Bee keeping farms are very common now. The earliest humans would have procured honey directly from the natural bee hives. Well, is this far from safe? Imagine a swarm of bees stinging all at once. If there’s even a slight error on her part bee keeping nowadays is done in a structured manner. Small wooden creators are specially designed to create an artificial home for the bays. This is an extremely low investment business and is surely profitable. It serves as an additional income to all farmers.
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| Bee Colony |
There are
Scientific names of a few local varieties of bees
The Italian Bee Apis mellifera
The Indian Bee Apis cerena indica
The Rock Bee Apis dorsata
The Little bee Apis florea
The Stingless Dammer Bees Melipona irridipennis
Among the above the Italian and Italian variety is commonly used for commercial honey production. Well, that’s a lot to learn, but tell me one thing.
What is the difference between the Italian variety of bees and the local varieties?
The Italian variety possesses some good characteristics. Firstly, they produce more honey than the usual ones. Secondly, they sting less. And Lastly they stay in one beehive for a considerably long time. These are enough reasons to prefer them over the local varieties. Do you know a bee farm has a special name? Yes, it’s called an apiary. The name comes from the genus name of the Bees Apidae.
Castes in the Bee hives
Queens -Fertile Female ⧬ (1/hive)
Workers -Sterile Female ⧬
Drones -Fertile Male ♂
Queens
The only individual bee which is called Mother of all bees which lays up to 2500 eggs/day.
Lives up to 3 years and mates with drones.
The Substance from the mandibular glands of Queen is called Queen substance. It prevents the colonies from absconding and prevents swarming. It prevents the development of Ovary in worker bees. The Queen lays either fertile (male- Drones) or sterile (female) eggs depending upon the requirement of a colony.
Drones
It is used to fertilize the queens, maintains hive temperature, they have no sting and they does not collect nectar.
Workers
It does all the work for the hive development such as ventilating, feeding the larvae, cleaning, collecting nectar and pollen, guarding the hive and notably used in Hive construction and Honey making. From Birth, first 3 weeks household duty and rest of its life outdoor duty. They build Hexagonal nest for Drones and Workers and Cylinder Shape nests for Queens.
Do You Know that Even Bees can Dance
1. Round dance is used to gesture a short distance (Less than 50 m in case of A. mellifera). The bee runs in round, first in one direction and then in opposite direction, (clock wise and anti clockwise).
2. Tail wagging dance or Wag-tail dance. This is used to indicate long distance.(more than 50 m in case of A. mellifera). Here the bee makes two half round in opposite directions with a straight run in between.
Plant which has Good Source of Pollen and Nectar
Banana, Citrus, Pear, Peach, Almond, Guava, Sunflower, Mango, Moringa, Coconut and Date palm, Sorghum, Maize and Millets.
Apiary results
And these work non stop during the day to garner nectar. That’s how the expression as busy as a bee came into existence. Bees have been producing honey for the past 10 to 20,000,000 years. Thanks to them we are privileged to be consumers of this amazing product called honey. Next time you pass by an Apiary do drop in and witness this amazing process. Be sure not to touch or disturb the beast though.
Conclusion
Some Bee spices are now are in endangered list. So we must to avoid application of pesticide and Insecticide that make it more unsustainable. Bees not only gives the honey, Over 80% of food in the world have came to our feedlist because of Bees, because it is only creature of sustainable pollinator in the world.
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