Apiculture

Apis Spp.= Honey Bee

 What is honey?

Honey is a thick liquid produced by

certain types of bees from the nectar of
flowers
 Highly nutritious
 Preparation of cake & biscuits
 Medicinal value - Ayurvedic & Unani
- Antiseptic & Sedative
- Formation of hemoglobin in anaemic patients
- Prevents caugh, cold & fever
- Blood purifier, cure the ulcers of tongue & alimentary tract
- Recommended in severe heart attack & to cure diabetes
- Quick killer of germs of typhoid, dysentery &
branchiopneumonia
 Systematic position
Apis Spp.= Honey Bee

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Apidae
Genus: Apis Linnaeus, 1758
 Distribution

• Apis mellifera is the most commonly domesticated species of honey

bees, probably originated in Tropical Africa and spread from there to
Northern Europe and East into Asia
• More than 25 subspecies are currently recognized
• Social insects- they tend to live in colonies where all the
individuals are of the same family, often the offspring of one mother
 Queen

 The queen is the largest bee

 Female but functionally bisexual
 Lives about 3 years depending on the number of sperm collected
 Generally only 1 queen in the hive
 Drones

 The drone is a male & medium-sized bee

 They live just the three months of summer at most
 Best flyer, has the best vision, and scent detection
 Its only function is to mate with the queen
 Worker

 The workers are small

 Generally sterile female bees
 A small hive may have 20,000 workers
 They live at most six months
 Workers are ventilating the hive
 They are building the hexagonal walls of the honeycomb cells
 As worker-gatherers arrive from the field they receive the nectar
to evaporate into honey
 The workers clean out the cells and feed larvae
Period Work activity
Days 1-3 Cleaning cells and incubation

Day 3-6 Feeding older larvae

Day 6-10 Feeding younger larvae
Receiving nectar and pollen from field
Day 8-16
bees

Day 12-18 Beeswax making and cell building

Entrance guards; nectar, pollen, water

Day 14 onwards and propolis foraging; robbing other
hives
 Morphology of a honeybee

 The bodies of bees are divided into head, thorax and abdomen
 Three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings on the thorax
 Development
This diagram shows the queen laying
a egg which hatches into a larva

The larva is fed honey and bee

bread (pollen mixture with worker
saliva)

The larva grows and is sealed into its

cell

The larva rests in the form of a

pupa. The pupa eats through the
wax cap and emerges as an adult
 Differing stages of development
Stage of
development Queen Worker Drone
Egg 3 days 3 days 3 days

13
days :Successiv
e moults occur
Larva 8 days 10 days
within this
period 8 to 13
day period

Cell Capped day 8 day 8 day 10

Pupa 4 days 8 days 8 days

Total 15 days 21 days 24 days

 Beehive/Honeycomb

 Commonly built hanging down vertically from

a rock, building or branch of a tree
 Consists of two layers of hexagonal chambers
 Cell walls are extremely thin and fragile
 Types of cell
- Storage cells: honey & pollen
- Brood cells: young
- Worker cells: worker
- Drone cells: drone
- Queen cells: queen
 Communication (Bee language)

 Bees find flowers both by scent and sight

 Bee dances=certain rhythmic body movements
 Round dance= source of food nearer
 Wag-tail dance= source of food more than 100 meters away

Round dance Wag-tail dance

 Economic importance

 The honey bee's primary commercial value

is pollination of various fruit and vegetable crops
 Other valuable products of honeybees used by humans are
honey, beeswax, and propolis
 Honeybees are estimated to contribute billions of dollars a
year in pollination services alone to the our economy
 Economic importance

Beeswax
• Manufacture of cosmetics, face creams, paints, polishes, plastic
works, ointments, carbon paper & many lubricants
 Microtomy works to prepare blocks of tissue
 Collapse of Honey Bees

 Due to excess use of pesticides

 Diseases caused to the worker Bees
Sericulture

Bombyx mori = Silkworm

 What is Silk?

