Bee-witched!

Enter the sprawling garden of EME House, the official residence of Brigadier Rajneesh Gossain, commandant, 512 Army Base Workshop, Khadki...

Enter the sprawling garden of EME House, the official residence of Brigadier Rajneesh Gossain, commandant, 512 Army Base Workshop, Khadki. And see a circular lawn of lush green carpet grass, lined by majestic Ashoka and palm trees with small flower-beds of asters at their feet.

Other charming sights greet the eye 8211; like white pigeons bathing in a small pond of clear water. They are housed in a neatly-painted pigeon house by Monica Gossain, a great lover of nature and the wife of the brigadier.

But what arrests the eye is this 8211; bee-hives with swarms of busy bees inside! Monica picked up the hobby of bee-keeping in Jammu when she accidentally passed an area buzzing with bee-hives. Her inquisitiveness to learn more about bees led her to attend a course in bee-keeping at the agriculture department of Jammu amp; Kashmir in 1992.

Course over, she began with a colony of bees; the number slowly increasing to seven. Ever since, she has been carrying her bees along wherever her husband has been posted. Lifting the lid of a bee-hive, she says, 8220;Bees never sting you if you handle them carefully. Slow, deliberate movements do not disturb them as much as quick movements.

8220;The hives are made up of several removable, drawer-like sections. The bees build their honey combs on movable frames inside the sections,8221; she describes, picking up a frame with her hand, still abuzz with numerous bees. There are innumerable honey cells filled to the brim with honey, but some of them are closed. 8220;The worker bees put wax caps on the honey-filled cells so that they can be used later in the lean months,8221; she says.

8220;Worker bees suck nectar from the flowers with their long tongues and store it in the honey stomachs. They then return to the hive. There they spit the nectar out through their mouths. As the water in the nectar evaporates, the nectar changes into honey,8221; she elaborates.

How does she extract honey out of the bee-hives? 8220;Sometimes, I do it manually, but when it is in large quantities, I resort to the centrifugal machines from the agriculture department,8221; she says.

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Bees have to be provided with sources for gathering nectar and Monica has ample provision for that. Apart from 60 full-grown mango trees in her garden, she has grown an orchard of fruit trees like alponso, chickoo, amla, guava and coconut at the back of her house. She consulted scientists from the agriculture department, got the soil tested and then planted these trees. They are about a year old. The space in between these trees is used by her to grow the seasonal crop of sun-flowers, each flower about 25 cm. in diameter. A real treat for the bees!

Monica is a true lover of nature. Apart from the beehives, her kitchen garden is flush with every possible vegetable, with the strawberries lending that dash of pink. But that is not all. Her real love is the gorgeous gladiolus. 8220;I bought 30 bulbs of this flower in 1983. Now, I must be having more than 30,000 of them,8221; she smiles. A huge stretch of land covered with swaying spikes of red gladioli when in season is a fetching sight.

She also has around 200 potted plants of myriad varieties and sizes. She also maintains a nursery and distributes plants to friends and well-wishers. 8220;There is abundance in nature,8221; she believes. 8220;The more you give, the richer you are.8221;

But how does she feed such a colossal mass of fauna? 8220;Well, I am self-contained in that aspect too,8221; she says. She contacted the Bhawalkar Research Institute, Pune, and under its guidance, adopted the vermiculture method of transforming kitchen waste into rich organic manure. 8220;So my plants are well-fed throughout the year,8221; she beams with satisfaction.