Introduction

Apiculture is science and art of raising honey bees for man’s economic benefit. Apiculture is one of the
important agricultural sectors that enables utilize natural resources that otherwise would be wasted, and
contributes to the national food products through pollination. Apiculture neither affects other
agricultural sectors nor causes environmental disturbance.

The honey bee is well distributed over the globe except in the severe cold of the polar regions. Africa is
blessed with numerous types of wild honeybee. They exist everywhere on the continent where man
lives, from the equatorial evergreen rainforest to the desert oasis, although they are more numerous in
the drier savannah than in the wetter forest areas. The honey bee has been described as the most useful
of all insects known to man, because it provides man, as well as other forms of life, with basic services
vital to their survival. This insects has been able to live a peculiar way of life. To understand the
creature, a closer study must be made of its anatomical structure which enables it, and it alone, to
perform such functions as gathering and ripening nectar, collecting pollen and propolis, producing wax,
etc. and incidentally fertilizing flowering plants.

Honey, the natural food of the honey bee, has many times been described as man’s sweetest food. The
credit must never go to man but to the honey bee, which may be called “the golden insect”.

Benefits of beekeeping
 The honey bee produces honey, beeswax, and propolis
 Tropical apiculture is cheap and does not involve mass feeding of bees, because the insects can
provide their own food all year round, and there is no over-wintering bee management
 All the necessary inputs required for beekeeping are available locally. Some may be wasted if
bees are not kept, e.g. pollen and nectar from flowering plants
 In many rural localities the technology is available
 The honey bee provides pollination service. This is an indispensible activity in the production
process
 The beekeepers does not need to own land in order to keep bees

1
Beekeeping in Ethiopia

Africa is blessed with numerous types of wild honeybee (Adjare 1990). African bees are much more
active in collecting nectar than temperate-zone bees. They produce wax readily, possibly in response to
their need to build new combs frequently. They are very adapted and can live in tropical climates
ranging from semidesert to tropical rain forests. There are five distinct races of honeybees in Ethiopia
namely, Apis mellifera jementica, A. m. scutellata, A. m. bondasii, A. m. monticola and A. m. woyi-
gambella (Amsalu et al. 2004).

Ethiopia is one of the countries of the continent which own big honey production potential. Owing to its
varied ecological and climatic conditions, Ethiopia is home to some of the most diverse flora and fauna
in Africa. Its forests and woodlands contain diverse plant species that provide surplus nectar and pollen
to foraging bees (Girma Deffar 1998).

Beekeeping is one of the oldest farming practices in the country. There is an ancient tradition for
beekeeping in Ethiopia which stretches back into the millennia of the country's early history (Girma
Deffar 1988). Of all countries in the world probably no country has a longer tradition of beekeeping than
Ethiopia (Hartmann 2004). It has been practiced traditionally. Moreover, beekeeping is an appropriate
and well-accepted farming technology and it is best suited to extensive range of ecosystems of tropical
Africa. To date, over 10 million of bee colonies are existing, which include both feral, and hived ones
(Ayalew Kassaye 2001).

Despite its long history, beekeeping in Ethiopia is still an undeveloped sector of agriculture. The
knowledge and skill of honey production and honey and beeswax extraction of Ethiopian farmers is still
very traditional (MoARD 2006).

The total honey production of Ethiopia is estimated up to 24000 metric tones; only a small amount of
this is marketed. Besides poor marketing conditions the main reason is that about 80% of the total
Ethiopian honey production goes in to the local Tej-preparation, a honey wine, which consumed as
national drink in large quantities (Hartmann 2004). Although thousands of tones of honey are produced
every year it is usually poorly managed and unattractive in appearance. Because of this its place in the

2
local market being taken by imported honey. Moreover, traditional hive honey is of good quality as long
as it is in the hive. Faulty handling, from the time of its harvest until it reaches to market is responsible
for its inferior quality. The type of hives used, the methods of removing and storage of honey play a
vital role in the quality of honey (Crane 1970, as cited by Edessa Negera 2005).

In general, the potential areas for honey and beeswax production in the country include South-western,
Western and North-western parts of the country (ARSD, 2000 and Gezahegn, 2001). These are grouped
into high, medium and low potential areas. Many of the districts in Tigray, Wollo and Hararege and in
some other parts of the country which are covered with marginal forests do have relatively low potential
in honey production (Beyene and David, 2007).

Honey bee flora

In Ethiopia there are diverse and unique flowering plants and more than 10 million honeybee colonies
are found in Ethiopia (ARSD 2000) exist in the country. The flowers of most of these plants are suitable
to feed larger number of bee colonies, and are currently underutilized. Nevertheless, the bees and the
plants they depend on are constantly under threat from lack of knowledge and appreciation of these
natural resources. Clearing of land for agriculture, charcoal making, settlements and deforestation
through time have affected biodiversity of honeybees and plant flora they depend on. In many places
beekeepers have made efforts to redress the situation by planting good honey plants near their hives.
Despite these local efforts, the national beekeeping resource base is deteriorating at a faster rate
warranting sustainable intervention programs.

Many cultivated crops also serve as pollen, nectar, or both pollen and nectar sources. Mainly shrubs,
cultivated crops, forbs, herbs, weeds and some woody plants are the main bee forages for the honey
harvested in October while most woody plants are the main source of pollen and nectar for honey
harvested in May. There are a wide variety of plants which are used as honey bee flora. Even though
there are different types of bee plants during wet seasons, there is a shortage of bee food during the dry
seasons. The bee forages become declining as compared with the past period due to deforestation and
expansion of cultivated lands.

3
Honey yield

Ethiopia, having the highest number of bee colonies and surplus honey sources of flora, is the leading
producer of honey and beeswax in Africa. On a world level, Ethiopia is fourth in beeswax and tenth in
honey production (Ayalew and Gezehegn, 1991).

According to MoARD (2003) the most important honey and beeswax producing regions in Ethiopia are
Oromia (about 46% of total production), Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State,
SNNPR (22%), Amhara (25%) and Tigray (5%). In more detail, the major supply areas in the country
include places like Sidamo, Jimma, Gondar, Wollega, Illubabor, Bale, and Gojjam.

Although the annual production of both honey and wax in Ethiopia is large compared to other African
countries, the system of production commonly exercised in the country is traditional. Productivity of
honeybees is very low and only an average of 8-15kg of honey could be cropped per hive per year.
However, in areas where improved technology has been introduced, an average of 15-20 kg/hive/year
has been recorded. High variability in yield was observed within the farmers. This is most probably due
to differences in management of bees, and from exogenous factors such as climate changes, pests and
diseases. Harvesting is conducted ones or twice a year. This is probably attributed to the natural flora of
the localities.

Importance of beekeeping
In Ethiopia, beekeeping is a promising non-farm activity for the rural households. It contributes to the
incomes of households and the economy of the nation. The direct contribution of beekeeping includes
the value of the outputs produced such as honey, bee wax, queen and bee colonies, and other products
such as pollen, royal jelly, bee venom, and propolis in cosmetics and medicine (ARSD, 2000 and
Gezahegn, 2001). It also provides an employment opportunity in the sector. The exact number of people
engaged in the honey sub-sector in Ethiopia is not well known. However, it is estimated that around one
million farm households are involved in beekeeping business using the traditional, intermediate and
modern hives. It could also be observed that a large number of people (intermediaries and traders)
participate in honey collection and retailing (at village, district and zonal levels). Thousands of
households are engaged in Tej-making in almost all urban areas, hundreds of processors are emerging
and exporters are also flourishing (Beyene and David, 2007). Honey and beeswax also play a big role in

4
the cultural and religious life of the people of Ethiopia. Another very important contribution of
beekeeping is through plant pollination and conservation of the natural environment.

Types of hives used

Based on the level of technological advancement three types of beehives are used for honey production
in Ethiopia. These are traditional, intermediate, and modern hives. A total of about 4,601,806 hives exist
in the country of which about 95.5 per cent are traditional, 4.3 per cent transitional and 0.20 per cent
modern hives (Beyene and David, 2007). The traditional beekeeping accounts for more than 95 per cent
of the honey and beeswax produced in the country.

Species and races of bees

The honeybee is classified as Apis mellifera

Honeybees have been classified as follows:

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthropoda
Class Insecta
Order Hymenoptera
Family Apiidae
Genus Apis
Species Apis mellifera
5
Apis mellifera

This honeybee is the most widespread economic species. It is native in Europe, the near and middle East
of Asia and Africa. There are about 25 races, of which the most important are:

A.m. liquistica, known as the Italian bee. This race is very adaptable to different environments.

A.m. intensive, native to the north coast of Africa, a black race suited to these dry zones.

A.m. adasanii, native to coastal West Africa, and A.m. scutellata, native to central and Eastern Africa:
both of these species have a very pronounced, defensive behavior and are prone to swarming and
absconding (meaning: the entire colony leaves the old hive).

Apis cerana

This Asian bee is quite similar to Apis mellifera as it also nests in cavities such as hives. Similar types of
beekeeping can be done with both species. However, there are also important differences, especially in
biology and behavior. The most productive race is A. cerana cerana in China, least productive with
much smaller colonies is A. cerana indica and South East Asia and A. cerana jasvans.

