Lost all your honey? Make some more with Under the Mango Tree’s (NGO that works with farmers to make the yummiest artisan honey) new urban beekeeping program, which trains  Mumbai residents to generate and harvest their own  honey, right here in the  city. That’s the buzz!

A popular practice with hipsters in Brooklyn and Berlin, Paris and even the White House, bee keeping is legal (and viable) in Mumbai as well, we were assured. All you need is a hive box; bees; terrace, garden or backyard; and half an hour every week to look after your bees -the first two will be provided by UTMT (approximately Rs 6,000) who’ll also assign you a space at Maharashtra Nature Park at Dharavi if, like most  Mumbai residents, you live in a shoe box.

All the honey your box generates belongs to you and can be used as you please, for personal consumption, sourced to restaurants, and even sold through a collective you might form with fellow urban beekeepers. Sweet!

Drone Attack!

Curious but still unsure? Attend UTMT’s orientation session on September 25, where they’ll make their pitch (warning: these guys are pretty convincing), walk you through the basic steps and address all your questions.

Once sold, you’ll graduate to the Urban Beekeeping Training Course, which includes a two day introduction in mid-October and follow-up classes once a month for a year.  During these, you’ll learn how to maintain your hive box, from setting up to controlling honey flow, extracting honey, managing growth and covering up the hive in monsoon season.

These will be taught by a beekeeping expert from Dehradun, who has over twenty years of experience and has been working with UTMT’s rural farmer’s program.

The Sting Is...

Yeah, we were worried about that too. But Gurushabd Khalsa, program co-ordinator for the Mumbai program batted our fears away, assuring us that getting stung is unusual and even when it happens, little more than an ant bite.

So are we golden now? Yes?  Let the countdown begin: hive, four, three.....

Getting there: Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 65157953, Rs  2,000 for the Urban Beekeeping Training Course plus Rs  500 once a month.