METHOD OF BEE KEEPING &INDIGENOUS METHOD

SUBMITTED BY:DEEKSHA KESARWANI

12BSZBC017B.Sc(ZBC)

5th SEM

BEE KEEPING

BEE KEEPING

•Beekeeping (or apiculture, from Latin: apis "bee") is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans.

•A beekeeper (or apiarist) keeps bees in order to collect their honey and other products that hive

produces (including beeswax,propolis, pollen, and royal jelly), to pollinate crops, or to produce

bees for sale to other beekeepers.

•Depictions of humans collecting honey from wild bees date to 15,000 years ago; efforts to domesticate them are shown in Egyptian art around 4,500 years ago.

•It wasn't until the 18th century that European understanding of the colonies and biology of bees allowed the construction of the moveable comb hive so that honey could be harvested without destroying the entire colony.

History of beekeeping•The earliest methods of beekeeping are recorded on the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs.

•Sugar was unknown in the region and Egyptians had to rely on honey to sweeten their breads, cakes, beer & wine.

• Archaeological finds relating to beekeeping have been discovered at Rehov, a Bronze and Iron Age archaeological site in the Jordan Valley, Israel.

•At some point humans began to attempt to domesticate wild bees in artificial hives made from hollow logs, wooden boxes, pottery vessels, and woven straw baskets or "skeps“

•workers are depicted blowing smoke into hives as they are removing honeycombs.

•Inscriptions detailing the production of honey are found on the tomb of Pabasa from the 26th Dynasty (c. 650 BCE), depicting pouring honey in jars and cylindrical hives.

•Beekeeping was considered a highly valued industry controlled by beekeeping overseers—owners of gold rings depicting apiculture scenes rather than religious ones as they have been reinterpreted recently, contra Sir Arthur Evan.

•The hives were found in orderly rows, three high, in a manner that could have accommodated around 100 hives, held more than 1 million bees and had a potential annual yield of 500 kilograms of honey and 70 kilograms of beeswax, according to Mazar, and are evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in ancient Israel 3,000 years ago.

•The art of beekeeping appeared in ancient China for a long time and hardly traceable to its origin.

•There are some parts mentioning the art of beekeeping and the importance of the quality of the wooden box for bee keeping that can affect the quality of its honey.

•Collecting honey from wild bee colonies is one of the most ancient human activities and is still practiced by aboriginal societies in parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America

METHOD OF BEE KEEPING

•The ultimate aim of bee keeping is to get more and more honey in pure form.

•The old method commonly used by old apiculture is very crude, cruel and of unplanned type.

•This old method is called as Indigenous method.

INDIGENOUS METHOD1. HIVE: Two types of hives are used in indigenous method of bee keeping e.g. wall or fixed and movable hive.

(a) WALL OR FIXED HIVE:

•It is purely natural type of comb because the bees themselves prepare the hive at any space on the wall or trees.

•There is an opening on one side through which bees come out of the hive.

(b) MOVABLE HIVE

•It comprises of hollow wood logs, empty boxes and earthen pots etc. placed in verandas of houses.

•There exist two holes one is for entrance and the other for exit of the bees.

•The swarmed bees usually come to the box on their own accord.

•Some bee keepers use to take the clusters of the swarms from a tree and keep them in the hive.

2. EXTRACTION OF HONEY

•For honey extraction, burning fire is brought near the bee hive at the night as a result of which bees are either killed or they escape off.

•Further the hive full of honey is being removed, cut into pieces and squeezed to get honey.

•Sometimes smoking is done so that the bees may escape from their hives.

•The indigenous method of bee keeping suffers from a number of drawbacks due to which it is not recommended by present day panel.

•These drawbacks are:

(a) Honey becomes impure because at the time of squeezing, the brood cells, pollen cells, honey cells and larvae are also extracted.

(b) The colony becomes weak due to killing of the eggs and the larvae at the time of squeezing.

3.DRAWBACKS OF INDIGENOUS METHOD

(c) Formation of new hive by the escaped bees requires extra energy effect the yield.

(d) The activities of the bees can be controlled.

(e) The hivetion of bees on the same place is only matter of chance.

(f) The honey robbers, like, rat, ant, wasp and monkeys may affect the hive easily.

(g) The race improvement program may not be applied. So no possibility for the selection of the best bee is there.

(h) The hazards created by climatic factor cannot be controlled

MODERN METHOD OF APPICULTURE

•The drawbacks of indigenous method an advanced method based on scientific facts has been developed.

•It has opened a new era for the cottage industry in India and has also given an opportunity for lakhs of unemployed.

•Persons to keep them busy in the business.

•From this cottage industry program the routine agriculture work may not suffer.

•First of all care was taken to improve the texture of hives and during this race hive patterns were introduced in India.

•Langstrothhives containing 10 frames (44.4x23cm) has been used as a standard hive in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu &Kashmir, and Punjab.

APPLIANCES FOR MODERN METHOD

They are divided into 5 types:

1. Typical Movable Hive

2. Queen Excluder

3. Honey Extractor

4. Uncapping Knife

5. Other Equipments

TYPICAL MOVABLE HIVE

•It is a six type:

(a) Stand

(b)Bottom board

(c)Brood chamber

(d)Super

(e)Inner cover

(f) Top Cover

2. QUEEN EXCLUDER

3. HONEY EXTRACTOR:

4. UNCAPPING KNIFE:

5. OTHER EQUIPMENT