It is useful to know that tropical A. mellifera and A. cerana races are smaller than European A. mellifera.
In most literature, however, the European A. mellifera is referred to. It is therefore to note, when you
read the descriptions of dimensions of hives, frames, queen excluder, foundation sheet (cell size) and
width of the comb spacing (natural distance of the combs), the species and the races to which these
descriptions refer.

Two other Apis species are found in Asia south of the Himalayas and China:

Apis dorsata, the rock bee, with a single comb-nest built on rock or a branch of a tree and Apis florae,
the dwarf bee, which builds a small single comb nest around a twig of a shrub or a tree.

In Asia A. dorsata has been the most important honey and wax producer. Nests are mainly exploited by
so-called honey hunters and honey collectors. Domestication of these bees does not seem possible.

6
Stingless bees (e.g. Melipona and Trigona species) can be found all over the tropics. They usually live in
small colonies in cavities. In Central and South America there is an old tradition of “meliponiculture”.
Some species are kept in logs, man-made, boxes or clay pots. Yields per colony are small: 1- 4 liters per
year, but they can be kept in high numbers and the honey yields high prices compared with A. mellifera
honey.

These bees cannot sting, but some defend their nest by biting with their strong jaws. Nests are usually
built with extensive use of resins, clay and wax. Beekeeping with stingless bees is very different from
beekeeping with honey-bees because of their different biology, e.g. nest architecture.

Member of the bee colony

The tropical honeybee, A. mellifera adansonii (scute-lata), lives a unique, sophisticated social life
similar to that of its counterparts in Europe and elsewhere. There are two sexes, the female and the male,
but the former is subdivided into two castes. In the average colony, there are:

 one fertile queen, whose main activity is egg- laying,

 from 20 000 to 80 000 sterile female bees, worker, which do almost everything that needs to be
done in the colony, and
 from 300 to 800 fertile males, generally called drones.

In addition, there are about 5 000 eggs and 25 to 30 000 immature bees in various stages of their
development, called the brood. Of these, some 10 000, newly hatched, are the larvae, which have to be
fed by the workers, while the remainder, after the larval stage, are pupae, sealed into their cells by the
workers to mature. They are called the sealed brood.

7
 1. Queen

The queen can be recognized by her long abdomen which extends far beyond the tips of her wings in the
resting position. Her thorax is larger than that of the worker. Viewed from the front, her head is round.
There is only one queen in each bee colony. As soon as there is a second queen there will be a fight
which ends with the death of one of the queens, usually the oldest (weakest). The queen is usually the
only female which lays eggs. Because a queen produces the most eggs in the first year of her life the
best queens are not more than two years old. The maximum egg production is 3000 for the western
honeybee and 800 for the eastern honeybee.

The queen has a sting but, unlike the aggressive workers, does not use it to fight hive intruders. Her sting
is only used to fight rival queens. She does not go out to collect pollen, nectar, water or propolis, and
therefore she has no collecting apparatus like pollen baskets, long proboscis for drawing nectar or wax
glands to secrete wax to build comb cells. As a queen, she usually does not feed herself.

Five days after the queen emerges from her cell, she starts to fly out of the hive, making an orientation
flight of about five minutes. Next she makes mating flights which last about 30 minutes. She flies to an
area 6-10 m above the ground where drones have congregated. In other places, she is not attractive to the
drones. During a successful mating flight, she is mated by about eight drones. If the flight is not
successful, she makes another the next day. During the mating flight, the drone's semen is injected into
her oviducts. From there, the spermatozoa enter into a special reservoir called the spermatheca. A well-
inseminated queen carries about 5000000 spermatozoa stored in her spermatheca.

Sometimes nuptial flights can be delayed as the result of a long rainy season or pronounced bad weather.
When a young queen bee has been unable to mate for about a month, she will start to lay unfertilized
eggs in worker cells. From these eggs, only drones will develop. In this case, the colony will perish
within a few weeks unless the beekeeper observes what is happening and reacts immediately by giving
the colony a new queen (requeening) or by inserting a new brood comb with very young larvae and
eggs, from which the colony will develop a new queen, after having killed the old unfertilized one.

8
Three days after her last mating flight, the queen starts to lay her eggs, which are produced in her
ovaries. A good queen lays 1500-2000 eggs per day. She lives three to five years, but after two years she
lays fewer eggs. When her spermatozoa become exhausted, she lays unfertilized eggs in worker cells,
where drones develop. Such a queen in called a drone layer.

Each queen produces a queen substance, called a pheromone, by which many activities of a colony are
controlled. In the absence of a queen or a pheromone, the workers transform some worker cells
containing young larvae into queen cells and start to rear new queens.

When there are no larvae younger than three days in the colony, the bees have no way of rearing new
queens. In this case, ovaries of some workers develop, and they start to lay eggs. However, as worker
bees cannot be inseminated, they lay only unfertilized eggs. Such workers are called laying workers.

2. Drones
The drone is popularly known for exhibiting a high degree of laziness. His presence in the hive seems to
be of little importance to the beekeeper. He is stout and larger than the worker. He has no suitable
proboscis for gathering nectar and has no sting to defend himself or the colony. Like the queen, he
possesses no baskets for collecting pollen grains and no glands to secrete wax for comb construction. He
does no work in the hive but is fed, eat large quantities of food, and moves about in sunshine and on
warm days making loud, frightening noises everywhere he goes. This is why he is considered useless,
but he has a very important function to play, which only a few of his kind ever fulfill. This function is to
inseminate the queen, and for this he is well prepared.

The compound eyes of the drone are twice as large as those of the queens and workers, and both eyes
meet at the top of his head, which is not true of workers and queens. This enables him to see the queen
during the mating flight. The drones also have the largest wings, which help them to reach the queen
during the flight.

The spermatozoa are produced in the drone's testes during the pupal stage. After the drone emerges from
the comb cell, the spermatozoa pass into seminal vesicles, where they remain until mating. During
mating, they pass into the copulatory apparatus.

9
They reach sexual maturity nine days after emerging, and fly out of the hive (mostly between 1 and 3
p.m.) searching for the queens over a distance of 8 km or more. Mating occurs in the open air, in the
drones' congregation areas. During mating, the drone everts his copulatory apparatus, injecting the
semen into the queen's oviducts and leaving part of the apparatus in the tip of the queen's abdomen. That
part, visible in the queen returning from the mating flight, is called the mating sign. The drone dies
during mating.

Toward the end of the nectar flow, when fresh nectar becomes scarce, the workers prevent the drones
from feeding. At first they push the drones from the brood combs to the side combs and eventually drag
them half-starved from the hive.

In unfavorable periods, drones are tolerated only in queenless colonies or those containing unmated
queens. Thus the presence of drones in a colony during such periods shows that something is wrong with
the queen and that action by the beekeeper is needed.

3. Worker bee
Workers are the smallest and most numerous of the bees, constituting over 98% of the colony's
population. One colony may have as many as 80 000 workers, but 50 000 is more common.

Although they never mate, the workers possess organs necessary for carrying out the many duties
essential to the wellbeing of the colony. They have a longer tongue than the queen and drones, and thus
are well fitted for sucking nectar from flowers. They have large honey stomachs to carry the nectar from
the field to the hive; they have pollen baskets on their third pair of legs to transport the pollen to the
hive. Glands in their head produce royal jelly as food for the larvae and glands in their thorax secrete
enzymes necessary for ripening honey. Four sets of wax glands, situated inside the last four ventral
segments of the abdomen, produce wax for comb construction. A well-developed sting permits them to
defend the colony very efficiently.

The kind of work performed by the worker depends largely upon her age. The first three weeks of her
adult life, during which she is referred to as a house bee, are devoted to activities within the hive, while
the remainder are devoted to field work, so that she is called a field bee.

10
 House bee
The duties of a house bee are -
a) cleaning the hive and the comb
b) feeding the brood
c) caring for the queen
d) making orientation flights
e) comb building
f) ventilating the hive
g) packing pollen, water, nectar or honey into the combs
h) executions
i) guard duty
Cleaning: - The first activity of the worker bee on reaching maturity is to clean herself. She removes all
unnecessary particles, grooms herself immediately and then crawls out of her cell. She takes in food and
then starts cleaning the brood cells, employing both tongue and mandibles. The comb cells are cleaned
to receive eggs laid by the queen who, before laying, examines the comb cell to satisfy herself that it has
been properly cleaned. If she finds a cell that is not properly cleaned, she quickly rejects it. Other duties
which may occasionally be necessary include removing dead intruders or dead bees from the hive, and
removing debris and other objectionable material. Anything that is too large to carry is often dragged
along and pushed outside, while dead snakes, wax moths or other carcasses too heavy to transport are
encased with propolis brought in by field bees.

Feeding the brood: - After three to five days, the worker bee starts to feed the brood. At this stage she is
called a nurse bee. At first she feeds larvae more than three days old with a mixture of honey or nectar,
pollen, small quantities of bee milk and some water. After a few days, she starts to feed the younger
larvae (1-3 days old) exclusively on bee milk, which she produces in brood-food glands, also called milk
glands or hypopharyngeal glands, located in her head.

