I spent my summer vacations at my grandma's after my 6th-grade examinations. Grandma lives in a small village in Kerala in India. It was always fun to be at her place, spending my days playing, helping in the kitchen and feeding the cows. I rarely visited grandma every year as I lived far away from my paternal home. Grandma was happy to have my company yet must have been about anxious how she could keep me busy for a whole month with no modern toys to play with. On the other hand, I was mindful not to annoy her with my pranks and was on my best behaviour.

The warm and humid weather kept me mostly outdoors in grandma's colossal garden, playing with bare feet and hands in the soil. The hot weather and my careless playing around obviously gave me an eye condition quite common in the tropics called a "Stye". It was big and painful, making my bubbly self quiet and sluggish. Grandma noticed and must have felt pity to see her little one in agony, but she wasn't the kind who mellowed down when crisis struck. She had a solution to everything and offered me a dab of honey from a small glass bottle that she treasured in her wooden cupboard. After applying the honey dab every morning, the stye disappeared within 3 days, as if nothing had happened. The honey, to my surprise, cured my condition, and I became curious to know where this miraculous cure came from. 

© FAO/Varun Chaudhary

Coincidently, my uncle took up an adventure in the coming week to harvest the stingless bee honey from its nest in the crack of a stone wall. These bees were tiny like mosquitoes, and when I saw them rushing out, I wanted to run in any direction. My uncle informed me these bees do not sting but only tickle. This reassured me a little, yet it took some courage to stand there. Within seconds, several bees flew over my face, and they tickled just as my uncle told me. I caught a few, and they seemed sticky. Maybe it was their way to tickle predators off! But I was fascinated by how nature gave us the gift of bees that produced honey with medicinal value. Little did I know then that this summer vacation would be my gateway to a lifelong vocation, a connection to bees and their importance to ecosystems.

Twelve years in future, I was a PhD candidate exploring bees in the forests and agroecosystems of Doon Valley at the foothills of the Himalayas in India. My doctoral research was a unique opportunity to explore and understand bees in various directions. It introduced me to a plethora of bee facts. There are approximately 20000 bee species across the world. Bees are essential for their pollination services, helping in fruit and seed production of flowering crops. Honeybees pollinate up to 80% of the approximately 100 food crops globally, ensuring food security. They also maintain the biodiversity of flowering plants. Many indigenous communities worldwide depend on honeybees for their honey and other by-products for medicine, cultural values and beekeeping as a livelihood. 

Unfortunately, bees and many other pollinators are declining worldwide. The main drivers of bee declines are monocultures, agricultural chemicals, habitat fragmentation and diseases. Learning about the threats bees face triggered my instinct to work towards their conservation. 

My research gave me insights into the amazing world of native wild bees. The bees consisted of groups such as the honeybees, stingless bees, leafcutters, bumblebees, carpenter bees and many more. I saw that natural ecosystems are essential for bees to survive. Wilderness in or around agroecosystems is vital to bees as they provide wildflowers and nesting habitats for their survival. And the best way to mimic nature in agroecosystems is to have biodiversity of many different types of flowering crops growing and keeping wildflowers on farm boundaries intact. 

While working on bees, Navdanya Biodiversity Farm in India was one of my study sites. Navdanya rejuvenated biodiversity-based agroecological farming cultures with rich indigenous knowledge of organic farming. Here, I learned that the farmers in the Himalayas traditionally practice the mixed biodiverse farming technique of "Baranaja" (Bara = twelve and Anaj = seeds of crops). The interface between these different food crops encourages wildflowers, thus providing food and nesting habitats to bees when flowering crops are absent. Houses in the Himalayas were built with hollow spaces in walls with tiny openings at places to let native honeybees nest inside them. Thus, the farmers already knew bees and their behaviours far more than any scientist. Unfortunately, modern agricultural policies have started luring farmers to shift to chemical monocultures over health through food diversity. It fosters extracting from Nature rather than caring for the Earth and the wellbeing of all.

© FAO/Jafar Almerei

These realities strengthened my determination to do my bit to conserve bees. The best way to contribute was through my doctoral study outcomes and the learning journeys from farmers' age-old knowledge. Working in agroecosystems helped me appreciate that farmers have time-tested wisdom in comprehending Nature. I began connecting farmers to the importance of bees in productivity and food security through my research findings and their rich indigenous knowledge. Navdanya Biodiversity Farm played a crucial role in providing me with a platform to reach out to thousands of farmers. Over the last 9 years, I have learned and shared many bee and biodiversity insights with the farmers through this platform. Navdanya is a firm believer and practitioner in the philosophy of "Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam" - the Earth as one family and all species as its members with irreplaceable roles to play. With Navdanya's efforts, the farmers and I can embrace this philosophy and foster it.

What began with a childhood experience of grandma's indigenous knowledge of medicinal honey from stingless bees moulded my career. Grandma and the bees connected me to agroecology. And I hope my story inspires many more.

This story was written during the Writeshop ''Learn to write your own Agroecology Stories of Change'' held in June 2021 and organized by Barefoot Guide Connection, Agroecology Knowledge Hub and Family Farming Knowledge Platform.