Bee Keeping

Why learn Beekeeping?Beekeepers have their special reasons for doing what they do.One can decide what attracts them into beekeeping,but here let us learn about apiculture.

WHAT IS APICULTURE

Apiculture is keeping of bees for economic gains

Bee farming is not only a rewarding but also an enjoyable occupation with many benefits.

It has a number of advantages over other farm enterprises as follows;

• Requires little land.
• Capital investment is low compared to other farm enterprises
• Beekeeping or bee farming is cheap and relatively not competitive to other Agricultural enterprises i.e. does not compete for resources
• Labour required is low.
• About ten (10) products can be obtained which are great source of income i.e. honey, beeswax, pollen propolis, bee venom, royal jelly, bee colonies, bee brood, queen bees, and package bees.
• Encourages environmental conservation.
• Bees are good pollinators of plants, trees, fruits and crops, thus playing a big role in bio-diversity and improvement of crop yields
• The therapeutic value of most hive products provide remedy for a number of ailments (Apitherapy)

The beekeeper does not need to own land in order to keep bees.                                                     

Why should we keep bees?                  

Honey is money. Honey is delicious and nutritious. How can man obtain honey to combat malnutrition? The answer is in beekeeping. By keeping bees, he can obtain large quantities of honey and raw beeswax for export.

Other benefits of beekeeping are as follows:

1. Tropical apiculture is cheap.  It does not involve mass breading of bees, because the insects can provide their own food, and there is no over winter bee management.
2. All the necessary inputs required for bee keeping are available locally. Some may be wasted if bees are not kept, e.g. pollen and nectar of flower
3. Individuals and private organisations such as churches, women groups, youth association and cooperatives societies can initiate it with only limited funds.
4. Bee keeping is self-reliant. It does not depend on importation of foreign equipments or inputs.
5. In many rural societies the technology is available.
6. It improves the ecology. It helps plant in production. Bees do not over graze as other animals do.
7. The honey bee produces honey, bee wax and propolis. These are non- perishable commodities that can be marketed locally and abroad.
8. The honey bee provides pollination service. This is an indispensable activity in the food production process.
9. The honey bee is the only insect that can be transported from crop to crop.
10. Honey and bee wax can be produced in some arid areas that are unsuitable for any other agricultural use.
11. The bee keeper does not need to own land in order to keep bees.

COLONY LIFE AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION.

The tropical honeybee, Apis mellifera, lives a unique, sophisticated social life similar to that of its counterpart in Europe and elsewhere. There are two sexes, the female and the male, but the female is subdivided into two castes. In the average colony, there are

1. One fertile queen, whose main activity is egg-laying,

• From 20,000 to 80,000 are sterile female worker bees, which do almost everything that needs to be done in the colony, and

The duties of worker bees are:

a.         Cleaning the hive and the comb

b.         Feeding the brood

c.         Caring for the queen

d.         Making orientation flight

e.         Comb building

f.          Ventilating the hive

g.         Packing pollen, water, nectar or honey into the comb

h.         Execution

i.          Guard duty

• From 300 to 800 fertile males, generally called drones.

In addition, there are about 5000 eggs and 25-300000 immature bees in various stages of their development, called the brood.

Table 1 :Summary of worker bee tasks

Table 2: Worker bee tools

Characteristic Differences among the honeybee castes