 Silk is a natural protein fiber

 Silk is secreted by the silk glands of larvae
 Obtained from the cocoons of the larvae
 The shimmering appearance of silk is due to the
triangular prism-like structure of the silk fiber
 Systematic position
Bombyx mori = Silkworm

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Subclass: Pterygota
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Bombycidae
Genus: Bombyx
Species: B. mori Linnaeus, 1758
 General features

• Adult silkmoth is a medium size (25mm long) insect

• Body is robust, creamy-white or yellow in color
• Body divided into 3 regions- Head, Thorax & Abdomen
• Silkworm is the domesticated insect
• Reared in domestication of a diet of mulberry leaves
• Two major groups of silkworms - Univoltine and Bivoltine
• The Polyvoltine breed of mulberry silkworm can only be located in the
tropics 8 separate lifecycles throughout the year
• The full genome was published in 2008 by the International Silkworm
Genome Consortium
Life cycle
 Life History
 Eggs
Soon after fertilization, each female lays about 300-500 eggs in cluster
Female covers the eggs by a gelatinous secretion which sticks them to
leaves
After laying, female doesn’t take food & dies within 4-5 days

 Larva
After 10 days larvae/caterpillar hatches from egg
Four times moulting/ecdysis repeats in the larval stages
 Life History

Pupa
Mature larva stop feeding & secrete a sticky fluid through spinneret
Sticky substance turns into a fine, long and solid thread of silk in contact
with air
A single caterpillar produce 1000-1500 meters of silk
Within a fortnight the silkworm transform pupa inside cocoon

 Adult
Soon after emergence the male & female moths mate,
lay eggs and die within 3-4 days
 Types of silkworm

 Mulberry:
• Commercially produced in the world
• This silk comes from B. mori , which only feeds on the leaves of mulberry plant
• These silkworms are completely domesticated and reared indoors
 Tasar:
• Tasar (Tussah) is coarse silk mainly used for furnishings and interiors
• This silk is generated by Antheraea mylitta which mainly thrive on the food
plants Asan and Arjun
• Rearing conducted in nature on the trees in the open

Oak Tasar: It is a finer variety of tasar, Antheraea proyeli

China is the major producer of oak tasar in the world
 Types of silkworm

 Eri:
• Endi or Errandi, Eri is a multivoltine silk spun from open-ended cocoons
• Eri silk is the product of the domesticated Philosamia ricini that feeds mainly on
castor leaves.
• Used indigenously for preparation ofchaddars (wraps) for own use by tribals

 Muga:
• Golden yellow color silk is obtained from semi-domesticated multivoltine silkworm,
Antheraea assamensis.
• Feed on the aromatic leaves of Som and Soalu plants & reared on trees open
•This silk, a high value product, is used in products like saris (sarees), chaddars, etc.
 Economic importance

The knitted fabrics for the preparation of garments, parachutes, parachute

cords, fishing lines sieve for flour mills, insulation coil for telephones and
wireless receivers and tyres of racing cars
 Fabrics for garments
 Dyed and printed ornamented fabrics for saris, jackets, shawls and wrappers
 At the root of the social, economic, cultural and political progress
 Diseases of Mulberry Silkworm

Viral Diseases
Symptoms:
• The larvae will be sluggish with swollen inter-segmantal region
• The integument of diseases larvae will be fragile and brakes easily
• Oozes out from the larval body
• The diseases larvae don’t settle for moult and show shining integument
• The larvae appear to be restless
 Diseases of Mulberry Silkworm

Bacterial Diseases
Symptoms:
• The diseased larvae will be stunted in growth, lethargic soft and appear
flaccid
• The cephalothoracic region may be translucent
• The larvae vomit gut juice, develop dysentery and excrete chain type fecus.
• The larvae on death putrefy, develop different and emit foul smell
 Diseases of Mulberry Silkworm

Fungal Diseases
Symptoms:
• The diseases larvae prior to death will be lethargic and on death are flaccid
• Oil specks may be seen on the surface of larvae
• They gradually become hard, dry and mummify into a white or green colored
structure
• The diseases pupae will be hard, lighter and mummifies
 Diseases of Mulberry Silkworm

Protozoan disease : Pebrine

Symptoms:
• Diseases larvae show slow growth, undersized body and poor appetite
• Diseases larvae reveal pale and flaccid body
• Tiny black spots appear on larval integument
• Dead larvae remain rubbery and do not undergo putrefaction shortly after death
 Diseases of Mulberry Silkworm

Management
• Sun drying of rearing appliances for one/two days
• Disinfection of rearing room and appliances with 5% bleaching powder
• Disinfection of worms, trays and discarding of diseased worms
• Ensure proper ventilation and air circulation
• Provide proper bed spacing
• Feed the larvae with nutritious mulberry leaves
• Collect and burn infected larvae, faecal matter and bed refuses
• Early diagnosis and rejection of infected lots
Mulberry Plant Cultivation
Commercial Rearing
“Villages are the Backbone of
the Country”