Bee Keeping

Judy Vanessa

5 years ago

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:

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.
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
Individuals and private organisations such as churches, women groups, youth association and cooperatives societies can initiate it with only limited funds.
Bee keeping is self-reliant. It does not depend on importation of foreign equipments or inputs.
In many rural societies the technology is available.
It improves the ecology. It helps plant in production. Bees do not over graze as other animals do.
The honey bee produces honey, bee wax and propolis. These are non- perishable commodities that can be marketed locally and abroad.
The honey bee provides pollination service. This is an indispensable activity in the food production process.
The honey bee is the only insect that can be transported from crop to crop.
Honey and bee wax can be produced in some arid areas that are unsuitable for any other agricultural use.
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

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

1^st – 2^nd Day	Cleaning cells and keeping brood warm
3^rd – 5^th Day	Feeding older larvae (on mixture of honey and water)
6^th – 11^th Day	Feeding young larvae (on royal jelly). The hypo-pharyngeal glands start secretion.
12^th Day	Wax glands are active. Food glands start to disappear.
12^th – 15^th Day	Enzyme glands are developed. Transporting food within hive. (She receives and processes nectar until she stores it. She also receives pollen and puts it loosely into cells. She also makes first play flight – orientation flight.
Between 12^th-17^th Day	Producing wax, building combs.
18^th – 21^st Day	Guarding hive entrance
22^nd –35/end of life	Visits flowers, pollinating them. Collecting pollen, nectar and water.

Table 2: Worker bee tools

Tool	Use
1.Antennae	Responsive to stimuli of touch and odour
2. Antennae cleaner	Cleans antennae
3. Proboscis	Ingests liquids, nectar, honey and water.
4. Mandible	Eating pollen, collecting propolis and working the wax in comb building.
5. Head & Thoracic Labial Glands	Produce substances used in grooming, cleaning and feeding.
6. Mandibular Glands	Preparation of wax by kneading, softening it.
7. Wax Glands	Four pairs of glands produce wax
8. Hypopharnygeal Glands	Four set of paired glands produces sticky milky fluid/bee milk/royal jelly. Responsible for diastase and invertase for digestion of sugar nectar.
9.Pollenbaskets/Corbiculae	Carry pollen and propolis to the hive.
10. Pollen Press.	Transfer of pollen from the brushes to the baskets
11. Wings	Flight, movement, fanning the hive (inside).
12. Honey Stomach (Crop)	Carrier of nectar, honey and water. Food store.
13.Honeystopper (Proventriculus)	Valve -Prevents collected nectar from running into the stomach. Comprise of filter for extracting pollen from nectar.
14. Nasonov Glands	Produce pheromones – scent gland secretions.
15. Sting apparatus	Defend colony from intruders. Produce pheromones:- alarm odour (defence alarm) and alarm tag odour (mark site of attack)

Characteristic Differences among the honeybee castes

	QUEEN	DRONE	WORKER

BODY	Elongated	Stout	Small
COMPOUND EYES	Small	Big & meeting at the back of the head	Not meeting at the back of the head
OCELLI	At the front of the head	At the front of the head	Pushed at the back of the head just behind the junctions compound eyes.
HEAD	Rounded but small	Rounded	Triangular
WINGS	Not covering the abdomen	Cover the length of the abdomen	Cover the length of the abdomen
ANTENNAL SEGMENTS	12	13	12
STING	Smooth & curved	None	Straight and barbed
NO. IN THE COLONY	One	Hundreds	Thousands