Caring for the queen: - The next work undertaken by the young worker is to provide for the needs of
the queen bee. Whenever the queen needs food, she calls for it by stretching out her proboscis towards
the mandible or mouth of the nearest worker. The workers are always anxious to satisfy her needs and
make a circle or semi-circle around her. The queen contacts the nearest worker, and if she does not get

11
as much as she needs, she approaches the next. This continues until all her demands are met. It is also
the duty of the nurse bees to bathe her with their tongues and mandibles and to carry away her faeces.

Orientation flight: - The orientation flight is not so much a house duty as an exercise for the young
worker. She must learn how to fly, and she must know the vicinity, especially the location of the hive.
She therefore first makes some short flights in front of the hive and in the immediate vicinity to acquaint
herself with the environment, so that when in the near future she goes out to forage, she will be able to
find her way back home.

Comb building: - Comb building provides the needed "rooms" in the hive, in the form of hexagonal
cells, for two main purposes: storing food and rearing brood. Beeswax, the material for the construction
of comb, is secreted by the worker's wax glands, which are best developed and productive when she is
12-18 days old. The wax, which emerges from the glands as a liquid, hardens quickly and appears in the
form of oval flakes similar to small fish scales, protruding from between the last four overlapping
abdominal segments on the under-side of the worker's body. As we have already seen, the bee must
consume large amounts of food (honey and nectar) to produce these wax flakes.

Bees engaged in building combs usually hang themselves in festoons at or near the site of the building
operation. There they hang quietly while their digestive organs transform the contents of their honey
sacs into energy and beeswax. The wax is removed with the spines of the hind legs and is then
manipulated with the mandibles to build the comb cells. Capping of comb cells is also the duty of comb
builders.

Ventilating the hive: - Temperature control is one of the important duties of the house bee. When the
temperature is low, bees cluster to generate heat for themselves, but when it is high, some of them have
to fan their wings to circulate air throughout the hive. The right temperature required is between 33° and
36°C, while the brood chamber requires a constant heat of 35°. Honey has to be cured in order to ripen,
and this also requires the help of circulating air.

Honey conversion and packing: - It takes several bees to produce honey. No single honeybee completes
the whole process. The forager brings a load of nectar to the hive and transfers it to a house bee, who
proceeds to the empty or uncrowded part of the hive, where she rests and exposes the nectar to the air
being fanned by the fanning bees. The air circulation helps reduce the moisture content of the nectar and
thus aids sugar concentration. The house bee may load the nectar into the upper section of an empty cell

12
or add it to the honey or nectar of a cell incompletely filled. The speed with which she manipulates the
nectar depends on the intensity of the nectar flow. If nectar is abundant, the house bee may deposit her
load quickly into a comb cell for later processing.

The time required for the nectar to mature into honey depends for the most part on its original moisture
content. For example, if the sugar content is high, as in the nectar of Combretum paniculatum, which is
usually over 65%, ripening takes about two hours. On the other hand, if palm wine (which bees enjoy
very much) is sent into the hive, more time will be required, since its sugar content is as low as 4.5%.
Matured honey usually has over 80% sugar concentration. Ripening time is also determined by the
quantity of the nectar: combs completely filled with nectar, even if strongly ventilated, may take as
much as 36 days to mature.

Packing water, pollen and propolis: - Other essential commodities which are brought in by the foragers
and need the attention of the house bee are water, pollen and propolis. Water is required for cooling the
hive, especially during the harmattan season, when the atmosphere is very dry and temperatures are too
warm for the bees' comfort. Water is mixed with honey and pollen and then fed to the older larvae,
between 3-6 days old. Pollen is also packed to about three-quarters full in comb cells in the brood
chamber, sometimes side by side with brood cells. Cells are never completely packed with pollen.

Propolis is a resinous material collected from trees. It is difficult to unload, because it is gummy in
consistency, and the house bees have to help the foragers to unload. The carrier holds firmly onto the
walls of the hive, and the house bee removes the sticky gum from the hairy corbicula or pollen basket.
Sometimes it takes more than three days to off-load a forager. The propolis is either stored or used
immediately for the purpose required: to block holes and cracks in the hive, to repair combs, to
strengthen the thin edges of the comb, or to make the entrance of the hive watertight or easier to defend.
As already mentioned, propolis is also used to cover objectionable material in the hive and to embalm
dead intruders such as wax moths, snakes, etc., too large to be removed.

It is interesting to note that house bees are always eager to help unload the field bee that brings in
material which the hive requires immediately. For example, when the weather is too warm and water is
required to cool the hive, they will pay no attention to foragers bringing in nectar or propolis, who will
have to wait until the heat situation is brought under control before they are offloaded.

13
Executions: - Executions are a means of protecting the colony from hunger, disease and any
catastrophic event. They may be performed to eliminate strange bees, to kill or drive away old and sick
bees, to discourage other hive predators from entering the hive, to remove sick or unwanted unemerged
brood, to eliminate useless drones, and to kill unwanted or strange queens.

Guard duty: - Guard duty is the final activity of the house bee before she leaves the hive. By this time
she has reached peak strength, is very energetic, and is best fit to defend the entrance of the hive, which
is also the point of entry of the colony's enemies.

The guard bee has the duty of inspecting all incoming foragers by smelling their odour. When satisfied,
the guard allows the incoming bee to enter unmolested with her load. In most cases, foragers with loads
to discharge are not intercepted unless the hive is greatly disturbed. After staying at the entrance for a
while, the guard may fly out on patrol for some time before returning to the entrance. The guard bee is
also responsible for watching any crack through which a robber bee or any other intruder might enter the
hive. In an alerted hive, guard bees stand on four legs, their forelegs lifted and they antennae held
straight, searching here and there. Any intruder, robber or other enemy first receives a frightening
audible warning, followed by a sting; if he persists, the application of the alarm pheromone on the spot
where the bee stings quickly summons more defenders. The scent helps other attackers to find the target
and follow without delay.

It has been observed that during the brood-rearing season, more guards are stationed at the hive entrance
than during the peak of the honey flow.

 The field bees

Activities involving flight may start from the third day after emergence from the brood cell, but the
young worker begins her actual foraging activity later. Between the 18th and the 21st day, her
hypopharyngeal and wax glands have become too weak to function, so that she cannot produce royal
jelly to feed the queen and the young larvae, nor wax to build comb cells. But by this time she is in
perfect condition to fly and knows the geography of the locality. She therefore starts field work, fetching
nectar, pollen, propolis or water, but always concentrating her activity on the immediate needs of the
colony.

Nectar gathering: - Nectar, the sweet liquid secreted by plant nectaries, is collected by foragers, taken
to the hive and turned over to the house bees for processing. The forager then returns to the flowers and

14
collects more. The number of trips she makes in a day cannot be assessed precisely. It may vary from
time to time for a number of reasons: the availability and accessibility of the nectar source, the quantity
of nectar present, and the nectar requirement of the colony for the day.

Sight and smell enable the bee to locate sources. She lands on the part of the plant that will support her
and dips her stretched proboscis into the corolla of the flower. If there is nectar, she sucks it into her
honey stomach. If there is none, she wastes no time before moving to the next flower. Some flowers
have more nectar than others. Sometimes the bee can load enough by visiting one, two or three, but in
plants with tiny flowers she can only get a full load by visiting hundreds. A fully loaded bee can carry
85% of her own weight.

Water collection: -Bees consider water-carrying as one of their most important duties. They execute it
regardless of what may be involved. If they need water for the hive, they will resort to drastic methods
to acquire it. In water-scarce areas, desperate bees sometimes attack farmers for their sweat, and clothes
cannot be washed outdoors in the daytime for fear of molestation by desperate bees searching for water.
Thirsty bees visit kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and all obscure humid places. They will land on any moist
area, dip their proboscis and suck in water. Loading of water takes only a few seconds. The bee carries it
to the hive and returns in a few minutes to reload if water is still present.

The scout bee: - Foragers can take on scout duties as well. The scout bee locates food sources and
passes on the information to other bees by a series of dance-like movements. She circles around and
around, stamping her legs and wagging her abdomen; sometimes she stretches her proboscis, possibly to
show the type of food she has found. The on looking workers watch her dance, interpret it and act
accordingly. It is believed that different dances show different types of information to be passed on.

Another most important duty of the scout bee in a new swarm is to search for a suitable accommodation,
while the rest of the swarm waits on a tree branch or in a small enclosure. On finding a suitable hollow
or hive, she returns to the swarm and performs a characteristic dance to inform them about the find.
When two or more bees make different finds, each scout dances especially vigorously in an attempt to
win the support of the swarm.

15
Robber bees: - All worker or foraging bees are thieves. They claim anything they like as their own
property. They snatch honey away from honey harvesters from other swarms during the daytime,
especially when the weather is sunny and bright. In the rich savannah bee-zones where water is scarce,
bees easily steal water from villagers. Robber bees visit other colonies' hives and try to take honey in
order to store it in their own hive. The problem of hive robbing is not as serious in tropical Africa as in
America and elsewhere. Only very weak colonies are sometimes robbed; usually it is abandoned hives
that other colonies invade to take advantage of the honey stored in the comb cells.

