Apiculture

Apiculture/Beekeeping

➢ The cultivation of bees on a commercial scale for the production of honey

and other products

➢ The “management” of honey bees

 History of Beekeeping
Romans:
Pliny wrote about beekeeping in about 50AD
Wrote about wax, and propolis
Virgil wrote about beekeeping in about 40BC
Keep hives:
 Near water
 Out of the wind
 Away from lizards, moths, and birds

Greeks: 384 BC, Aristotle wrote much about beekeeping

➢ In 1586, Luis Mendez de Torres first described the queen bee as a female that
laid eggs
➢ In 1609 Charles Butler identified the female queen and the drone as a male bee
➢ In 1637 Richard Remnant recognized that the worker bees were females
 The “Modern” Era of Beekeeping

➢ Started in 1853 with the publication of the book “The Hive and the
Honeybee”
➢ Written by L.L. Langstroth
The “Father” of modern beekeeping
➢ Introduced the concept of “bee space”
➢ From which the Top opening, movable frame hive evolved
 Why Honey bees are important?
➢ Provide valuable products for our comfort,
pleasure, & nutrition
Honey, Wax, Pollen, Royal jelly, Venom

Honey
➢ Produced from plant nectar
➢ The first sweetener (long before sugar cane)
➢ High demand for honey exists in local, regional and international markets.
➢ Honey is an important nutritive food, containing various kind of sugar,
protein, free amino acids enzymes and vitamins with a high caloric value
➢ Its main sugars laevulose and dextrose are absorbed directly into the blood
and provide rapid energy
➢ Bees pollinate crops and thus help increase yields

➢ Propolis, collected from plants by bees to cover the inside of the hive, treats
a broad range of ailments

➢ Pollen, collected from plants by bees to feed their larvae, is used in the
perfume industry, and is a food additive and a medicine

➢ Royal jelly, made by young bees from gland secretions and fed to the queen
to make her strong, has medicinal properties

➢ Beeswax is used in cosmetics, candles and polishes

 Queen

➢ There is normally only one queen per hive and she is treated like royalty
because she is the only one capable of laying eggs in the colony
➢ She can lay upto 2000 eggs per day
➢ Queen can be identified by her abdomen, which is slightly larger than the
worker bee
➢ She is also surrounded by small group of attendants that care for her every
need including feeding
 Drones
➢ Male bees of the colony
➢ They also do not have stingers
➢ Drone honey bees do not forage for nectar or pollen
➢ In some species they are playing a contributing role in the temperature
regulation of the hive
➢ Primary purpose of a drone bee is to fertilize a new queen
 Worker Bee

➢ Worker bee is imperfect female that lacks the full reproductive capacity
➢ The worker bees do every job in the hive except lay eggs
➢ Workers gather pollen into the pollen baskets on their back legs to carry
back to the hive where it is used as a food for the developing brood
➢ Nectar is sucked up through the proboscis, mixed with enzymes and carried
back to the hive, where it is stored and then evaporated into honey
 Worker activities

