"My bees are generating honey from goose berries (Nellikayi or Amla), which has great medicinal value. Our ayurvedic texts are full of praise for goose berry as it has rich Vitamin C in the natural form and also has anti-oxidents," says Dr Chunkapura. Bee-keeping is a hobby for Dr Chunkapura since childhood and he has been keeping bees for the last two decades. Of late, Dr Chunkapura learnt about the Israeli technology.
But how does this technology work? "We feed juice to the bees, which convert the juice into honey. We can get the honey of our desired flavor, which can be either orange, sweet lime, pineapple or anything. I chose goose berries because of their medicinal value," Dr Chunkapura said.
The interesting thing, however, is that the bees produce honey in a faster way. "Usually bees take at least 20 to 30 days to produce a litre of honey here in Bangalore. But the Israeli technique reduces the dependence on flowers and the bees take hardly a week to produce honey, so we call it Express Honey," he adds.
Through this unique technology developed in Israel, honey bees are compelled to yield honey of the desired flavour at a fast pace. Express Honey has now entered India and a City-based doctor, Dr Sunny Chunkapura, the RMO at St John's Medical College and Hospital, is using his bees to generate honey, which has medicinal value.
"With the introduction of the Israeli technology, honey generation has become easy. Now, anyone can generate honey at a very low cost. Maintenance is also not a big issue," said the doctor.