In Odar village of Varanasi district, Shivani Patel runs a small honey enterprise built on a practice she grew up watching. Beekeeping was familiar to her since childhood, and over time, she began to see it not just as a traditional activity but as a possible source of stable income. Instead of pursuing low-paying private jobs, she decided to turn that familiarity into a business.Her enterprise, Banarasi Honey, focuses on honey production through organised beekeeping. The work involves maintaining bee boxes, monitoring colonies, extracting honey, filtering impurities, and packaging varieties, such as multi-flower and mustard honey. The scale is modest but structured, and she also aims to provide work opportunities to a few local women.Before starting her business, Patel worked in private jobs that offered Rs 12,000 to Rs 15,000 a month with long 12-hour shifts. She recalls that the work environment was often stressful and left little room for independence. “In my previous job, there were many difficulties, but now I work as my own boss,” she says.Building the businessShe began with five bee boxes. Each box contains around four frames and roughly 24,000 bees. Over a period of about 30 days, the colony grows, and within 40 to… Read MoreYourStory RSS Feed
