Buzzing Back To Life: An interview with Amit Godse, India’s bee rescuer
Bees play a crucial role in our food systems, pollinating nearly 75% of the crops we eat. But India’s bees are in serious trouble — facing threats from habitat loss, pesticides, climate change, and urban expansion. In Pune, rapid construction has pushed bees out of natural habitats, forcing them into cracks and corners of tall buildings, where they are often killed in thousands by pest control teams that burn the hives or use other cruel methods.
Amit Godse, a Pune-based bee conservationist and founder of Bee Basket, has been rescuing and relocating bees since 2016, turning fear into awareness and saving thousands of colonies.
In June 2025, Amit’s work was spotlighted in the 122nd episode of Mann ki Baat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised his efforts, saying: “The protection of honey bees is not only important for the ecology but also our farming and future generations. A young person named Amit decided that one should not kill bees but save them.”
India Water Portal spoke with Amit about the bees of India, how water availability shapes their survival, and why protecting pollinators might just be one of the most important steps we can take for food and water security.
What first inspired you to start working with bees?
Bees might look small and insignificant, but they are crucial for our survival as they bring food to our plates. Rapid urbanisation and forest loss have forced bees from rural to urban spaces, where they are killed by people either because they are afraid of their stings or because they have very little information on what bees actually do.
I live in a residential colony in Pune where I once saw a beehive being destroyed by a pest control team. It shocked me so deeply that I decided to act. In 2013, I left my high-paying job to focus on bee conservation.
At that time, I knew nothing about bees. I spent the next year visiting Kerala, Odisha, Mahabaleshwar, and institutions like the Central Bee Research & Training Institute in Pune to learn about bees and how to handle them safely. That experience taught me two things: first, that awareness is key, and second, that bees can be relocated without destroying their colonies.
I connected with environmentalists across the city and began taking awareness sessions across the city, educating people about honey bees and how to co-exist with them. This eventually led me to start Bee Basket in 2016 — an initiative focused on conservation, creating “bee friends,” and rescuing bees.
What are the main types of honey bees found in India?
India is home to five major species of honey bees:
Rock bees (Apis dorsata)
Garden bees (Apis florea)
Indian box bees (Apis cerana indica)
Stingless bees (Tetragonula iridipennis)
European bees (Apis mellifera)
The first four are indigenous to India, while the European bee is an introduced species.
Which of these bees can be domesticated, and why are native species important?
The Apis dorsata or rock bee is around 30 mm in size and reddish brown in colour with golden and black bands around the abdomen. They are attracted to light and build huge hives on trees, under caves or on roofs of high rise buildings in urban areas. They have a high foraging range and migrate during the monsoons. These bees cannot be domesticated.
Apis florea or garden bees are around 7 to 10 mm in size, reddish brown in colour and like light instead of dark spaces. They make single small circular hives in shrubs, grills, window frames, and other exposed areas. These bees cannot be domesticated.
Apis cerana indica or Indian box bees are around 9 mm in size, golden brown in colour can be domesticated and prefer dark, enclosed spaces such as tree hollows, toilet ceilings, false ceilings (POP), AC vents, birdhouses, or cupboards in urban spaces to build their hives. They build seven hives and are becoming popular among farmers as pollinators and can produce around 6 t0 8 kilos of honey per year.
Tetragonula iridipennis or stingless bees are small 5 mm sized black bees that can enter deep into the flowers because of their small size to collect honey, which makes the honey nutritious. The bees nest in small crevices such as old temple walls, stone structures, electric boxes, or building gaps.
Apis mellifera or European bees are around 10 to 20 mm in size, reddish brown in colour with black bands and orange yellow bands on the abdomen. They produce 20 to 40 kilos of honey per colony per year. Their hives can be moved easily so farmers use them on monoculture farms.
However, this is an introduced species and it has now been realised that it is time to switch over to native pollinators such as Apis dorsata, Apis cerana indica, Apis florea, and stingless bees as apex pollinators to maintain the biodiversity in our farms and forests.