➢ Every bee has a function and every bee knows its function which it performs
tirelessly
➢ Worker bees perform several indoor and outdoor activities
➢ A bee travels an average of 1600 round trips in order to produce one ounce of
honey
➢ To produce 2 pounds of honey, bees travel a distance equal to 4 times around
the earth
➢ A colony can have 50,000 to 60,000 workers
 Duties of the Worker Bees
 The job of the worker bee changes as they get older
(Day 1-2)
 Cell cleaning: First thing a worker does when it is born is to clean the
hive. Brood cells must be cleaned before the next use. Cells will be
inspected by the queen and if unsatisfactory will not be used.
(Day 3-11)
 Nurse bee: Feed the worker larva with worker jelly, secreted from the
same glands that produce royal jelly. Bees Feed royal jelly to the queen
larva
(Day 12-17)
 Wax production: Four sets of wax glands, situated inside the last four
ventral segments of the abdomen, produce wax for comb construction.
Build cells from wax, repair old cells, and store nectar and pollen
brought in by other workers
 Honey sealing: Mature honey, sufficiently dried, is sealed tightly with wax
to prevent absorption of moisture from the air by workers
 Drone feeding: Drones do not feed themselves, they are fed by workers
 Queen attendants: They are involved in feeding the queen. They also
collect QMP (Queen Mandibular Pheromone) from the queen and share it
with the bees around them who also share it spreading its effects through the
hive
 Honeycomb building: Workers will take wax from wax producing workers
and build the comb with it.
 Pollen packing: Pollen brought into the hive for feeding the brood is also
stored. It must be packed firmly into comb cells and mixed with a small
amount of honey so that it will not spoil
 Propolizing : The walls of the hive will be covered with a thin coating of
propolis, a resinous substance obtained from plants. In combination with
enzymes added by the worker this will have antibacterial and antifungal
properties
 Mortuary bees : Dead bees must be removed from the hive to prevent
disease and allow cells to be reused. They will be carried some distance
from the hive by mortuary bees
 Fanning bees : Worker bees fan the hive, cooling it with evaporated water
brought by water carriers
(Days 18 - 21)
 Guard Bees: protect the entrance of the hive from enemies
 Soldier bees: Soldiers hang around near the entrance and attack
invaders. They work in concert with entrance guards
 Entrance guard bees: These inspect incoming bees to ensure that they are
bringing in food and have the correct hive odor. Other bees will be rejected or
attacked by soldier bees
 Outside guard bees: Outer guards may take short flights around the outside of
the hive in response to disturbances
 Water carriers :When the hive is in danger of overheating, these bees will
obtain water, usually from within a short distance from the hive and bring it back
to spread on the backs of fanning bees

(Days 22 - 35)
 Foraging bees: The forager bees travel to a nectar source, pollen source or to
collect propolis
 Die in field : The life span of worker bees depend on the time of year. Most
worker bees live about 28 to 35 days. However, workers that are reared in
September and October can live through the winter
Duties of a worker bee during its life span
 Honey bee life cycle

 Life of all honey bees start as an egg which is layed by queen in mid to late
winter to prepare for spring
 Queen deposits each egg in the bottom of a wax cell in the brood area of the
hive
 Egg hatches after three days into a larva
 Both workers and queens are fed royal jelly during the first three days of the
larval stage
 Nurse bees feed it royal jelly at first then workers feed on pollen, nectar and
diluted honey
 Queens will continue to feed on royal jelly
 This causes the larva to pupa stage more quickly
 Good nutrition during the larval stage is considered to be of critical
importance to the quality of the queen raised with respect to good genetics
and sufficient number of mating
 It than becomes an inactive pupa
 After another week, it will emerge as an adult bee
Honey bee life cycle
 Pheromones

Honey bees use special pheromones for almost all behaviors of life such as:

➢ Mating
➢ Alarm
➢ Defense
➢ Orientation
➢ Colony recognition
➢ Food production
 Communication

➢ Karl Von Frisch was awarded the Nobel prize for physiology and medicine
in 1973 for his study of honey bee communication

➢ Bees communicate through the language of dance

➢ Honey bees are able to direct other bees to food sources through
Round dance
Waggle dance
 Dance language of the Honey Bee

Round Dance
 It tells the other foragers that food is with 50 meters of the hive, but it does not
provide much information regarding direction

Waggle Dance
 It may be vertical or horizontal
 It provides more detail about the distance and direction of food source
 It is usually used when an experienced forager returns to her colony with a load
of food, either nectar or pollen
 If the quality of food is insufficiently high, she will often perform a “dance” on
the surface of wax comb to recruit new foragers to the resource
 Bees are also rely on their olfactory sense to help locate the food source if the
foragers are given directions from the dance
 Distance of a food source

