Why This Man Is Relocating Thousands of Bees to Farms — & What It Has To Do With Your Next Meal

Did you know that nearly 70% of the world’s pollination is done by bees? That means bees are directly responsible for one-third of the food on our plates. Take onions, for instance — a vegetable whose cultivation largely depends on bee pollination. 

India produces 15,000 tonnes of onion seeds every year, and 70% of that is pollinated by honey bees. 

But this year, onion fields have seen noticeably fewer bees — a worrying sign for pollination and crop health. The reason? A deadly mix of pesticide use, monoculture farming, and urban sprawl — all of which have forced bees out of farms and into cities, where they are often killed.

This alarming decline in bee populations is not just affecting onions but also several summer fruits and crops.

Meet Amit Godse, a Pune-based software engineer-turned-bee keeper, fondly known as the ‘Bee Man of Pune’. Amit quit his job in Mumbai and moved to Pune to dedicate himself to researching how he could save bees. 

With no experience in beekeeping, he dove headfirst into rescuing these insects. Using different techniques for each of India’s five bee species, he has already rescued over 17,000 beehives to date. Through his initiative, ‘Pest to Pet’, Amit relocates rescued bees from urban areas back to farms, helping restore natural pollination.

But that’s not all — he is also planting 5,000 trees in Pune to support bee diversity and building bamboo bee homes to create safe habitats. With nearly 30% of the global bee population at risk, Amit's work reminds us of a simple truth: it’s not just honey we should value, but the bees themselves, the tiny creatures that make so much of our food possible.

Edited by Khushi Arora