Beehive removal practices in urban India: Bane of bee’s life?

Abstract Hives of Apis dorsata are commonly observed to be constructed on many residential and commercial complexes in India. People, out of fear for bee’s sting and being oblivious to the ecosystem services provided by them, have made a wanton practice of removing their hives by using fire torches, water cannon and pesticides. Data from 55 state-run fire and rescue services stations of Tamil Nadu revealed that an average of 24 calls per station was received in the year 2015, of which an average of 3 hives were removed per call request. We recorded an average loss of 8220 ± 332 bees per hive when employing these unscientific destructive methods. Extrapolating this information to all 2987 stations across India, approximately 2 billion bees are estimated to be killed pan-India every year. A clear policy on beehive management is necessary to avoid pollinator crises and subsequent threat to food security in India.