Women in Uttarakhand are still keeping native bees in the walls

In the Himalayan district of Pithoragarh, native honey bees still live inside the walls of older houses, and the people who look after them are usually women. Mongabay reported on October 20, 2026, from villages in Uttarakhand where Apis cerana indica occupies a cavity built into the wall, with a round door outside and a clay-sealed panel inside.

Nagma Parveen, of Kumaun University in Nainital, told Mongabay that the bees are still there because women kept those hives. The work sits inside ordinary housework: sealing the panel with mud and dung, leaving a honey trail to invite a swarm, and, in a cold week, offering seed powder when flowers are gone. Shakuntala Devi, in Ramni, said her hives were empty this year after heavy rain and wind. Saraswati Devi, 80, remembered harvests of about 3 kilograms a hive and said families now get closer to 1 or 2 kilograms.

A study cited in the report found that in one Garhwal block, traditional houses and their wall hives declined as cement houses, which held no colonies, spread. Parveen said the bees need people only because forests and weather have become harder. The story is a portrait of a practice that is still working in some courtyards, and thinning in others. It is not a new population count.