It is strange that bees often fail to take advantage of water or any sweet juice located close to the hive,
but when it is placed further away (about 20 meters or more) they take it. This shows that the beekeeper
should always watch his hives to avoid leakages of honey, for the leak will not be recovered by his own
bees but by other bees from elsewhere, thus encouraging robbing.

Development of the honeybee

As insects, honey bees pass through four distinct life stages: the egg, larva, pupa and adult. The
process is called complete metamorphosis.

Egg: - The queen bee lays a single soft white egg in each cell of the comb; the egg stage usually takes 3
days. Eggs destined to become queens are laid in a larger cell and egg from which drone is going to
hatch was not fertilized, thus, drones are haploid and carry only the chromosomes of the queen. Egg
generally hatches into a larva on the fourth day.

Larva: - Larva is a legless grub that resembles a tiny white sausage; the larva is fed a mixture of pollen
and nectar called beebread; larval stage takes place during days 4 through 9; larvae undergo several
moltings before brood cell capping and spinning a cocoon to become pupa. Larval worker is fed a
mixture of pollen and nectar called beebread. Larval drones are fed royal jelly (a substance secreted
from the glands in the heads of worker bees) and develop in a slightly larger cell than worker bees.
Larval queens are fed royal jelly only.

Pupa: - On the ninth day the cell is capped with wax and the larva transforms into the pupa; the pupa is
a physical transition stage between the amorphous larva and the hairy, winged adult; the pupa does not
eat. Pupal worker takes about 282 hours (11-12 days), pupal drone takes about 360 hours days (~15
days) and pupal queen takes about 6 days.

16
Adult: - Life span of worker bee is about 20-40 days in summer and 140 days in winter; life span of
drone is about 21-32 days in spring, 90 days in summer; it does not overwinter; and life span of queen
be can take up to 2 years and depends on amount of sperm which she received during her mating period.

The bees develop from fertilized or unfertilized eggs laid by the queen at the bottom of the cells.
Fertilized eggs are laid into worker cells and queen cells, and the unfertilized into drone cells. The egg
develops in three days. After that time, the female queen and worker larvae hatch from fertilized eggs,
and male larvae hatch from unfertilized eggs.

When a queen disappears accidentally from a colony, the workers reconstruct a few worker cells,
containing larvae younger than three days, into queen cells and continue to feed the larvae with royal
jelly. Queen larvae are sealed in their cells by the workers five days after being hatched, worker larvae
after six days and drone larvae after seven days.

In the sealed cells, metamorphosis of the larvae creates the pupae. The adult queen emerges from the
cell 16 days after deposition of an egg, the worker bee after 21 days and the drone after 24 days.

Anatomy of the honey bee

The insect body is divided into three parts — head, thorax and abdomen, and each of these parts develop
from segments that are formed during the embryonic stage.

A. The head
The head is triangular in shape and has five eyes, a pair of antennae, and mouth parts consisting of two
mandibles and the proboscis.

1) The eyes: The seeing apparatus of the bee consists of a pair of compound eyes and three small
simple eyes (ocelli). The compound eyes are composed of several thousands of simple light-
sensitive cells, called ommatidia, which enable the bee to distinguish light and colour and to
detect directional information from the sun's ultraviolet rays. The eyes of the drone are larger by
far than those of the worker or the queen bee, occupying a large proportion of the total volume of
the head. They assist him to locate the queen as he pursues her during the mating flight.
2) The antennae: These are a pair of sensitive receptors whose base is situated in the small socket-
like membraneous areas of the head wall. They move freely in every direction. The antennae's

17
 functions are to feel or touch and to smell,, and thus to guide the bee outside and inside the hive,
to differentiate floral and pheromone odours, and to locate hive intruders.
3) The mandibles are a pair of jaws suspended from the head and parts of the bee's mouth. The
insect uses them to chew wood when redesigning the hive entrance, to chew pollen and to work
wax for comb-building.
ing. They also permit any activity requiring a pair of grasping instruments.
4) The proboscis: Unlike the proboscis of all other sucking insects, that of the honeybee is not a
permanent functional organ; it is improvised temporarily by assembling parts of th
the maxillae and
the labium to produce a unique tube for drawing up liquids such as sweet juices, nectar, water
and honey. The insect releases it when needed for use, then withdraws and folds it back beneath
the head when it is not needed.

Figure 1. Honey bee head and mouth parts (hairs not shown)

18
B. The Thorax
The thorax, supports two pairs of wings and three pairs of legs, and carries the locomotor, or "engine",
and the muscles that control the movement of the head, the abdomen and the wings.

a) The legs: Each pair of legs differs in size and shape from the other two pairs and is jointed into
six segments, with a pair of claws at the tip which help the insect to cling to surfaces. The leg can
be flexed at any of the six joints. Its primary function is to help the bee to walk and run, but
various parts also serve special purposes other than locomotion. For example, the brushes on the
inner surface of the fifth segment, (the tarsus) of the two front legs are used for sweeping pollen
and other particles from the head, eyes and mouth parts. The same tarsi of the mid-legs serve as
brushes for cleaning the thorax, while the spines found at the end of the fourth sections (tibiae)
are used for removing the pellets of pollen and for cleaning the wings. Two important parts to
note on the legs are the antenna cleaners on the front legs and the pollen baskets on the hind
legs.
 The antenna cleaner: It is located on the inner margin of the tibia of the forelegs,
consists of a deeply-cut semi-circular notch, equipped with a comb-like row of small
spines. All three castes (drone, queen, and worker) have this cleaning apparatus.
 Pollen baskets: The tibiae of the hind legs of the worker bee carry a special apparatus,
called the corbiculae, or pollen baskets, which enables her to carry pollen into the hive.
These pollen baskets, concave in shape, are surrounded with several long hairs which
bind the contents into an almost solid mass, allowing the worker to carry the load safely
home.

19
Figure 2. Parts of the worker honey bee hind leg

b) The wings of the honeybee,, like those of most insects, are thin, flat and two
two-layered. The front
pair is much longer than the rear. The worker's wings are used both for flight and for ventilating
the hive, while the drone and the queen use
u theirs for flight only.

C. The Abdomen

The abdomen accommodates vital parts such as the heart, the honey sac, the stomach, the intestines, the
reproductive organ, and the sting. As seen from the outside, only six segments can be observed, but the
adult honeybee
oneybee has nine, while the larva has ten.

Internal Organs

The interest of the beekeeper is usually focused on those parts of the bee which make it capable of
producing honey and wax and performing other duties necessary for its survival. Among these are tthe
hypopharyngeal gland, the wax gland, the scent or pheromone glands, the queen's pheromone glands,
and the sting with the passion gland.

20
a. The hypopharyngeal gland: It is located in the head of the worker bee, in front of the brain. It
starts to mature three days after the bee's emergence, and develops only when the insect secretes
royal jelly to feed the young larvae and the queen.
b. The wax gland: It is located in the lower part of the young worker's abdomen, releases wax
between a series of four overlapping plates, called sterna, below the abdomen. The worker
begins to secrete wax 12 days after emerging; six days later, the gland degenerates and the
worker stops comb-building.
c. Scent glands: The worker bee produces three main scents. The gland beneath the sting produces
a special pheromone consisting mainly of isopental acetate, which it sprays around the spot of
the sting. The odour stimulates other workers to pursue and sting the victim. A second alarm
pheromone, released by glands at the base of the mandibles, has the same function. A third
gland, located near the rear of the abdomen, produces a pheromone which, when released by
scout bees, attracts swarms of other bees to move toward them.
d. Queen's pheromone glands: In the queen bee's mandibles are located special glands which
produce and release pheromones called the queen substances, which enable her to identify
members of the colony, to inhibit ovary development in worker bees, to prevent the workers
from building queen cells, to help a swarm or colony to move as a cohesive unit, and to attract
drones during mating flights. The absence of the queen substance (e.g. when the queen dies)
produces opposite responses, i.e. worker bees begin to develop ovaries and to build queen cells,
and a swarm searching for accommodation will not cluster but will divide into smaller groups
that cannot support the normal life of a bee colony.
e. The sting: The sting of the worker bee is designed to perforate the skin of her enemies and to
pump poison into the wound. It has about ten barbs, so that when it is thrust into flesh, the bee
cannot pull it back again. It breaks off with the poison sac always attached to it, enabling more
poison to penetrate for as long as it remains in the flesh. The bee's sting is lodged in a special
sheath and is released only when the need arises. The sting of the queen bee is longer than that of
the worker. It is used only to fight and kill rival queens in the hive. The drone has no sting and is
totally defenseless.

