Indian Women Taught to Collect Bee Venom

Young Girls Trying to Make a Difference!
Aarti Aggarwal, Times of India, 3/7/2009

ALLAHABAD: These young girls are out to make a difference in the lives of rural people by taking science to their doorstep. They are advocating biotechnological alternative income resources by introducing technological breakthroughs like integrated prawn-fish culture, rearing African duck, honey-bee venom extraction and mushroom cultivation in villages here…

With an aim to make farmers economically stronger by ensuring the optimum use of their farm land and available water bodies, girls of the zoology department of Allahabad University have taken up various sites to showcase the possibility of adopting these techniques…

Dr Neeshma Jaiswal, who has recently been awarded the DST Young Scientist Award, is offering some alternatives to village women. She is teaching village women the technique of honey-bee venom extraction. In fact, the young girl has created a honey-bee venom extractor device using indigenous material and applied for its patent too. Village women can use their land to raise honey-bee colonies and sell honey as also their venom. Honey-bee venom, used in many medicines, is priced even higher than gold, between Rs 5,000-6,000 per gram.

The venom extractor device uses a light current of 8-10 volts which annoys honey-bees and they bite at the framed glass panel. They are shooed away and the glass panel is scratched to collect the venom. This venom is immediately stored at freezing temperature and then marketed, informs Neeshma. Keeping in mind limited expenditure for villagers, Neeshma has also taught village women to build honey-bee boxes using wood from Lantana weed. It costs merely Rs 150 and the extractor device costs only Rs 250…