Quinquennial Review Team (QRT) constituted by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi visited Punjab Agricultural University on August 24, 2024. It is a high level team constituted by the council to review the progress made by it’s All India Coordinated Research Project on Honey Bees and Pollinators. The team after having detailed discussion in Meeting of seven North Indian Centres at SKUAST-Jammuon August 23, 2024, visited PAU which was awarded ‘Best Research Centre’ in 2023. The Chairman of the six members team headed by Dr H. C. Sharma, a renowned entomologist worked as Principal Scientist at ICRISAT and Vice Chancellor Dr Y.S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, praised the initiatives taken by PAU, Ludhiana Centre of AICRP (HB&P) especially on honey bee breeding and hive products. The team members echoed the same observation. Honorable Vice Chancellor, PAU Ludhiana, Dr S. S. Gosal highlighted the untiring efforts made by the team of PAU scientists lead by Dr A.S. Atwal in introducing and establishing Italian Honey Bee in India. This effort of PAU laid path for helping the farmers and farm-women of the country establish entrepreneurship and leading India to be a big exporter of honey. The worthy Vice Chancellor also applauded the significant contributions of this section in imparting basic beekeeping trainings to farmers and farm-women and defense personnel, and advance trainings to progressive beekeepers of the state besides trainers’ trainings to ADO, HDO and SMS’s. This lead the state with less than 2% geographical area of the country introducing 14.1% of apiary honey of India. Director of Research, Dr Ajmer Singh Dhatt highlighted the significance of bees for novel cause of pollination. He also highlighted utilizing honey bees in obtaining higher seed set in vegetable crops. Head Department of Entomology Dr Manmeet Brar Bhullar highlighted the accomplishments of Apiculture unit of the Department, which as per Dr Bhullar has contributed a lot in flourishing this subsidiary occupation. Followed by this detailed discussion, the team also visited at PAU Apiary and Apicultural laboratories, interacted with the PG students and representative of Progressive Beekeepers Association. The team also visited National Insect Museum, Apicultural Molecular Biology Lab and Insecticide Residue Labs in the Department of Entomology.
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