His hives stand in a row along the edge of a pea field, painted different colours so the bees can find their own.

He started with two hives fifteen years ago, after a training camp in Kullu. Now he has forty, and in a good summer each gives about ten kilos of honey.

Every October, before the cold, he loads the hives onto a truck at night, when the bees are inside, and drives them down to a relative's orchard in the Kullu valley for the winter.

His honey sells in Keylong within a week of the harvest. He says the bees taught him patience; his wife says they taught him to get up early.