Cruelty-Free Beekeeping: The Art of Harvesting Honey with Care and Respect

Beekeeping is the natural art of looking after honey bees and collecting honey without harming them. We place wooden boxes near flower farms so the bees can collect nectar and store it as honey. With proper care and respect, the colonies stay healthy, continue their life cycle, and give pure honey.

Regular inspections are a must in beekeeping. Bees fly to nearby flower farms to collect nectar, and beekeepers check their boxes in the morning wearing bee caps and gloves for safety. During inspections, extra propolis (sticky gum) is removed from the sides and frames. Honey levels are checked, and only the extra is taken, leaving the rest for the bees. Hygiene is monitored, and any diseased larvae are removed manually with a needle. Food reserves are also checked to see how much pollen is stored, as it is an important part of bee nutrition.

The number of eggs in the frames is counted to know if the queen bee is working properly. Food reserves are examined to see how much pollen is stored, and it’s ensured that larvae are getting proper royal jelly. The queen bee is located and checked visually — a healthy queen looks shiny, while a diseased one shows visible changes. If she becomes aggressive, the whole box reacts the same way. Sometimes, a strange smell from the box signals the presence of pests or disease.

Each beehive has two chambers — the brood chamber and the honey chamber (super chamber). Between these is a queen excluder, which stops the queen bee from entering the honey chamber. This ensures that the honey collected has no eggs, larvae, pollen, or baby bees — only clean honey. Bees naturally fill the upper quarter of the honey chamber with extra honey, which is collected, while the lower part is left for their own use.

This is known as cruelty-free beekeeping. Only surplus honey is taken, never the bees’ reserved stock. Bees produce extra honey when they find a large amount of nectar nearby, storing it for times when nectar is scarce. The goal is always to keep them near rich nectar sources so they stay healthy and productive. Just like an animal caretaker values a cow more than milk, a beekeeper values the bees more than the honey they produce.

Hunting methods like crushing combs are never used. The bees’ share is kept intact, and only the surplus is taken. For this process to work well, migration is important — moving bee boxes to different flower fields. This is done at night or early morning when bees don’t fly. Boxes are loaded at night and unloaded in the morning.

Honey bees are very particular and never enter another box. Each bee stays in its own hive. They are not solitary creatures but live as a united community. One beehive functions like a single living organism. 

In this video, sesame flower fields in Junagadh, Gujarat, coriander flower fields in Gir Somnath, Gujarat, sunflower fields in Hospet, Karnataka, lychee flower fields in Madhubani, Bihar, and fennel flower fields in Surendranagar, Gujarat are shown. Bees are collecting nectar from these flowers. This nectar is made into pure honey, and each flower gives a natural taste to it.