Lokmat News Network
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
Here is good news for visitors at the world heritage Ajanta Caves as the office of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Department of Forest (DoF), in its joint venture, succeeded in removing all the 11 hives of honey bees located on the sprawling campus of the heritage site.
It may be noted that tourists had been facing repeated attacks by honey bees over the past few days, resulting in injuries to several domestic and international visitors. After several incidents and growing concern, the honeybee hives on the campus of Ajanta Caves were finally removed between Wednesday and Saturday.
Earlier, on June 7 and 8 alone, 240 tourists were stung by bees in two separate incidents at the Ajanta Caves. Following this, a joint meeting was held on Monday between the ASI and DoF. Accordingly, a rescue team from Pune was called in on Tuesday. The team successfully removed the hive located in front of Cave No. 4 on Wednesday (June 11). However, while setting up scaffolding near Cave No. 10, the team was attacked again by bees, resulting in injuries to two staff members.
Although preparations were made to remove the hive on Wednesday evening, cloudy weather conditions delayed the operation. Finally, on Thursday evening, the team succeeded in removing three hives which were at the entrance of Cave No. 10. Later on, the mission was continued and the team removed five hives (four existing in front of Cave No.10 and one from Cave No.26) on Friday. Finally, the remaining two hives were removed from Cave No.9, on Saturday evening (June 14).
The Range Forest Officer (RFO, Ajanta) Santosh Dodke and ASI’s Conservation Assistant (Ajanta sub-circle) Manoj Pawar and Dr. Reshma Mane, Chief Trainer Ganesh Burkul along with Syed Hafeez, forest personnel Vijay Devkar, Sonu Jadhav, Yogesh Salve, Lenekar, Kaleem Khan, Syed Wahab, Sable, and others took hard efforts.
DoF’s Dodke said, "Removing the hive in front of Cave No. 10 posed a major challenge for us. We faced many difficulties while setting up the scaffolding. However, with persistent efforts, the team succeeded in removing the beehives.”
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ASI’s Pawar said that in the joint venture of ASI and DoF, all the 11 beehives which were existing in front of Cave Nos. 4, 9, 10 and 26 have been removed by Saturday evening. Hence there would be no threat to the visitors at the caves from honey bees attack hereafter.
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Daywise status of removing 11 beehives
Cave 4 - 1 hive - Wednesday
Cave 10 - 3 hives - Thursday
Cave 10 - 4 hives - Friday
Cave 26 - 1 hive - Friday
Cave 9 - 2 hives - Saturday