APICULTURE

General Information

Honey hunting, or plundering the nests of wild honeybees to obtain honey and beeswax, is practiced throughout the world wherever colonies of wild nesting honeybees are abundant. However, obtaining honey is easier and more convenient if bees are encouraged to nest inside a hive. This housing of bees in a container is true "beekeeping", but the term is used loosely to describe all the techniques involving bees and the harvesting and processing of their products. Honeybees belong to the family Apidae subfamily Apinae and genus Apis.

They are social insects living in colonies. A colony consists of a queen, several thousand workers and a few hundred drones. There is division of labour and specialization in the performance of various functions. They build nests (combs) with wax, which is secreted from the wax glands of worker bees. The bees use their cells to rear thin brood and store food. Honey is stored in the upper part of the comb; beneath it are rows of pollen storage cells, worker brood cells and drone brood cells in that order. Some Apis species build single comb in open, while others build multiple combs on dark cavities. There are many ways to utilize honeybees for their pollination services or to obtain products from them. The methods used depend upon the types of bees available, and the skills and resources available to the beekeeper.

Honey comb

Characteristics of bees

Swarming is the natural instinct of honeybees to reproduce its colonies. By swarming, strong colonies are divided naturally. It occurs mostly when the colony population is at its peak. Some of the several reasons for swarming are sudden honey flow, sudden failure of queen to lay eggs, congestion in the colony, want of breeding space, bad ventilation etc. Dividing the colonies or keeping young queen or preventing over crowding of bees or adding new combs can prevent swarming.

Absconding is the total desertion of colony from its nest due to incidence of disease / pest attack, too much interference by human beings or robbing of honey by bees from other colonies. Proper hive management can prevent it.

The worker bees communicate with other bees about the exact location of nectar, pollen, water, next nesting site etc. by means of dances. Round dance is performed when the food is located within 100 m from hive and wagtail dance to communicate the location of food source when it is more than 100 m away from the hive.