From the vault

Have you ever been up close to the chunks of a honey comb which hold so much - apart from honey, the bees wax, the pollen, the larvae, they all form part of the ecosystem that the bees build for themselves! ⁣ Like all forms of collection and gathering, there is always an element of something gone but the bees return and the cycle of honey gathering goes on!⁣ Its been thousands of years - do we give space for that symbiotic relationship to thrive or are we always taking for ourselves?  ⁣ Every time we watched them climb down those...

Well, you may see a very different physical version of Ashok Miller presently-but what has not changed is his enthusiasm, energy and intensity. He was the first local staff, joining Keystone in June 1996! ⁣⁣Extremely intrigued to be working in an organization that was interested in bees and honey. However, he plunged in taking whatever task was thrown at him. Along the way, he learnt to drive a bike and then graduated to a 4 wheeler!⁣He soon realized that markets and customers interested him much more and it turned out to be an awesome change. He loves to talk about his...

We had just heard stories about honey hunting, while backpacking all over the state of Tamil Nadu in 1994 - travelling to any corner of the state, if you even whispered the word `honey'. ⁣This brought us to Kotagiri in 1995 and a new journey began. But nothing had prepared us for this - standing in awe of these sheer cliff faces and even more so, this set of lean, wiry men who took upon themselves, this gravity defying and jaw dropping exercise! ⁣It was a time of just print rolls of 36 shots - it had to go to Photo Centre...

The year is 1997, and with not a huge amount of work experience under your belt, honey was an easier proposition!  ⁣⁣What did you do with bees wax, except that you knew it was a valuable by-product. Remember, it was the time of no internet and so no instant solution. ⁣⁣We had to ask some friends in the UK (wrote a hand written letter) and requested them to purchase a couple of books on how to make candles, balms and the like! ⁣Imagine the excitement when we had those books in our hands. And just sheer trial and error by Sneh...