Apiculture - Bee keeping

 

Apiculture

The honey bee is an economically important insect which plays a vital role in the life of man. Everybody must have tasted the sweet honey. bees Honey bees are best known for their two important products, one is honey and the other is bee wax. Honey is a universally accepted food having many medicinal benefits. It is an important ingredient of some Ayurvedic preparations. It is therefore considered as a versatile food. Honey bees buzzing around the beehives. Bees construct their hives by secreting a waxy substance from their wax glands. This wax is used to prepare candles, cosmetics, creams, ointments, paints, polishes, etc. The process of rearing and maintaining honeybee colonies and their hives for various products like honey, beeswax, propolis, pollen, royal jelly, etc. is called apiculture.

Species

There are four species of honey bees are found. Of these, three are indigenous species, while one is an exotic or foreign species.

Apis dorsata: the indigenous species are Apis dorsata also called the rock bee or gaint bee. The size of this be is very large. It is very ferocious and generally found in the wild and it is very hard to tame it.

Apis indica: it is also called the Indian Oriental bee. This bee is very gentle. It can be domesticated easily though it may occur in the wild.

Apis florea: it is also called the Little bee. The size of this species is very small and it is also very docile. A low yielding species and is thus considered uneconomical for apiculture.

Apis mellifera: an exotic foreign species of the honey bee has also been introduced to increase the production of honey. This species is Apis mellifera also called the Italian or European bee. This species is very easy to control and yields good quality and quantity of honey.

Therefore, apiculturists preferred this exotic species of honey bee over the indigenous species for commercial production of honey.

Composition of honey

Honey contains 17 to 25% water, 70 to 80% Sugars, 4.2% minerals, and vitamins B1, B6, C, and D and ash 1%. Sugars include Laevulose (L-fructose 41%), glucose 35%, sucrose 1.9%, and dextrin 1.5%. It is a food of high nutritive and medicinal value. It is a laxative, blood purifier, and expectorant.

Honey bees are often attacked by natural predators like wasps, wax moths, mites, black ants, and king crow. Some diseases are also prevalent among the honeybees like Nosema disease caused by the protozoan Nosema apis and Acrine disease caused by a Parasitic mite Acarapsis woodi.

The bee colony – The caste system

Honeybees are social insects and live in colonies. There are three categories of bees in a beehive:

Queen Bee

The best category is the Queen Bee. The Queen Bee is a fully developed functional female in the beehive. It has a well developed female reproductive system. She is largest in size having small shriveled wings. She is capable of laying eggs at the rate of 800 to 1500 per day and may live for about 3 to 4 years. Basically, she is capable of laying two types of eggs. Fertilized eggs that produce sterile female workers and a fertile new Queen. Unfertilized eggs which produce fertile males called drones.

Worker bees

The second category consists of worker bees. Worker bees are sterile females. On average, there will be 20,000 to 30,000 worker bees in the hive. These are smaller bees having strong wings for flying. These worker bees have a small lifespan of about 35 days. They possess well-developed mouthparts for collecting nectar and their abdomen bears the sting and wax glands. Worker bees perform several duties of the colony like cleaning the hive, feeding the larvae, and queen bee, guarding the entrance of the hive, and most important collecting the food that is nectar and pollen from flowers.

Drones

The third cast consists of the drones. Drones are fertile male bees. They mate with the queen bee. Their number in a hive is very few, it’s around 60 to 70. They lack sting and wax glands. Drones can develop to about 60 days. 

There is one common function done by both drone bees and workers, they can sense the temperature variation in the hive. If the temperature in the hive becomes high, they remove heat by moving air with their wings. If the temperature of the hive becomes less, they start shivering to generate heat.