Rock bees and Garden bees are wild and cannot be domesticated in boxes, unlike the other three namely, Indian box bees, stingless bees and European bees. There is also another bee that is common in the Himalayan region, namely Apis laboriosa. I have handled all other types of bees except the Himalayan bee.
Do different bees require different modes of handling for rescue and relocation?
Yes, each type of bee requires a different method of handling during rescue and relocation, as every colony behaves differently. Some species are aggressive, others produce large quantities of honey, while some focus mainly on breeding. Our priority is always to rescue the bees safely — honey is just an added benefit.
For rock bees, we use organic smoke made from coconut husk or cotton cloth to encourage the bees to leave without harm. The hive is carefully cut down, and petroleum jelly is applied at the original site to deter them from returning. This signals danger, and within eight days the bees usually abandon the site. While some eggs and larvae may be lost, 99.9% of adult bees are saved.
For garden bees, relocation is done at night after tying the hive to a bamboo stick during the day. The new location must be at least three kilometres away so they do not return.
For box bees, combs are cut and tied into a bee box, and the calm nighttime colony is relocated to farms or terrace gardens.
For stingless bees, pipes are inserted to allow natural migration, or nests are manually extracted and moved to specially designed boxes.
How dependent are bees on water sources, and what happens to bee colonies when natural water availability declines during summers or droughts?
Honeybees are very much dependent on water sources and build their hives near water sources, as they do not want to spend time collecting water from long distances, as their energy will be lost in water collection rather than food collection. Water collection also depends on seasons. When pollen is scarce during the winter months, water containing minerals and salts is used by the bees, while the priority becomes pollen collection when pollen is abundant, as in the late spring and summer.
Water is thus foraged on demand, when bees need water to drink for hydration, digesting food and producing a jelly that is a crucial part of the bee diet. Water is also used to feed young bees and in the honey-making process. When the sugar concentration in the honey crops gets elevated, water carrier bees leave the hive to collect water to dilute the honey. In summer, they need to maintain the temperature and humidity of the hive. They collect water from nearby water sources and spray it on the hives while fanning it with their wings to cool it. Water is thus crucial, not only for hydration and honey production, but also to keep beehives at the right temperature and humidity through the sweltering summer season.
What exactly does Bee Basket do? How do you rescue and relocate bees?
At Bee Basket, our mission is to protect and promote pollinators while helping people coexist with them. Our work spans from rescuing bee colonies to creating pollinator-friendly spaces and producing ethical bee-based products.
Our initiative called “Pest to Pet” focuses on rescuing, rehabilitating, and relocating honey bee hives safely across urban and semi-urban centres — without harming the bees. So far, we’ve rescued and relocated over 17,000 hives, which means we’ve protected nearly 850 million bees just in Pune city.
We get 8–9 calls daily from people who discover hives in their homes, offices, or buildings. We first ask them to send photos, so we can identify the species and arrive prepared with the right equipment to handle that specific type of bee.
Can bee populations serve as indicators of ecosystem health, including the availability of water in a region? How do they contribute?
Honeybees never build their hives in an area that does not have water. The existence of beehives in a region can thus be an indicator that there is a water source nearby. Also, when there is more water, the availability of nectar is greater, as there are chances of finding more flowering plants in the region. Droughts, heat stress and conditions that lead to reduced availability of water can increase the stress on bees and present challenges to the survival of their brood and colonies.
Bees also play an important role in maintaining the health of riparian zones (areas near rivers and lakes) by helping pollinate water-dependent plants. For example, bees help in the flowering of trees such as Walunj on the riverbanks. Coconut trees near water sources are also pollinated by bees.
How does climate change, with its erratic rainfall and drying wetlands, affect bees’ ability to find water and sustain their hives?