21
Figure 3 Honey bee stinging apparatus

Physiology of the honey bee

The alimentary canal

The alimentary canal extends from the mouth where food is imbibed to the anus where waste material is
voided. Food moves from the mouth through the esophagus, and in the worker it then eenters the honey
sac (crop or honey stomach), and can pass via the proventriculus to the ventriculus (midgut) where
digestion occurs. The proventriculus is a valve which remains closed while the forager collects nectar in
her honey sac, carries to the hive, and passes it back through her mouth to another bee in the hive. Only
when the bee is consuming food is the valve opened, allowing the food to move through the valve to the
ventriculus. The proventriculus also performs another function: it has closely set hairs, which filter out
pollen grains and other contaminants from the nectar in the honey sac, so that they collect in pouches
behind the lips of the valve. When the pouches become full the pollen masses are passed through the
valve into the ventriculus.

22
Cells of the tissue that line the ventriculus (epithelium) secrete digestive enzymes into the lumen of the
ventriculus, and these cells can also proliferate, become detached, break, and mix with the food in the
ventriculus. They contain enzymes that digest proteins in pollen, which seems to occur without fracture
of exine or intine walls of the pollen grains. Most of the nutrients from digested food are absorbed
through the walls of the ventriculus, while the undigested material is passed through the pyloric valve
into a narrow tube that is the small intestine of the hind gut. Here, the remaining nutrients from the
digested food are absorbed through the walls. Beyond the small intestine is the rectum (large intestine),
where waste matter accumulates and water may be resorbed.

Blood circulation

Honeybee blood (haemolymph) transports the dissolved nutrients absorbed from the small intestine to
the tissue of the body, and transports dissolved waste material away from the tissue to the Malpighian
tubules. The blood contains white corpuscles (phagocytes) that ingest and destroy invading bacteria.
Unlike vertebrates insects have no red corpuscles (erythrocytes) and no lungs, and their blood plays only
a localized part in respiration.

23
In honeybees the elongated heart, which pulsates, lies just under the roof of the abdomen and is attached
to the thin dorsal diaphragm. The aorta runs from the heart through the thorax to the head, where its end
opens below the brain; there is a pulsating antennal vesicle under the base of each antenna, and a small
blood vessel runs along the antenna to its tip. Apart from these blood vessels, the blood is not confined
to a circulatory system but fills the body cavity. Other organs beside the pulsating heart assist circulation
of the blood. Pulsation of the dorsal and ventral diaphragms, brought about by a sequence of contraction
of their muscles, drive the blood in the body cavity forward in the dorsal part of the abdomen and
backward in the ventral part. Blood drawn from the thorax is replaced by blood forced into the head by
the aorta.

Respiratory system

In insects respiration involves the intake of air containing oxygen, and the release of carbon dioxide. Air
enters and leaves the body through ten pairs of spiracles (breathing holes). In the abdomen the spiracles
are at the side margins of the tergites, and in the thorax they lie between adjacent segments.

The spiracles are connected together internally by tracheal sacs along either side of the body, and
transversely by narrower tracheae. (The term trachea is used because these tubes are maintained in a
dilated state by spiral thickening of cuticle in the wall, as are tracheae of terrestrial vertebrates.) The
tracheal sacs serve as bellows; they contract under pressure from the surrounding blood when the
abdomen is retracted and compressed, and expand when the abdomen is extended and dilated. The rapid
rhythmic pulsations of the bee’s abdomen, which can be seen when the bee is at rest, are thus respiratory
movements.

A network of smaller branches of the respiratory system extends to each part of the body and its organs.
Tracheoles, tubes which are even smaller and have no spiral thickenings, are open at their outer
extremities, which reach into the tissues and bring oxygen to the cells there; the oxygen has to diffuse in
liquid through only a short distance. Carbon dioxide is removed simultaneously by the same means.

During the flight, when much oxygen is needed, air is inhaled at the first spiracles and exhaled mainly at
the third spiracles, the largest, which are adjacent to the indirect flight muscles.

24
Reproductive system of the queen and drone

The Queen

Ovaries of the queen are paired organs, each one consisting of a bundle of ~150 or more tubules,
ovarioles. Ovaries of workers are also paired but number of ovarioles depends on colony conditions.

The ovarioles open into the two lateral oviducts, and both of them join the median oviduct. Egg passes
from the ovarioles into the oviducts, and then into the vagina. The position of the valvefold in the vagina
should be noted. Success in inseminating queen honey bees instrumentally was achieved only after a
special hook was used to hold the valvefold out of the way of the semen injected, so that this was able to
pass beyond the valvefold to the oviducts and spermatheca.

After mating has finished, semen from all the mated drones is in the queen’s oviduct, filling them; it
soon moves into the spermatheca, and is stored there. Subsequently, each time the queen lays an egg in a
worker cell, a few spermatozoa pass out of the spermatheca along the spermathecal duct, and into the
vagina where one of them fertilizes the egg. When she lays in a drone cell, which is larger, no
spermatozoa are released, and the egg is not fertilized.

The drone

Spermatozoa are produced and become mature in the testes, which are composed of bundles of tubules.
The testes are very large in a drone when it emerges from the cell, but the contents of each testis pass
through the vas deferns to the seminal vesicle before the drone is about 13 days old; the testes have by
then shrunk, and the seminal vesicle are very large, since they contain all the semen, with the
spermatozoa suspended in it.

In all honeybees (Apis species), the copulatory organ is an internal one, the endocephallus. During
mating it is everted (turned inside out) by strong muscular contraction and compression of the abdomen.
This mechanical action is like the blowing out of fingers of a rubber glove after they have become
turned outside in.

25
Communication system of honeybee

Bees have an innate orientation sense and the ability to communicate information. These observations
were described by Von Frisch as the "bee language". When a scout bee discovers a new and rich source
of nectar, it comes back to the hive and gives some of it to other foragers for tasting. Then it performs a
dance on the surface of the vertical comb, the dance movements indicating the direction and the
distance of the source of nectar.

Two sorts of dance can be performed depending on the distance of the nectar source:

1) Round (circular) dance

The round dance indicates that the nectar source is situated in close proximity to the hive. The bees
repeatedly make small circles, reversing direction every few revolutions. The profitability of food
rewards is communicated by more vigorous dancing.

2) The waggle dance

The dance takes the form of a figure of eight and is performed by worker bees on the vertical surface of
the comb. The worker moves along a straight line in the figure of eight and waggle from side to side.
When this waggle phase is complete, the bee circles to one side and returns to the starting point. This
sequence is then often repeated over 100 times, with the direction of the return phase circling alternating
each time.

The duration of the waggle phase is correlated to the distance of the food source and the number of
cycles performed is correlated to the size of the food supply. The further the foraging site, therefore, the
longer the duration of the waggle, and the bigger the food source the greater the number of the dance
cycles. The angle of the straight line from the vertical (vertical comb) is equal to the angle between the
food source and the sun upon departure from the hive, and the vigour with which the waggle is
performed is an indication of how much food is present at the site. When the bee is dancing straight up it
indicates that the source of nectar is in the same direction as the sun. A dance downwards is indicating a
direction opposite to the sun. The sun is necessary for bee orientation, although when the sky is overcast,
bees can use ultraviolet light for discerning the direction. If the clouds are too dense, dances are
stopped.

26
While carrying out this dance routine, the bee will often stop and give out small samples of nectar to
those attending
nding the dance. The attending bees gather a great deal of information from this dance, such as
how far away the nectar is, the direction of flight to take and the value of the source, and they also gain a
taste of the nectar, which can give them an odour cue (signal).

The figure shows how.

Relationship between the angle of the dance on the vertical comb and the bearing of the sun with respect
to the location of food.

When the food and sun are in the same direction, the straight portion of the waggle dance is directed
upward.

When the food is at some angle to the right (blue) or left (red) of the sun, the bee orients the straight
portion of her dance at the same angle to the right or left of the vertical.

27
 Colony defense and Swarming of honey bee

Colony defense

Stinging

The basic unit of colony defense is an individual worker whose venom sac contains venom, and is thus
able to sting. If stinging occurs, it is usually the last of the bee’s responses to certain stimuli that
culminate (end) in an attack.

Venom is produced in worker’s venom gland and stored in the venom sac, which is likely to be filled by
the time the worker is 14 days old. The age distribution of the bees in a colony is thus relevant, and
colonies with many bees less than 2 weeks old, whose venom sacs are not yet filled, show relatively
little defensive behavior. A worker that stings another bee can usually withdraw her sting without injury
to herself, but if she stings into thick skin (as of a person or animal) she usually dies, being unable to
retract her sting.

Defensive behavior

The bee’s response to the first (alerting) stimulus strengthens her guarding stance; for instance the
abdomen is raised, possibly with the sting protruded, and the antennae are waved. In addition, the bee
may recruit other bees to guard activity, by entering the colony with her sting chamber open and the
sting protruded, thus releasing alarm pheromone. The second (activating) stimulus causes the bee to
search for the source of disturbance. When she locates it, the third (attracting) stimulus makes her orient
herself towards it and move there. As a result of the fourth (culminating) stimulus, she attacks the target:
she threatens it, emitting a high-pitched buzz and making body thrusts towards it. The attack itself may
consist of biting, burrowing into hairs, pulling hairs, and stinging, which-if she cannot retract her sting-
is her final act in defense of the colony.

