To bee or not to bee may become Jamshedpur's existential question if it continues to ignore the danger swarming over its residential and commercial neighbourhoods.
Sunday's honeybee attack on Potka MLA Menaka Sardar and her companions may have taken place 70km away, but the steel city is no less vulnerable to such a deadly sting operation given chronic apathy and absence of a mechanism to control the recurring menace.
A rough city survey on Tuesday showed at least two high-rises sitting on sting bombs. One a residential unit - the Namrah Campus in densely populated Jawaharnagar, Mango; the other an important office block - the Voltas Building on Bistupur Main Road. While the former is threatened by one giant hive, the latter is riddled with 20 if not more.
The six-storey Namrah Campus houses 40 flats and as many families. The beehive thrives on the cornice of a window of a third-floor flat.
"It is impossible for us to keep this window open even in this hot and humid weather. The bees are always buzzing. Children playing on the ground often complain of being stung. Those are stray incidents, but imagine an angry swarm entering our flat," Mohammed Zahir Iqbal, a resident of the third-floor flat, shuddered at the thought.
Rain or shine, the bees never seem at rest. "The hive developed around six months ago. During recent showers, the bees stung a maid. We have informed the management of the apartment several times, but in vain," complained Anjum Hussain, who lives in a flat on a different floor.
JVM leader Firoz Khan, who is a partner in Namrah Campus, promised to seek expert help to have the hive removed. "Look, the bees are at a height of over 70ft; you or me cannot just bring them down. I will seek help from pest control people. Let us see if the urban local body or some private agency can help," Khan said.
Jagadish Yadav, the special officer of Mango Notified Area Committee - the urban local body Khan wants to approach - clarified that they did not have the resources to remove beehives. In a nutshell, residents of Namrah Campus will perhaps have to deal with this danger day in, day out.
At the eight-storey Voltas Building in Bistupur, at least 20 beehives have mushroomed on cornices at a height of more than 100ft.
"Though there has never been an attack, one cannot rule out a day when the bees get really angry and sting us all," Shanker Mukhi, a peon with Tata Docomo, voiced his fears.
A Voltas official, preferring anonymity, said they would take steps to remove the beehives as soon as possible.
Rajesh Rajan, spokesperson of civic utilities firm Jusco, said they could not take up proactive cleaning because none of the two buildings fell in their area of operation. "However, we can hire experts if we receive formal complaints from occupants of the buildings," he added.
On Sunday, bees stung Sardar and four others during the inauguration a school building in Dumaria, Ghatshila. While Sardar escaped with just three stings because villagers covered her with a bamboo basket, BJP worker Arun Shao had to be hospitalised in neighbouring Baripada (Odisha) with as many as 1,000. He was released on Monday. Over 500 bees had stung Dumaria OC Binod Kumar Paswan who was escorting the MLA.
In December 2012, a report in The Telegraph had got Jusco cracking down on bees at Jeevan Prakash Building in Bistupur and a banyan tree. The sting army had been troubling visitors to the LIC office and Kamani Centre.
