While elaborating the modern beehive design, he said these hives were specially designed for BTH-Pilot Phase with improved design three-quarter size, triple story, the bottom board was provided mesh for ventilation and brood chamber attached bottom board. The BTH official informed that the selected beneficiaries were provided on-hand training at each location for colony management, and five modern hives along with bees were shifted at each location. The seven pilot locations for hive placement included Scrub Forest Jhelum, Mianwali plantation, Bhakkar plantation, Ban, Dino Park, PM House, President House, and Bani Gala Islamabad. However, the list of former beekeepers and unemployed youth was provided by the divisional forest officers (DFOs) of selected areas, and on the basis of that information, the five most suitable persons were selected at each location. During the pilot phase, unemployed youth and former beekeepers were targeted for training on the latest beekeeping technologies and methods initially. The BTH pilot phase that started on March 16, 2021, objectives were improvement in production capacity, quality, and earnings of selected beekeepers, training of 35 beekeepers and follow-up services up till honey harvest, and organising the Apiculture chain-specific networks to collaborate with BTH.

He said as per estimates, marketing 70,000 metric tons of honey would generate an income of around Rs20-25 billion and generate around 87,000 green jobs. It could be enhanced to 70,000 metric tons of honey produced from the same harvest by using modern beekeeping gears, the latest techniques, standardization/certification of the product, and intensive marketing, he added.

He said the countryвЂ™s existing honey harvest potential was of 7,500 metric tons per annum produced by some 10,000 beekeepers using 300,000 colonies.

Under the governmentвЂ™s flagship Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Plantation (TBTTP) project, the focus has been made on laid on improving existing honey farming and beekeeping practices on scientific terms for enhanced honey production to benefit from the increasing forest cover under the massive afforestation efforts, a senior official of the Ministry Climate Change told APP.

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