Climate change is impacting everyone, including bees. While honeybees are extremely resilient, rainfall can push their limits, and they cannot venture out to collect nectar and pollen. Honeybees typically remain in their hives to avoid the dangers of flying in wet conditions and often huddle to generate heat, feed their brood, groom each other, clean the hive and organise stored food.
Climate change has now disrupted all the natural seasonal cycles, and increasing rainy days and erratic rainfall patterns have also disturbed the natural seasonal foraging patterns and lifecycles of bees. High humidity also creates the perfect breeding ground for harmful microorganisms. Mould, fungi, and bacteria thrive in moist conditions, and these can quickly spread through a hive, contaminating food stores and weakening the entire colony. Thus too much rain or lower availability of water – both can threaten the survival of bees.
Beyond rescue work, how do you bring bees back into our cities and workplaces?
We have started working with private companies and institutions to set up bee parks on their campuses. These parks house beehives, attract pollinators, and boost biodiversity. We also maintain these spaces, breed bees, and help the company harvest honey from their own parks, often gifting it to their employees or guests.
This effort does two things: it spreads awareness about the importance of bees and helps companies improve their ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) ratings. We also plant trees, create butterfly gardens, herbal gardens, and oxygen parks as part of these projects.
Do you also work with individual households or urban residents?
Yes, absolutely. We create micro-habitats and pollinator corridors in cities where small patches of flowering plants, terrace gardens, or balcony setups provide food for bees and other pollinators. This not only supports biodiversity but also helps with pollination of urban crops, making cities greener and more productive.
How do you raise awareness and build capacity for bee conservation?
Awareness is at the heart of what we do. We conduct sessions in schools, colleges, corporate offices, housing societies, and environmental institutions to teach people about bees and how to live alongside them.
We also run bee-handling and beekeeping training programs, especially for local and tribal youth. We call them “Bee Friends.” They learn to handle bees safely, rent out bee boxes to farmers for pollination (earning ₹1,000–1,500 per month), and build a sustainable livelihood. We have trained over 1,500 people from Palghar, Bhimashankar, Gadchiroli, the Sunderbans, and parts of Gujarat.
Tell us about Bee Basket’s products. How do you ensure they are ethical?
We focus on ethically harvested honey and other bee-based goods. For example, we promote stingless bees as pets and supply Sheesham-wood bee boxes that mimic natural hives with separate chambers for storing honey, pollen, and larvae. Anybody can keep these bees in bee boxes in their gardens and balconies.
A good place to do this is near some flowering trees in the area where the bee box can be set up and bees can be encouraged to build combs. The upper part of the comb includes honey made by the bees and the lower portion includes eggs and the larvae.
When we harvest honey, we take great care not to disturb the eggs and larvae and always leave some honey behind so the bees don’t starve. The honey is completely pure and comes in different colours and flavours depending on the flowers. For example, tamarind flower honey is brown and very tasty, while ajwain honey is almost black. Apart from honey, we’re also training tribal women to make beeswax-based products like lip balms, adding another income stream for rural communities.
What are your plans for the future?
We at Beebasket think that this movement to save bees needs to be scaled up beyond the city of Pune, to the whole of Maharashtra and then at the national level. Our aim is to conduct training and certification of “Bee Friends” as a green livelihood initiative and create Bee Friends across every city and taluka in India and work along with the government to handle and save bees.
Bee-friends could be those who spread awareness about bees, provide space for rescued bees in their farms and bungalows, or take care of these insects, among others. If we have around 50 bee-friends in every city or taluka, then it would be a good start.
I think it is time we recognise bee conservation as a national environmental priority under existing biodiversity missions or “Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE)” programs and declare honeybees as a National Insect.
We are also in the process of creating a platform to connect beekeepers with farmers on a much larger scale and are also launching a separate arm focused on pollination services to enhance food production and enhance livelihood opportunities for indigenous communities. We also plan to make use of technology to generate data and maps on bees and encourage citizens to help us with generating data on bees. That is sorely missing at the moment.