28
Stimulus Honeybees response

Alerting alert, recruit (or flee)

Activating search

Attracting orient

Culminating threat, bite, burrow, hairpull, sting (or run)

Figure 1. Basic sequence of honeybee defensive behavior

The defensive behavior of different colonies varies greatly, according to the colony’s genetic make-up,
and to certain environmental and colony conditions.

Environmental factors include: temperature and variation between day and night temperatures; light
intensity and rate of change of day length; atmospheric humidity, pressure and electric potential;
magnetic field. Food availability is important, and its diminution (as at the end of a flow) usually
increases defensive behavior, as does robbing by bees of other colonies, which is likely to occur when
forage has become scarce.

Overcrowding of bees in a hive, or of hives in relation to forage available, is likely to increase defensive
behavior. On the other hand colonies weakened by disease, by failing queen or by lack of food, cannot
mount an effective defense; this situation is exploited by predators, and by honeybees from stronger

29
colonies-especially after that last flow of the season has ended and many would –be foragers are
searching for any food that they might collect.

Heritable factors are very important in determining defensive behavior, and give rise to differences
between races and also within the same races or strain. Standardized tests were established for
comparing the defensive behavior of Africanized (derived from tropical African) and temperate zone
Apis mellifera, and the Africanized bee showed significantly greater defensive behavior than the
European.

Defense at the flight entrance: - the flight entrance offers the only entry to the nest for small intruders
including insects, and the easiest access for large predators. It is therefore constantly guarded,
commonly by workers during their transition from behaving as house bees to behaving as field bees.

Defense of food sources: - honeybees do not in general defend their food sources. But where two or
more species has the same forage, the smaller species are likely to attack and drive away the larger ones
when both are at the same source. The small bee can reach only a limited foraging area, and its colony
may starve if other bees use that particular food source. This source does not have the same importance
to a larger bee, since it can fly further afield to other sources.

Swarming

Swarming is the sudden departure of a proportion of the adult worker bees of a colony from its nest,
with a queen and sometimes also some drones.

Swarm is a group of worker bees, queen, and drones that leave the mother colony to establish a new
colony; the natural method of propagation of the honeybee colony.

Swarming is honeybee reproduction at colony level rather than bee to bee sexual reproduction. In this
way, honeybees are able to increase their numbers by increasing their colonies and also to invade new
areas. Because this is a natural method of reproduction and dispersal, it is difficult to stop from
occurring. Most swarming occurs from around May to June in the Northern Hemisphere and from
September to early December in the Southern Hemisphere.

30
Swarming is the natural instinctive behavior of honey bees to reproduce. But successful swarm
management is essential for honey production. While this behavior is not fully understood, several
recognizable factors contribute to swarming. Of primary importance is congestion in the brood area,
which is related to population size and availability of space.

In the prime swarm, about 60% of the worker bees leave the original hive location with the old queen.
This swarm can contain thousands to tens of thousands of bees. Swarming is mainly a spring
phenomenon, usually within a two- or three-week period depending on the locale, but occasional
swarms can happen throughout the producing season.

Secondary after swarms may happen but are rare. After swarms are usually smaller and are accompanied
by one or more virgin queens. Sometimes a beehive will swarm in succession until it is almost totally
depleted of workers. In the process of swarming the original single colony reproduces to two and
sometimes more colonies.

A swarm of bees sometimes frightens people, though the bees are usually not aggressive at this stage of
their life cycle. This is principally due to the swarming bees' lack of brood (developing bees) to defend
and their interest in finding a new nesting location for their queen. This does not mean that bees from a
swarm will not attack if they perceive a threat; however, most bees only attack in response to intrusions
against their hive. Swarm clusters, hanging off of a tree branch, will move on and find a suitable nesting
location in a day or two.

Here are some facts about swarming:

 The swarm which leaves the hive with the old queen is called the "prime swarm".
 A swarm may contain more than half the bees from the colony.
 They fill their stomachs with honey before leaving so they are prepared to start their new home.
 The swarm settles on anything that is convenient, usually tree branches.
 Scout bees are sent to find a permanent home.
 Scout bees use a dance similar to the foraging dance to tell of a suitable location. Once this location
is established, the swarm flies directly to its new home.

31
Capturing Swarms

Beekeepers collect swarms in the summer to increase their colonies. Colonies swarm because there is
not enough room in the hive for the colony any more.

Place the bees in front of the entrance to a hive which contains clean, disease-free combs with a frame of
brood in the center. If the swarm is on a nearby post or the bees do not enter the hive fast enough, smoke
may be used to drive them in. Be sure to get the queen into the hive.

Swarms in high places are more difficult to handle but a lightweight box fastened to a long pole and
containing comb may be pushed up to a swarm. The limb then may be jarred or the box left there until
the bees enter it. A cloth sack, which has its open end sewed to a wire loop and fastened to the end of the
pole, may be used in the same manner. Work the sack over the swarm and jar the limb. Most bees will
be trapped in the sack. They may then be lowered and carried to the place where they are to be hived.

A swarm divides the strength of the parent colony and results in two weak colonies so it is likely that
some production will be lost. Thus, it is important to return the swarm to its original colony. There are
several ways that this can be accomplished.

The first is to return the swarm in its new hive to the parent colony’s stand. Place the old colony on top
of the swarm over a queen excluder or an inner cover with the hole open. The colony thus regains its full
strength. Further swarming is unlikely, especially if the colony is requeened as soon as possible.

A second method may be followed if more hives are desired without a loss of honey. Place the swarm on
the stand of the parent colony and supers over it as described. The parent colony is set alongside the end
at right angles to it. The field bees return to the swarm colony it has replaced the parent colony. One or
two queen cells should be in the parent colony. When the queen has emerged, mated, and started the
colony, it may be moved to a new stand in a different beeyard.
A third alternative is to return the swarm to the original colony, dump it in front of the entrance, and
allow the bees to re-enter.
Conditions which led to swarming such as crowding, poor queen, etc., should be corrected and all queen
cells cut or another swarm will soon leave.
The prime swarm hived in the first or second manner develops into a strong, productive colony.

32
Swarm Prevention

To prevent a swarm you must:

1. Look for supersedure cells (queen cells) in the comb.
2. Look for a crowded brood nest.
3. Another way to prevent swarming is to add supers or hive bodies so that the bees have more
room to make honey and raise brood.
4. It is possible to correct this condition by moving frames of brood or honey out of the brood nest
and replace them with empty combs.
One of the most effective methods of swarm control is called the Demare System, so named for the man
who developed it. In this system, the brood of the colony is transferred from the brood nest to a hive
body, at the top of the colony, above a queen excluder. One comb of unsealed brood and eggs is left in
the lower hive body with the queen and the remaining space is filled with empty combs. Supers are
added under the top story. If queen cells develop in the top story, they should be destroyed about 10
days after “Demareing” so a young queen cannot emerge.

If conditions are not corrected, the bees will leave again in four or five days when a virgin queen
emerges. The last resort (choice or remedy) in swarm prevention is to examine the colony every seven
to ten days and cut out all queen cells. Although this is not a sure control, it has worked. The problem
with this system is that it takes time, disrupts the colony, and once a colony has developed queen
cells, nothing except a shock treatment seems to stop the swarm. This shock treatment could be
changing locations, removing brood for division, or the Demaree system. Devices such as the queen and
drone trap are of doubtful value.

Absconding

Absconding is the departure of the entire colony from the hive leaving the brood nest.
Absconding swarm:—an entire colony of bees that abandons the hive.
African bees often depart from their hive by absconding instead of the normal swarming process.
Possible reasons for absconding are:
1) Shortage of food
2) Disturbance of the colony, either by ants, wasps, termites or even the beekeeper

33
 3) Bad management by the beekeeper: especially in movable comb beekeeping the beekeepers may
provide unsuitable hives (too big, too humid, bad smell), unsuitable places (too much shade,
indoor hives, no shelter from rain or excessive heat, exposed all day to sun). Beekeepers might
have ignored the correct comb spacing by positioning combs too widely or too narrowly spaced.
The bees simply try to find a better place to overcome their difficulties.
The best way to avoid absconding is to protect the bees from disturbances and to ensure a certain
amount of food (at least four or five combs full of honey) is provided.

Supersedure
Supersedure is a natural replacement of an older queen by a daughter queen.
One sight some beekeepers see during their inspections is two queens on the frame. Everyone knows
there should be one queen only, so what is going on? This situation is probably the result of a natural
phenomenon called supersedure.
Supersedure occurs when a colony replaces its queen without swarming. Colonies that re-queen
themselves without swarming are rare, however, and it is not yet known why some bees supersede and
stay put rather than swarm. Supersedure can therefore lead to increased honey crops with less of an
effort in swarm control on the beekeeper’s behalf.
There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence to suggest that certain strains of bees are inclined to supersede
rather than swarm. Despite the obvious commercial advantage of having supersedure colonies, very little
research has been done on the subject.

Supersedure queen cells are built from queen cups in the same way as swarm cells. They are therefore
very difficult to tell apart. Occasionally the new queen will mate and start laying together with the old
queen. The bees will dispose of the old queen later.

