Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Department of Forest (DoF) have heaved a sigh of relief after removing all 11 beehives from the world heritage Ajanta Caves, recently. The officials now took a pledge to be on their heels to ensure the caves complex remains free from bees menace and ensure safety and security of the domestic and international tourists in future.
Earlier, the bees at the above caves had stinged hundreds of international and domestic tourists in the last few months. The location of 11 beehives included in front of Cave Numbers 4 (one hive), 9 (two hives), 10 (seven hives) and 26 (one hive). All these hives were removed between June 10 and 14.
The conservation assistant (ASI, Ajanta sub-circle) Manoj Pawar, “ The Mission Honeybees was undertaken under the guidance of the superintending archaeologist Dr Shiv Kumar Bhagat. Later on, the team of experts from Pune held a day long seminar for all ASI’s staff and security personnel and briefed upon the scientific information of bee hives, the hive formation and how to evade attack of bees through creating awareness amongst the visitors and ensuring their safety especially the youngsters and kids. The caves complex is in the centre of a 2000 hectares area of dense reserve forest which is a natural habitat of the bees. Hence we will keep a closewatch at the caves where the beehives were there so that they are made again. Freeing the heritage site from bees is indeed a challenge for ASI as well as DoF and we are accepting it.”
Pawar said, “ During the off-season, on weekends (Saturdays and Sundays), the strength of visitors at the Ajanta Caves is around 4,000 daily and in the remaining four days (except Monday - closure), the strength is of around 1500 daily.
Generally, the monuments, existing within the jurisdictions of natural habitat of bees, witness formation of beehives. Few years ago, the menace was at Bibi ka Maqbara. Later on, Ellora Caves, Aurangabad Caves and Pitalkhora Caves, apart from the forts of Maharashtra, are facing the menace.”
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The experts from Pune toiled hard (from Tuesday evening) in erecting iron scaffolding and removing the 11 hives under the guidance of the Range Forest Officer (Ajanta) Santosh Dodke and ASI’s Conservation Assistant Manoj Pawar and supervision of Dr. Reshma Mane and Chief Trainer Ganesh Burkul by the team.