APICULTURE
MEANING OF APICULTURE
• Bees are economically important social insects. They not only provide us with honey and wax, they are also
responsible for pollination of flowers of the majority of damaged bee larvae, pollen grains, etc. of commercially important plants.
• Apiculture or bee-keeping is the tech nique of rearing honey bees for honey and wax from their comb or beehives. Selection of sites for quality honey and
protection of bees and combs from pests and diseases
are part of apiculture.
SPECIES OF HONEY BEE
1. Rock bee (Apis dorsata):
• This honey-bee is found all over India including upto the height of 12,000 m in the hilly regions. It is the largest sized (20 mm) Indian bees and also known as bombara. The bees build hives in tall trees, rocks, caves and ceilings of the deserted buildings. They are migratory in habit and move to the hilly areas in swarm during june to july and return to the plains in winter.
• They can build large-sized hives which are about 1.5 m to 2.0 m from side to side and above 1.0 m from top to bottom. Though a single hive produces up to 36 kg of honey during a year but the bee-keepers have rarely been successful in rearing due to the wild and ferocious nature of the worker bees.
2. Little bee (Apis florea):
• They are mainly found in the plains of India. The bees are smaller than the other Indian bees. The queen is golden brown in colour and the drones are black with greyish hair. They make hives in tree holes, on the branches of trees and rock crevices. They frequently change their places and prefer to remain wild. The hive is con siderably small and produces small amount of honey.
3. Indian honey-bee (Apis cerana indica):
• Apis cerana indica, the Indian honey bee, is a subspecies of asiatic honey bee. They are found all over India both in the plains and hilly areas. The bees make hives in the side tree holes, thick bushes and on the mud walls and they mostly prefer to live in the dark protected places.
• The workers in the plain region are yellowish white and at high alti tudes are dark in colour. They are gentle in nature, so bee-keepers use this species widely in apicul ture. A single comb produces 2 kg honey in the plains and about 5 kg in the hilly regions.
4. European bee (Apis mellifera):
• They are found in Africa, Europe, America, and Canada have also been introduced all over the world including India. They can
make their nests in enclosed places and also gentle in nature.
Each hive produces from 40-175 kg of honey.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN HONEY BEES
• The social organization of the honey-bees is established by the living of all individuals within the colony and they show the mutual cooperation among the members of the colony, and exhibit the overlapping genera tions.
• At least there is a division of labour among the different members of
bees in the colony or hive. The different forms or types of insects having a particular function live in the colony, called the castes.
Caste system:
• Thousands of bees (50,000 to 1,00,000 or more) which live in a hive are of three different forms:
(1) Workers (infer tile females), (2) Drones (males) and
(3) Queens (fertile females)
• The phenom enon of existence of several morphological forms with separate functions in a species is known as polymorphism. So honey- bees are well known as social and polymorphic insects.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN HONEY BEES
Queen bee:
• Generally a single matured queen is present in each hive. the size of the queen is nearly 2.5 times longer than that of a worker bee. It is characterized by the long tapering abdomen
• Function of the queen is reproduction and lays about 1000- 2000 eggs every day depending upon sea sonal variation and seasonal factors. The eggs may be either fertilized or unfertilized.
• The drones or males are pro duced by the laying of unfertilized eggs (i.e.
parthenogenetically), while worker bees are produced by fertilized eggs.
• After three days, the eggs hatch into small larvae. The larva which is fed with a special food called ‘royal jelly’ develops into queen. The royal jelly is a high proteinous substance produced by the hypopharyngeal glands of the workers.
• The larva which is selected to become queen is taken before the third day of development in a special chamber, called queen’s chamber.
• The queen secretes a kind of chemical substance with hormonal properties from the mandibular glands, called pheromone or queen substance which inhibits the growth of ovaries of workers and control the activi ties of all bees within the hive.
She can attract the workers towards the queen and stimu lates the workers to build wax cells for worker bees and drones but prevents in the building of queen cells.
Drones:
• Drones are the male mem bers of the bee colony and are haploid
genetically. They have no food (pollen and nectar) collecting organs. So they are totally dependent on worker bees for food.
Function:
• The main function is to fertilize the queens. they also help to maintain the warmth of the hive which is necessary for the hatching of the eggs.
Workers:
• The size of worker bee is small but they constitute the majority in a hive.
They are produced by the fertilized eggs laid by the queen. It takes 20 days from egg to adult and life span is about 6 weeks.
Function:
• All the time in their lives is spent for the maintenance of the hives and caring for their members. Workers are in volved in hive construction, clean the cells of the hives, collect the nectar, pollen and water and store within the cell properly. They repair the cracks in the walls of the comb and polish the walls with propolis. They also maintain the optimum temperature within the hive by fanning during summer, and in severe win ter when the temperature falls
sharply they gather outside the hive and reduce the tem perature loss of the surface of the hive.
APICULTURE
SELECTION OF BEES FOR APICULTURE:
•
For running a good apiary, selection of honey bee is of much importance. So, the following points should be kept in mind at the time of selection-
1. Honey bee should be of gentle temperament.
2. Should have the capacity to construct strong colony.
3. Have ability to protect from enemies.
4. Should be energetic.
5. Workers can suck juice from numerous variety of plants.
6. Bee on the whole can produce more and more honey from its comb.
•
In India,
A. indicais best for industry due to its gentle nature and
having efficient and prolific workers.
