front of what looked like a shed in the backyard of Mr. Pillai’s house. Mr. Pillai was the head of the Thachampara village and had called for Shobha didi when he noticed a bee hive under the floor of his shed. Shobha didi was an expert in this field and could take care of these bees easily. She was a professional beekeeper and was fond of Byju, and his curiosity. He would often ask her to let him accompany her, to which she had finally agreed.

Shobha didi let him tag along to her work excursion as an apprentice. But before that, she taught him all about Bee-keeping and showed him videos of scooping and rescuing bees. All the stories made him even more excited to go and have a look at all of it with his own eyes. Byju knew what he had signed up for. 

They opened the door of the shed and walked through it. The shed was mostly empty with only a few bags of manure which smelled odd yet familiar. Byju's father had a similar sack of fertilizer at home. By the corner of the shed was the much anticipated view. 

The wooden planks of the floor had been removed such that the huge colony of bees was in clear sight.

This was Byju's first encounter with such a huge number of bees which made it a little hard to process and count in his mind. There were hundreds no, thousands of them and he knew he had to be strong because bees can sense fear and are more likely to attack that way. Even without her protective gear, Shobha didi bent down to the floor of the shed to examine the situation, while Byju took careful steps behind her. 

As expected, there was a big beehive by the corner of the shed, under the wooden planks of the floor. As soon as Shobha didi tried removing the hive, the bees started scattering. There were bees everywhere and he could hear them buzz. The scene looked like a television without cable with bees buzzing everywhere. He could even feel some of them sitting on his hands and face. Byju looked terrified on the verge of tears. He wanted to scream and run. He took one glance at Shobha didi who told him not to move much and stand still with eyes closed. Byju, not wanting to miss the activity, stood there like a statue with eyes open. Shobha didi had gotten her bee-box and started scooping bees with her bare hands! She picked them up and poured them in the box. 

How could she do it without even flinching, Byju thought. Won't the bees sting her? But after a while, he calmed down as he realised they were not stinging. Seeing Shobha didi scoop bees, Byju relaxed and observed closely what she was doing. She told him that as a bee-keeper, she could read the bees’ behaviour and these ones were rather calm ones. She looked carefully at the ones in her hand and tried to find the queen bee.

Byju crouched down on his knees and started looking for the queen bee among those countless bees they scooped. Queen bee is the one who lays eggs for the hive. The other bees, who collect and store honey are the worker bees. As to why they were looking for the queen bee, Shobha didi had told Byju that a hive without a bee is very likely to perish. Once they would find the queen bee, the rest of the bees would follow her pheromones, which are chemical scents produced by the queen bee and would go after her, which would make their task of scooping bees easier. 

The queen bee is always surrounded by her attendant bees who feed her and look after the queen bee’s needs just like a real queen. After a few minutes of scooping bees, they found the Queen bee, who was slightly larger in size than the others and was surrounded by her attendants from all sides. Once the queen bee was transferred to their new bee box, all the other bees went after her and the removal process was complete. 

Shobha didi took the bees and their honey-comb to her bee-keeping apiary which became their new home. Byju realised that removing bees didn't mean shooing them away. Rather it meant taking them to a place where they could do their job in a natural environment without any threat to humans or to themselves.

Shobha didi had collected several such hives and managed them with the help of her team. The apiary were wooden structures where bees were kept. Beekeepers would take care of the bees and keep the place fit for them. They would often help themselves with fresh honey from the comb after their job was done. This bee-keeping business helps the bees and beekeepers in various ways without affecting the environment in any way. Their job here was done. 

Byju was beyond elated after his first field trip. As they kept the empty bee-box back in Shobha didi’s van, she told him that he had done a good job. He even asked Shobha didi to let him have some honey on their next mission. There was no going back now. Byju was determined to join Shobha didi’s team and work hard to rescue bees. Thachampara had its new bee-keeper in the making.