The supersedure cell: - There is no easy way to distinguish a supersedure cell from a swarm cell. There
tend, however, to be fewer supersedure cells than swarm cells. Therefore if you find one or two cells
only, they could well be supersedure cells. The queen cells’ position may also be indicative of
supersedure cells: many beekeepers have reported that a few queen cells built along the top edge of the
frame or in the centre of the brood frame are more likely to be supersedure cells.

34
 Hive Products

Honey
Honey is the unfermented, sweet substances produced by honeybees from the nectar of blossoms or
from secretions of or on living parts of plants, which they collect, transforms and combine with specific
substances, and store (and ripen or mature) in honey combs.
Honey is a substance produced by bees and some other social insects from the nectar or honeydew that
they collect from living plants, which they transform by evaporating water and by the action of enzymes
they themselves secrete. As a rule honeybees seal the finished honey in cells of their comb.
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The bees collect the nectar and transport
it back to the hive in their honey stomachs or crops. Honey is produced by bees as a food source. In cold
weather or when fresh food sources are scarce, bees use their stored honey as their source of energy.
Composition: - Being a natural product, honey varies in composition enormously but, essentially, it is a
fluid, viscous or crystallized substance, produced by bees from the nectar of blossoms. Water is always
present in honey, and the amount is critical to the beekeeper when processing or storing extracted honey.

A more detailed definition of the composition of honey would be as follows:

 Honey is composed mainly of sugars and water.

 The average honey is 79.6% sugar and 17.2% water.
 The main sugars are fructose (38.2%) and glucose (31.3%).
 Other sugars include maltose (7.3%) and sucrose (1.3%).
 Honey also contains acids (0.57%), protein (0.26%), a small amount of minerals (0.17%) and a
number of other minor components, including pigments, flavor and aroma substances, sugar
alcohols, colloids and vitamins. This group of materials constitutes about 2.2% of the total
composition.
Properties

1) Hard or soft (liquid honey)

Most honeys eventually crystallize, but the rate of crystallization depends on the ratio of glucose to
fructose in the honey, and that depends mainly on the floral source. Some honey, such as that from

35
oilseed rape (canola), often crystallizes on the comb while still in the hive, making it very difficult for
the bees to use as stores and difficult for the beekeeper to extract using standard equipment.

To the beekeeper, honey viscosity is very important, especially during extraction and packing, and larger
companies will heat their honey so that it flows through their equipment more readily and can be packed
in jars or drums easily.

The viscosity of honey is affected greatly by both temperature and water content. The higher the
humidity, the easier honey will flow. Above its melting point, however, water has little effect on
viscosity.

2) Taste
The taste of honey varies enormously depending on the type of the plant flora. Try some clover honey
and then some manuka honey and you will find a huge difference. Manuka isn’t highly regarded for
taste and used to be thrown away or fed back to the bees (but it is now highly priced and sought after
due to its proven medicinal properties).

3) Colour
Colour shouldn’t be an issue really but, in fact, in some countries such as the USA and Germany, for
example, it is very much a determinant of price. The Americans prefer their honey ‘water white’, and
dark honeys are referred to as ‘bakers’ honey’ and command a lower price. In Germany, dark honey is
preferred, and pale or white honeys are lower in price. The color and flavor of honey is impacted by the
flower source.

4) Antibacterial quality
Honey’s ‘hyper-osmotic’ nature (due to the high concentration of solids and low moisture content)
prevents the growth of bacteria and yeasts as this draws water out of the organisms, killing them by
desiccation. It literally sucks them dry. Honey also has a high acidity, which plays an important role in
the system that prevents bacterial growth.

The pH of honeys may vary from approximately 3.2 to 4.5 (average pH = 3.9), making it inhospitable
for attack by most, but not all, bacteria.

36
Honey also has its own antibacterial substance in its make-up. Bees add an enzyme called glucose
oxidase to honey, and this enzyme reacts with glucose to produce hydrogen peroxide and gluconic acid,
both of which have an antibacterial effect. This system is most active in dilute honey and probably helps
preserve honey diluted for brood food use.

Uses of honey

 As human food
 As an ingredient in drugs
 For animal feeding:
 dairy cows (to increase milk production)
 In veterinary medicine: in the treatment of acetonemia (a disease of the cow)
 In cosmetics: as a facial cleanser and an ingredient in hand lotion
 In mice- and rat-repellent compounds

Pollen

Pollen is the male sex cell of plants and is the source of protein and other nutrients for the growing bees.
Pollen is collected from the flowers and carried back to the colony in pollen baskets on the workers’
hind legs. In the colony, the pollen will be used to feed the brood (immature bees). Pollen is stored in
cells around the brood cells where young larvae are developing. Stored pollen is sometimes called bee
bread.

A proportion of the foraging bees collect nectar and pollen while some collect just pollen.

Once in the hive the bee dumps the pollen into a cell. House bees pack down the pollen and cover it with
a light cover of honey in order to preserve it. The pollen is stored near the brood nest and it disappears at
a fast rate for use as food. It provides protein, starch, vitamins, minerals and fat in the bees’ diet and the
availability of pollen – especially in the early spring for the brood – is something the beekeeper must
ensure by the location of the hives. (Some nutritionists consider bee pollen to be a near perfect source of
protein for humans.)

37
These small pollen grains can be removed from the bees’ legs as they enter the hive and collected in
what is known as a pollen trap.

The market for pollen is mainly for human nutritional supplements, for feeding to bees and as an animal
food. Pollen can be purchased in a variety of formats, including tablets, pollen granules, oral liquids,
candy bars, tonics, etc. The manufacture of pollen products for human consumption has been growing at
a rapid rate and, while the prices of pollen products vary, they can often yield high profits.

Collecting pollen

There is a large market for pollen, especially as a health-food product, and some people regard it as the
perfect food. Certainly there are beekeepers in some countries such as Spain who dedicate their hives to
pollen rather than honey collection and who make an excellent living from it.

Pollen collection should, however, be considered only on good, strong hives during seasons when it
abounds. Bees collect pollen avidly in the spring when the colony is expanding rapidly, but pollen may
be abundant at other times of the year, depending on the local flora.

1. Trapping pollen
Pollen is harvested in pollen traps, which are placed on the hive for this purpose. A basic pollen trap is
simply a screen through which the bees have to scramble to get into the hive. As they scramble through
the screen, the small pollen loads many are carrying are pulled off, and these drop into a specially
constructed drawer below the screen.

A pollen trap should catch between 60 and 80% of all the pollen bought into the hive. Some beekeepers
believe that traps that retain 60% of the pollen may be kept on the hives throughout the active season,
whereas others believe this places too much stress on the colony and that, after two weeks of use, the
traps should be removed for at least a week before being replaced.

Traps should effectively exclude all debris (such as insect parts, wax moths, etc.), should be easy to
operate and should protect the pollen from sunlight, moisture and any forms of adulteration.

2. Drying pollen
Before drying the pollen, it is a good idea to freeze it overnight to kill off any wax moths or wax moth
eggs that may be in it. Fumigants should not be used for this because they will contaminate the pollen.

38
When first collected, pollen has a moisture content of between 7 and 21%. It therefore needs to be dried
to prevent fermentation and deterioration. Large-scale pollen producers use huge ovens for this purpose
that can dry racks of pollen to an exact degree, which should be between 2.5 and 6%. Dry air heated to a
temperature of 45° C (113˚F) is forced through the pollen.

3. Cleaning pollen
When it has been dried to its optimum, the pollen should be cleaned of all debris. The amount of debris
in the pollen is a reflection of the pollen trap’s efficiency. Pollen is usually cleaned using a series of
sieves of different calibers or by passing it through a series of differently sized screens. The dust is
collected in a box below the lowest screen.

4. Post-harvest storage
Pollen should be packaged in clean, airtight containers immediately after drying and cleaning. If it is
allowed to stand in the open air for any period of time, it will absorb moisture and subsequently
deteriorate or go mouldy.

Pollen for human consumption should be sold (or used) as soon as possible to ensure its freshness. If it is
going to be fed to the bees, it should be used within 12 months.

Royal jelly

Royal jelly is a milky-white cream. It is strongly acid, and rich in protein, sugars, vitamins, RNA, DNA,
and fatty acids. It is secreted from the glands in the heads of worker bees, and is fed to all bee larvae,
whether they are destined to become drones, workers or queens. After three days, the drone and worker
larvae are no longer fed with royal jelly, but queen larvae continue to be fed this special substance
throughout their development. The component of royal jelly that causes a bee to develop into a queen
appears to be a single protein that has been called royalactin.

For humans, royal jelly can be used as a food supplement or as an addition to cosmetics to enhance their
curative properties (and certainly to enhance their price!). There are numerous stories about the powers
of royal jelly and the part it can play in human health, but most are anecdotal. The medicinal and
curative properties of the substance lack much clinical research, but what we do know is that it contains
the eight essential amino acids, the full vitamin B complex, acetylcholine (a powerful neurostimulant),

39
testosterone, insulin-like peptides and an antibiotic component. And it can easily be produced by any
beekeeper whether with one hive or a thousand.

