If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man - Albert Einstein.
Well, we're not sure if Einstein really said this, but it doesn't matter. For Amit Godse only one thing matters - bees. Yet for the founder of Bee Basket - a company that's all about bees - it wasn't always his mission to save the little pollinators.
But in March 2013 that changed when one day, this software engineer-turned-bee keeper, spotted a beehive being destroyed with pesticides near his flat in Pune. Hoping to find a better way (read: humane way) to relocate beehives, he did a lot of research. He visited a farm in Pune where he learnt about bee-boxes and even travelled to Mahabaleshwar to learn about bee-keeping.
Fascinated by what he learnt, Amit quit his job at Capgemini and went on to travel all over India to learn techniques of bee-keeping. In 2016, he set up Bee Basket Enterprises Pvt Ltd in Pune, through which he currently runs a bee conservation mission across Maharashtra.
“Bee conservation starts in the minds of people, so, I started educating them about bees and how they are not harmful,” he says and adds, “Misconception is the root cause of all problems. There are more than 20 thousand bee species and the solution is different for each one. And we at Bee Basket ensure that no harm comes to them.”
And this bee-man’s motive is beyond just honey and wax. Talking about the workshops that they conduct to educate people on bees, he says, “If the roots are strong, then there won’t be issues in the first place.” Presently, they charge about `1,000 to `2,000 to relocate beehives safely and also sell honey that has been sourced without killing the bees.