METHODS OF BEE-KEEPING
• The ultimate aim of bee keeping is to get more and more honey in pure forms. There are two methods the old indigenous and modern method.
1. INDIGENOUS METHODS:
HIVES:
a. Immovable structures or hives:
• It is practiced in villages from time immemorial. Small structures are made in secluded and pro tected places. During construction of dwell ing houses, small permanent chambers are made in the outer wall of the house for bees to build combs. Sometimes mud chambers are con structed.
• On the outer-side of the chamber a horizontal slit is made for the entry of bees, while on the inside wall, a large open ing is left for removal of comb.
b. Movable structures of hives:
• Bee chambers are made up of hollow bags, empty wooden boxes, earthen pots, etc.
which can be moved from place to place, and put in a suitable location for the bees.
EXTRACTION OF HONEY:
• For honey extraction, burning fire is brought near the bee hive at night as a result of which the bees are either killed or they escape out. Further the hive full of honey is being removed , cut into pieces and squeezed to get honey.
DRAWBACKS OF INDIGENOUS METHOD:
• These methods are not much satisfac tory, as the comb is lost in the process of extraction of honey.
• The quality of honey is inferior due to presence of dust, tissues of damaged bee larvae, pollen grains, etc., in it.
• The colony becomes weak due to killing of eggs and larvae.
• Formation of new hive by the escaped bees requires extra energy which affects the yield.
2. MODERN METHODS:
• Nowadays a typical movable bee hive is constructed which is
capable of expansion or contraction to the requirement of the
place, season and climatic conditions.
• APPLIANCES OF MODERN METHOD
1. Typical movable hive: An artificial hive is constructed by wooden block, the size and number of frames are variable from hive to hives. Frames are made up of perforated zinc sheets and the perforation size is only of 00.37 cm. the thorax of the queen is 0.43-0.45 cm, so the queen can never pass through this pore, while the small-sized workers and drones can pass through this pore. This hive consists of six parts-
a) STAND: it’s the basal part on which the
whole hive is constructed. It is adjusted
to make slope for the hive, so that the
rain water comes down quickly.
b) BOTTOM BOARD: it is situated above the stand and form the proper base for the hive, having two gates in the front position- one for entrance and another for exit.
c) BROOD CHAMBER: the bottom board carries the brood chamber which is the important part of bee hive. It is large in size provided with 5-10 frames. In each frame, a wax sheet bearing hexagonal frame is held up by a couple of wires in the vertical position. Along with the margin of every hexagonal mark, the bee starts making wall and ultimately the cell. This sheet of wax is called comb foundation which attracts the bees and provide the base for the preparation of comb on both sides. The frames are kept vertically and is covered by another frame having wire mesh through which the workers can easily pass. The comb foundation helps in obtaining a regular, strong brood cell comb which can be used repeatedly.
d) SUPER: it is provided with many frames containing comb foundation which is used to provide extra space for the expansion of hive.
e) INNER COVER: it is a wooden piece used for the covering of super, it has many holes for proper ventilation.
f) TOP COVER: It is meant for protecting the colony from rain and it is fitted with zinc sheet which is plain and slopping.
2. Queen Excluder: It consist of a wire
gauze, extran guards and drone traps with
mesh size 0.37 cm. It permits the workers
to pass through it but keeps back the
queen in the brood chamber.
3. Honey Extracter: It is used for extraction
of honey from the frames without damaging the comb. It consists of a metal drum with several pock ets around a rotating wheel. The frames are hanged from the pockets and the pockets are made to rotate round a central axis.
•
The centrifugal force created by rotation sepa rates honey from the comb which is col lected in the drum. The honey is taken out from the drum through a hole at the bottom.
The combs and frames are again placed in the hive.
4. Uncapping Knife:
When cells are filled
with honey they are sealed by wax before
placing it in the honey extracter. This wax
sealing is removed by heated uncapping knife.
5. Other equipments: Some materials like protective garments, gloves, bee net, brushes etc. are required for easy and well planned handling of the bees.
They are manufactured locally and very cheap.
Products Of Apiculture:
• Apiculture involves maintenance of bee colonies for the collection of various produce like honey, beeswax, propolis, pollen and royal jelly. these products have considerable number of applications in various industries and are constantly growing in number due to the increasing awareness on benefits of these products.
(i) HONEY: Honey is a neutral, natural valuable tonic for human body. honey is a sweet, viscous edible fluid. Chemical composition of honey is (i) Ash 1.00%, (ii) Minerals (0.22 to 0.3 per cent), e.g., calcium, iron, phosphate and manganese, (iii) Vitamins (0.2 to 0. 5 per cent), e.g., pantothenic acid, biotin, pyridoxine, choline, ascorbic acid, thiamine, riboflavin and niacin, (iv) Sugars (20 to 40 per cent), e.g., levulose (38.90%), dextose (21.28%), maltose (8.81 %) and sucrose (1.9%), (v) Water (60 – 80%), (vi) Amino acids, enzymes. Honey also contains pollen.
