Category Interviews

The world has seen a new horizon on this world honey bee day. I am here at the Central Bee Research Institute at Pune. The day has begun with registrations and everyone has been handed a rose, schedule, notepad, gunmcha (handkerchief), and a pen. All have gathered at the conference hall of the Central Bee Institute; the Gandhi photo has been flowered and lite.

The program has been enlightened with an introduction of our esteemed guests who are Principal Modern College of Commerce, Arts and Science, Shri Dr. Sanjay Kharat, Director CBRTI, Shri Basavaraj, Pune University, Shri Archana Sharbidre.

The day began with a note on Bee Keepers and why this day has been celebrated by Dr. Laxmi Rao. She gave a synopsis of the why UN has given a special day for bee keeping to bring awareness among the globe on the birthday of Shri Anton Jonsa a bee keeper who had setup bee apiary and apiculture at Slovakia. Then making a point of making an awareness of how one can keep bees safe without cultivating or keeping bees, is by planting the trees, using bee friendly pesticides, buy honey and keep environment clean. She also clears up our minds for modern urban planners and rural developers to have bees as pets just like the other pets (stingless bees), Apis Trigona is such species which is stingless and has a supreme quality of honey.

Dr. Sanjay Kharat, proves to be bee friendly and wants a bee healthy nation and environment. He explains his passion for education and how he wants his students to learn about the bee apiculture which can help setup at his institute of Agriculture and Biotechnology at Paud, further announcing a collaboration for promotion for fashion designing with khadi produce. He also expresses his proud moment about his student Samrudhi who had made a rangoli art on the World Honey Bee Day. He also explains how he wants to make this bee keeping a larger preposition in the education of agriculture and zoology.

This gives us urban and rural planners, a new landscaping idea with bee gardens and bee friendly planning. Now new startups will spring in the architectural and art world of making bee hives within our habitat regardless of profit, which can be planned at a later stage in collaboration with CBRTI and bee keepers.

Dr. Daisy Thomas, deputy director, CBRTI has been researching on stingless bees and how they have differently been the good bees among all the species. She presents the different characteristics of these bees, the flora and fauna, how the bee boxes are different from the other bees (Apis Cerana), She mentions travelling to various locations in India and making these bees prominent with her research. The stingless bees are Tetraloguna, Eight named species of stingless bees are known from the Indian subcontinent: Lepidotrigona arcifera (Cockerell), Lisotrigona cacciae (Nurse), Lisotrigona mohandasi Jobiraj & Narendran, Tetragonula aff are found in the Indian Subcontinent. Meliponicultura, as the production of this honey is called, began over three thousand years ago.

The honey was used extensively by Mayan healers to treat eye, ear, respiratory, digestive, and postpartum conditions, and still is in many communities today. Its color varies depending on the native flowers visited by these bees, ranging from nearly transparent to dark amber, and it features more nutritional and curative properties than honey from the common honey bee.

Interestingly stingless bees do their nesting in broken trees of coconut, pipes, majority of stingless bees favor nesting in pre-existing cavities within tree trunks or branches. Further launching her book on this day, about stingless bees available at the library of CBRTI.

Dr. Sunil Pokare, former director of CBRTI, attends the afternoon session to help us understand more deeply about the celebration of world bee day. He shares about his attendance at the post office for launch of post cards by the Indian Postal Service marking this day of bees, apart form that he also shared his collection of stamps, letters of the bees from his collection. He also shared a few moments of his experiences at CBRTI and his early days as a bee scientist. He has published a book on bee keeping with autobiography of prominent bee keepers in Marathi and has a few Bee enthusiast who want to translate it in different languages.

After which many prominent personalities were invited to explain the stingless bees and their nature. Mr. Umesh Patil who has 250 colonies of bees has explained about the features of stingless bees and how they are arranged on a single wall with a pipe. The entrance pipe is used for bees and there are nine security bees who refrain entrance. He explains the process of the stingless bees honey collection.

To ease the process there are flow hives which has no need to dismantle the hives and remove the frames for extraction. No smokers, no centrifugal extractors, no back-breaking work of pulling honey supers. Instead, you just turn a lever which opens the channel within the honeycomb and the honey drains to a pipe at the back of the hive directly into your container of choice. Meanwhile, back in the hive, the bees are virtually undisturbed as the honey drains from under their feet. When you’re finished draining you just turn the lever back and the cells are reset and ready to be refilled. The bees then uncap the combs and start again without being disturbed.

Our very own Mr. Kamble a bee keeper explains his journey of transformation for a farmer to a bee keeper and how he has been praised and better his life. Kamble was assigned a bee box to be installed in a sugar factory at Atgaon near Latur, this factory is in a dilapidated condition and was an impossible task to reach or develop any bee colonies. But Kamble showed his grit and made it happen. Dr. Basavraj, further explains his recent visit to Kamble’s village or forest to inspect the bee colonies.

A master trainer Mr. Hemant Kumar Dumbre, who recently joined the institute in January 2024, explains his challenges of teaching good bee management practices to bee keepers and how that has helped them achieve increased honey produce. He began b y writing to different institute in England to send books on bee keeping.

For a lighter moment Samrudhi recites a poetry on bees which explains why bees are important, their roles and all of us should own a bee box. A few kids were felicitated and all interns were given a honey bottle.

