Apiculture | Types of Honey Bees | Beekeeping

 Apiculture | Beekeeping | Types of Honey bee

Honey hunting, or plundering the nests of wild honeybees to obtain honey and beeswax, is practiced throughout the world wherever colonies of wild nesting honeybees are abundant. However, obtaining honey is easier and more convenient if bees are encouraged to nest inside a hive. This housing of bees in a container is true "beekeeping", but the term is used loosely to describe all the techniques involving bees and the harvesting and processing of their products. 

Honeybees belong to the family Apidae subfamily Apinae and genus Apis.

They are social insects living in colonies. A colony consists of a queen, several thousand workers and a few hundred drones. There is division of labour and specialization in the performance of various functions. They build nests (combs) with wax, which is secreted from the wax glands of worker bees. 

The bees use their cells to rear thin brood and store food. Honey is stored in the upper part of the comb; beneath it are rows of pollen storage cells, worker brood cells and drone brood cells in that order. Some Apis species build single comb in open, while others build multiple combs on dark cavities. There are many ways to utilize honeybees for their pollination services or to obtain products from them. The methods used depend upon the types of bees available, and the skills and resources available to the beekeeper.

TYPES OF HONEY BEE

Five important species of honey bees are as follows.

1. The rock bee, Apis dorsata (Apidae).
2. The Indian hive bee, Apis cerana indica (Apidae).
3. The little bee, Apis florea (Apidae).
4. The European or Italian bee, Apis mellifera (Apidae).
5. Dammer bee or stingless bee, Melipona irridipennis (Meliporidae).

The important features of these species are given below.

Rock bee (Apis dorsata)

They are giant bees found all over India in sub-mountainous regions up to an altitude of 2700 m. 

They construct single comb in open about 6 feet long and 3 feet deep .

They shift the place of the colony often. Rock bees are ferocious and difficult to rear. 

They produce about 36 Kg honey per comb per year. These bees are the largest among the bees described

Little bee (Apis florea)

They build single vertical combs. They also construct comb in open of the size of palm in branches of bushes, hedges, buildings, caves, empty cases etc .

 They produce about half a kilo of honey per year per hive. They are not rearable as they frequently change their place.

 The size of the bees is smallest among four Apis species described and smaller than Indian bee. They distribute only in plains and not in hills above 450 MSL.

Indian hive bee / Asian bee (Apis cerana indica)

They are the domesticated species, which construct multiple parallel combs with an average honey yield of 6-8 kg per colony per year. 

These bees are larger than Apis florae but smaller than Apis mellifera. They are more prone to swarming and absconding. They are native of India/Asia.

European bee / Italian bee (Apis mellifera)

They are also similar in habits to Indian bees, which build parallel combs. They are bigger than all other honeybees except Apis dorsata.

The average production per colony is 25-40 kg. They have been imported from European countries (Italy). 

They are less prone to swarming and absconding.

Dammer Bee

Besides true honey bees, two species of stingless or dammer bees, viz. Melipona and Trigona occur in our country in abundance. These bees are much smaller than the true honey bees and build irregular combs of wax and resinous substances in crevices and hollow tree trunks. 

The stingless bees have the importance in the pollination of various food crops. They bite their enemies or intruders. It can be domesticated. But the honey yield per hive per year is only 100 gms.