 When a food source is very close to the hive (i.e. less than 50 meters away)
a forager performs a round dance by running around in a narrow circle
 She may repeat the dance several times at the same location or move to
another location
 Waggle dance is performed by bees when food sources are over 150 meters
away from the hive
 A bee that performs a waggle dance runs straight ahead for a short distance,
returns in a semicircle to the starting point, runs again through the straight
course, then makes a semicircle in the opposite direction to complete circle
Waggle Dance
 Direction of Food source

 During the waggle dance, the honey be runs in a straight line while
waggling her abdomen
 The straight line indicates the direction of the food in relation to the sun
 If the bee runs straight up the hive wall, then the foragers can find the food
by flying towards the sun
 If she runs straight down, then the foragers can find the food by flying away
from the sun
 In order to translate the direction information contained in the honeybee
dance language, the angle of the waggle run with respect to gravity and the
direction of the sun must be known
 Honey Production and Processing

 Bees produce honey by collecting nectar, which is a clear liquid consisting

of 80% water with complex sugars
 The collecting bees store the nectar in a second stomach and returns to the
hive, where worker bees remove the nectar
 The worker bees digest the raw nectar for about 30 minutes
 Raw honey is then spread out in empty honey comb cells to dry, which
reduces the water contents to less than 20%
 When nectar is being processed, honey bees create a draft through the hive
by fanning with their wings
 Than the cells of honey comb are sealed with wax to preserve the honey
 Honey bee Disease and Pest

➢ American foulbrood:
AFB is a bacterial disease of larvae and pupae. Infected larvae change
color from white to dark brown and die after they are capped

➢ European foulbrood:
EFB is a bacterial disease. Larvae infected with EFB die before they are
capped, change to a creamy color and have a smooth melted appearance
Terramycin is the only drug approved for use as a treatment.

➢ Chalk brood: It is a fungal disease of larva. Infected Larva turn a chalky

white color, become hard and turn black. Chalk brood is most frequent
during damp conditions in early spring. Colonies usually recover their own
 Tracheal Mites: These microscopic mites enter the trachea of young bees.
Inside the trachea, mites block air exchange and suck blood from walls of
the tube
 Infested colonies are treated with Miticur and special formulations of
Menthol
 Benefits of Apiculture

➢ Sustainable Agriculture
Bee friendly agricultural models can be promoted
➢ Partners for Sustainable Pollination
Encourages farmers to provide more flowering plants to native honey bees
and native pollinators
➢ Bees stimulate life (biodiversity and biodiversity stimulates their well-
being)
➢ They ensure long-term sustainability of food production
➢ Assist people living in poor and remote areas of the world, and to raise
awareness about the value of beekeeping for sustainable development
References
 Hobbs, R. J. and A. J. M. Hopkins. 1990. From frontier to fragments: European impact on Australian’s vegetation.
Proceedings of ecological socity of Australia. 16: 93-114.
 News, Apiculture to help tap revenue potential of mangroves. 2008.
 Sabir, A. M., A. H. Bhatti and I. Haq. 2000. Prospects of apiculture in the Punjab. Pakistan journal of biological
scinces. 3(2): 365-367
 Chandler, Philip (2007). The Barefoot Beekeeper. Lulu. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-4092-7114-7.
 Walsh, Bryan (7 May 2013). "Beepocalypse Redux: Honeybees Are Still Dying — and We Still Don’t Know Why". Time
Science and Space (Time Inc). Retr
 Delaplane, K.S., 2006, Honey bees & beekeeping: A year in the life of an apiary 3rd edition, The University of Georgia,
Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Athens, Georgia. ieved 21 June 2013.
 Higgins, Adrian. 2002. Honeybees in a mite more than trouble.Parasites, an exodus of apiarists and budget cuts imperil
vital insect. Washington Post. May 14. p. A1.
 Winston, M.L., 1987, The biology of the honey bee, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.