A national anthem to end this lovely session, this day will be a memorable one for all of us. Hoping to see many such occasions.

The ACE Reflect has made its way to Pune, finally there is some architecture appreciation in town. This time none other than Agriculture College Ground has hosted this event at their ground at Sachin Nagar. You will find the best of materials here and will make your project more robust and attractive with adding these materials and new age technology.

A panel discussion which helped to know the new ideas and construction needs for a city like Pune to discover these there were prominent speakers from the industry. Making a big point to encourage international collaboration for technology and professionals. This will give a cutting edge or sharp building strength to train internal as well as external consumer about new nuances. Among a few points discussed were keeping in mind space constrains in urban areas one has to tackle difficulties of installation and operation of large sized equipment’s.

There were many stalls which offered unique products one among them was an Epson Plotter and printer service provider. They gave free sample prints to Govt. departments, visitors, architects, interior designer, which are of good quality but I could not print my drawing of bus depot, since it was made fit to size and it was printed so small that we could not read the text printed on paper.

A new form of Aluminium Composite Panel that is used to face lift interiors or exterior walls, these are fire resistant and water proof. Aesthetically used on doors, windows, partitions, wardrobes, tables, wall murals or even an exterior board or signage.

NCL Doors, Bison Panels and Concrete blocks were an interesting product to view these can be used as ceiling, floor, wall partitions and roofing solutions. Door panel and doors have a unique feature of hollow with bee mesh and solid with wood dust, these doors can be of various colours and sizes.

Vitrum a new age sliding door and window solution they have a feature of door lock only on pulling the lever. This guarantees the residents don’t lock themselves out in the balcony since most of Pune residences have sliding doors in the balcony with locking only on one side. The sliding can be made hydraulic and may add new feature of remote controlled or automatic setup.

A new range of table tops have sprung at most lucrative prices, these are available in marble and ceramic. With more than 10 – 12 shades and can be customized as per ones needs, these are ready made table tops which have been carefully polished, coated for restaurant or dinning or conference use. They can also be used in labs of large biotech parks or even food testing labs.

 If you have a big garden or a bathroom and want to add a pool or a jacuzzi, Aqua Shark provides wide range of imported and Indian solutions. Located at Banner they are giving these services to best of builders and are very lucratively priced. Make your homes and surroundings more interesting.

A few Alu-form work brands have come to Pune to make way towards new-age construction techniques. These form works help in fast-track your construction without brick laying and less curing time.

Stone decorative have become a part of our culture and have a new dimension with CNC cutting of 3D effects. Nakoda Stones has marble, sand stone material and can do CNC on any surface or any design.

Cartoons were a part of our lives since we were in the crèche watching cartoons on the TV while waiting for our parents to come and pick us from our kindergarten. We have all tried making a cartoon in our life and they all were happy with whatever shape, size, colour, name they had. My visit to the cartoon museum has been long awaited as finally I could see the cartoons sorted and curated as per the time lapse. Some refreshing memories of Chacha Chaudhary, Shikari Saboo, R K Laxman, Eskay, not having any formal education for cartoons these cartoonists have had world fame and have made our country proud. 

While visiting other museums of the country and meeting curators who offer workshops of various nature and film festivals, India has been screening cartoon film fests since many years at the National Children’s Film Society located at Peddar Road, Mumbai.  

At this unique cartoon museum, one can have a look at all kinds of cartoons from pre-independence to modern day illustrations of cartoons that appear in regional language as well as international publishing. The Cartoon Museum is open for all from Tuesday 2:00pm to 4:00pm and they have a special heritage walk every 2 Saturday beginning at 10:30am. Ms. Priya Kulkarni-Gohad is the curator and an assistant professor for history at Modern College, Pune University also part of the media department. Priya says, that many researchers who study political science, arts, performing arts and history of India and looking for some editorial history or a play write or even an inspirational story board. The building where the cartoon museum resides was the home for the Governor of the Bombay Presidency, as mentioned by Priya. She also states that as they have completed a year Shri Suraj Sriram Eskay had designed or drawn a mascot for the cartoon museum who has not yet been named. Karmakar was a friend whom we started to work at the Central Mall, Future Group though the dean shares the same last name only hoping to know if they are related and Dr. Gosavi is a known archaeologist, whom I have met a few years ago during the Covid discussing about eco-village and conservation.

On the 13^th Jan 2024, there is an exhibition of illustrators and cartoonist who have made cartoons for any brands, magazine or even as a self-discovery of being cartoonist. All are invited to visit and view this collective exhibition by cartoonist, students, editorial and any one inspired to express their views about anything in a form of a cartoon. If you happen to visit the cartoon museum some of these books are available to read for reference and research.

If you want to display your illustrations and cartoons just get them along with you and they will display it for the day on 13^th Jan 2024. At the end you will lovely surprises as bookmarks and now the university will soon offer a course on cartoon art, have plans to add cartoons a teaching pedagogy for kids who are in primary school.

Write why one can be a change maker with architecture education or a developer or an architect by way of experience. How space planning and city planning can be fun and can change how people work, think, shop, socialize and interact? Will space planning and architecture help in control of disease more than medicine. Can hygiene be a part of control or make a equitable housing which keeps all at safeguard.