Online Assignment

1. ONLINE
ASSIGNMENT
Submitted By
Najuma Ibrahim
Natural Science
Reg. No. 14367010

2. APICULTURE

3. INTRODUCTION
Bee-keeping or bee-rearing is called apiculture. It is a very useful
pastime and is known to have been adopted since times immemorted. This practice
is still very common in the hills but their methods are very crude and unscientific.
At right, burning torches are brought to the hive. Thus unnecessary several honey-
bees are killed. The combs are then removed and squeezed for honey. The honey,
thus extracted is hardly pure because during squeezing several bees, larva and
pupae are also squeezed. The discovery of the principle of ‘movable frame – Hive’
in 1851 by one Rev. LL. Lang stroth: The “Honey Extractor” in 1865 by major
Hruschka and one smoker’ in 1870 by moses Quin revolutionized bee keeping.
Now a days, different kinds of artificial hives with movable frames, have been
introduced, in which facilities for comb – making by the bees are provided.
Among social insects the honey – bees has been most intimately
associated with mankind and has reached the highest degree of domestication. Bee-
keeping, therefore has developed into an important industry. In India, bee keeping
has not developed into as important an industry as in western countries. It is still a
cottage industry in India. In Kerala (1917), the Travancore State authorities
showed interest in the modern methods of bee keeping.
Honey bees and their products are very useful to man. Honey and bees
– wax are the two useful products. Besides, one honey bees do great service in
pollinating flowers. Bee venom secreted by the poison. Glands of stings has one
mysterious quality of bearing muscular and nervous pains and aches of sciatica,
rhenatism and arthritis.
Honey bees are active almost throughout one year under south Indian
conditions. But during cold winter days they do not attend to any work. Instead

4. they remain clustered together in the hive thereby increasing the hive temperature.
The bees in a colony have a ‘hive mind’ and live together by the ‘hive odour’
peculiar to each hive. There is close co-operation and understanding among the
different members of the colony.
In a bee colony of an average size. There may be about 20,000 to
31,000 bees consisting normally of a queen and a few hundred drones. Ninety
percent of the population is made up of the workers. The queen is the functional
nature female of one colony and normally only one is found in a colony. She is
larger in size than workers. She has no wax plates or pollen baskets. Her ovipositor
also functions as a sting. She gets mated by a drone during the napital flight. Then
she becomes confined to the hive to lay eggs throughout her life. The queen is able
to lay both fertilized and unfertilized eggs whereas the queen and the workers from
fertilized eggs. The drone is the functional male and is large and darker than the
worker. It has no sting, wax gland or pollen basket.

5. It is only duty is to take part in one nuptial flight of one queen and to
mate her. The worker is an imperfectly developed (sterile) female which is the
smallest of the three. They denote their whole time and attention to one service of
the colony. Workers have a rasping and lapping type of mouth parts modified for
collecting nectar and honey. The hind limb has a depression called pollen basket
for collecting pollen. They perform all the domestic functions of one colony. They
secrete wax and construct the comb. Collect honey and pollen. Feed the queen.
Take care the eggs, larvae and the young ones and guard the colony.

6. Bee colonies are reared in artificial wooden bones for maximum
production of honey and wax. The artificial box where the bee colony is
maintained and manages is called hive and the place where the hives are kept and
managed is called apiary.
Methods of bee culture in India. The earliest method in western
countries was to cut down logos of wood tenated by bees and to keep them
wherever desired. Another method was rearing bees in crude boxes with a few
cross – sticks were in practice steps are still used in certain park of Europe.
Newton’s hive, it is one farm of a wooden stand. The hive has two
chambers. One upper and one second is one lower. The upper chamber is called
sapes or honey chamber. The lower chamber is called one brood chamber. The
queen is kept in one broad chamber. The two chambers are separated by a wire
grid called queen excludes.

7. The holes in the queen excludes are so smaller that they prevent the
entry of the queen in to one super. But allows other bees to pass through. As a
result the eggs are laid only in one brood chamber. The super chamber is meant for
string honey. The super chamber is closed from above by a cover and has some
holes for storing honey. The super chamber is closed from above by a cover and
has some holes for ventilation. The broad chamber is placed on a bottom board
with a slit for the entry and exit of one bees at one bottom. This board extends
forwards as an alighting board on which one bees rest for sometime before entering
one hive. Both one chambers contain a number of frames in each of which a wax
sheet bearing hexagonal imprints is held up in a vertical position by a couple of
wires. Along the margins of these hexagonal marks.

8. Honey
It is a truly insect product of high nutritive value of honey may be
estimated by one presence of about 80% sugar in it. One should not be confused
that honey is a direct plant product because one nectar. Pollen and cane – sugar
bearing secretions of flowers are ingested by honey bees. Get mixed with one
saliva and undergo certain chemical changes due to enzymes action.
Medicinal value.
Honey is midly laxative antiseptic and sedative generally used in
ayurvedic and unani system of medicine. It is quite helpful to building up of the
hemoglobin of the blood and also used as preventive against cough, cold and fever
as blood purifies and as a curative for akers on tongue and alimentary canal.

9. CONCLUSION
If the bees are kept as pollinators for crops or for one income from
their products, producers need to be aware of their states ‘apiary laws concerning
inspections registration and permits, as well as labeling and marketing standards.
Produces also need to be aware of pesticide application laws and pesticide
notification laws relative to bees.
To maintain a healthy hive and guard against the new pests and
diseases that have been introduced in recent years, bee keepers need to continually
monitor new developments in apiculture.

10. Reference
 BSc Zoology Non Chordata – P.T.Philop
 http://www.gobeekeeping.com