Bees wax

Beeswax is secreted from four pairs of glands on the underside of the worker bee’s abdomen.

 Wax is usually produced after the worker has eaten a lot of honey.

 The workers take the wax that is secreted onto their abdomens, chew it to make it soft, and then
use it in the construction of the comb.

 The wax is also used to seal the cells of the honeycomb when they contain food or pupated
larvae.
Uses

 Beeswax is mainly used to make honeycomb foundation for reuse by the bees.
Wax is the bees’ basic house-building unit. It is often mixed with some propolis for strength and,
without it, a colony could not exist. It takes over 7 kg (15 lb) of honey to produce 1 kg (2 lb) of
wax, and so you can see that, if you take away the beeswax at harvest time for sale as comb
honey, the bees will need to use up a large amount of honey to replace it. It becomes a matter of
working out what will make the most money for the beekeeper – selling honey alone and
preserving the wax for a good harvest the next year or a second harvest in year one, or selling
more expensive comb honey and letting the bees use up valuable honey in replacing it. It is
estimated that a standard Langstroth frame of comb can hold up to 3.8 kg (8. lb) of honey. The
wax necessary to hold this weighs only 100 g (3. oz).
 Purified and bleached beeswax is used in the production of food, cosmetics, and
pharmaceuticals: as a coating for cheese, to protect the food and as a skin care product
 For making candles: Beeswax candles are preferred in churches because they burn cleanly, with
little or no wax dripping down the sides and little visible smoke. Beeswax is used commercially
to make fine candles.
Composition: - The composition of beeswax is complex, but it contains hydrocarbons, straight-chain
monohydric alcohols, acids, hydroxy acids, oils and other substances. Its specific gravity is less than
one, so it floats on water. It melts at 63–65° C (145–149o F) and solidifies at 60–63° C (140–145o F),
depending on its purity.

40
Wax is normally a by-product for beekeepers and, as a guide, for each 60 kg (130 lb) of honey extracted
from the hive, about 1 kg (2 lb) of beeswax is produced. This comes from the cappings of the
honeycomb, which are removed during the honey-extraction process.

Extracting beeswax: - Beeswax is essentially a side-product of beekeeping, although one that can
provide a useful – if sporadic – income. Because of the following, beeswax is an ideal product:

 Processing beeswax is easy. Rendering it to a quality suitable for sale or export involves simple
heating and filtering methods only.
 It can easily be moulded into blocks, using any suitably sized containers.
 The transport and storage of beeswax are straightforward because no special packaging is
required.
 It does not deteriorate with age, so you can store small amounts until you have enough to sell.
The wax moth tends to leave it alone because there is little, if any, sustenance in beeswax.
The value of beeswax varies according to its purity and colour. Light-coloured wax is more highly
valued than dark-coloured wax because dark wax is likely to have been contaminated or overheated. The
finest beeswax comes from wax cappings, which are the wax seals with which the bees cover ripe
honeycombs. This new wax is pure and white – pollen and other impurities turn beeswax yellow.

Rendering beeswax

Most beekeepers produce surplus beeswax by rendering down old, dark comb, and this practice is to be
encouraged. After about three or four years, the wax in the comb, especially brood comb, becomes
almost black in colour. It is full of impurities in the form of old cocoons and other accumulated debris,
and it should be rendered down and either recycled or sold. Also, any other wax scrapings from the hive
should be collected and rendered. There are three fairly easy ways to do this.

 Solar extractors
 Steam extractors
 Boiling water

41
Propolis

Propolis is a sticky, dark-coloured material that honey-bees collect from living plants, mix with wax and
use in the construction and adaptation of their nests, mainly to fill out cracks in the beehive. It has been
used in folk medicine since ancient times and is now known to be a natural medicine with antibacterial,
anti-fungal, anti-tumoral, anti-oxidative, imunomodulatory and other beneficial properties.

Bees use propolis for small gaps (approximately 6.35 mm (. in) or less), while larger spaces are usually
filled with beeswax. Its colour varies depending on its botanical source, the most common being dark
brown. Propolis is sticky at and above room temperature. At lower temperatures it becomes hard and
very brittle.

Bees’ use of propolis

Research shows that bees collect and use propolis for the following task:

 To prevent diseases and parasites from entering the hive;

 To reinforce the structural stability of the hive;
 To make the hive more defensible by sealing alternate entrances; and
 To mummify any large creature that dies in the hive (for example, a mouse or large insect they
are unable to remove themselves). This prevents putrefaction and disease.
When bees collect propolis, they attach it to their corbiculae in just the same way as pollen, but they
need the help of house bees to remove it when they enter the hive. The bee colony is warm and moist
and an ideal breeding ground for all manner of organisms, from fungi to bacteria. The bees tend to
‘varnish’ the inside of the hive with propolis which, with its anti-fungal and antibacterial properties, can
minimize the effects of harmful organisms and prevent their worst effects.

Using propolis for humans

Beekeepers can spend much time scraping propolis off frames and other surfaces and many simply
throw it away. However, propolis has a value and, if you want to make something of it, you should
scrape it off carefully so that you don’t lift off paint and wood. You should then store it until you have
built up enough to sell.

42
Propolis is used for many purposes, such as medicinal ointments and tinctures, paints and varnishes. It is
commonly found in chewing gum, cosmetics, creams, lozenges (tablets or pills) and ointments. Propolis
has shown promise in dentistry for dental caries, as a natural sealant and enamel hardener, and many
other uses have been found for it. There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence crediting propolis with
many medicinal properties, but little clinical research has been carried out, so care must be taken in its
use. What we do know is that some people are allergic to it and suffer skin problems if they touch it.

One of the most extensively tested aspects of propolis is its antibacterial properties. Scientific tests have
been conducted on a variety of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other micro-organisms, and many of these
tests have demonstrated positive effects on such organisms using various extracts and concentrations of
propolis.

A synergistic effect has been reported for propolis extract when used with antibiotics. Whether propolis
exhibits bactericidal or bacteriostatic characteristics often depends on its concentration in the applied
extract. Sometimes, however, propolis extracts are more effective than commercially available drugs.

Harvesting propolis

There are two basic methods of harvesting propolis.

1) Scraping
First, propolis can be scraped off all the woodwork. The main problem with this method is the tiny wood
shavings that get into the propolis. Not only that, but this also is a very time-consuming way of
collecting propolis and so, if you have to pay someone to do it for you, it is probably not a cost-effective
method.
2) Propolis screens
The main way to collect propolis is to employ propolis screens. These screens (or grids) can be
purchased from any bee-supply shop, or you could make your own – but they must be flexible. The
screens rely on the fact that the bees will propolize any small holes in the hive. If the screen is made of
slots (holes) around 3–4 mm (⅛ in) in width, and if the screen is placed on top of the bars (where you
would place a crown board if you used one), then the bees will propolize the slots. When these are full,
you remove the screen, put it in a freezer and, when it is very cold or frozen, you take it out of the
freezer, flex the screen and out will pop the propolis. In the commercial versions of this product, the
slots have slightly sloping sides that aid in the extraction of the propolis.

43
Remember to keep the propolis well sealed to protect it from the wax moth because it contains varying
amounts of wax.

Bee venom

It is a clear, odourless liquid comprising around 88% water and it has a very complex chemistry.
At least 18 pharmacologically active components have been described, including various enzymes,
peptides and amines. Of the small proteins, one called melittin constitutes about 50% of the venom’s dry
weight. This hydrolyzes cell membranes, causing changes in permeability, and is most responsible for
the pain. Other components, however, act in concert with it, such as hyaluronidase, which causes
changes in cell membranes and allows the venom to spread easily. Other components can cause
anaphylactic shock in sting victims, and this is the cause of most fatalities from bee stings if they occur
in hypersensitive individuals. Death is most often induced by a single sting and usually occurs within
one hour of the sting.
It is for this reason that most sensible beekeepers take an epi pen with them to the apiary. This device,
which contains epinephrine, can auto-inject this substance into your body and thus save your life. It is
worth seeing your doctor about this aspect of beekeeping so that you can obtain a prescription for the epi
pen, if required. Instead of the auto-injector, which is expensive, you can obtain a normal epinephrine
containing syringe, but with this you actually have to inject yourself – i.e. push the needle in!
Venom poisoning can be caused by large numbers of bees, and this can cause death in non-
hypersensitive individuals. It has been estimated that it would take 500–1500 stings for this to occur.

Using venom for humans

Apitherapists claim that bee venom can be used for the treatment of the following:

 Chronic injuries, such as bursitis and tendonitis.

 Hypertension.
 Asthma.
 Scar tissue removal.
 Certain skin conditions, such as eczema.
 Hearing loss.
 Premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

44
However, there is no meaningful scientific evidence to indicate that bee venom is effective for any of
these conditions but, as there is a value in the substance, it is worth considering it as a source of income.
Equipment for its collection is necessarily specialized, but most can be purchased from reputable bee-
supply companies.

Collecting venom

To collect venom, a glass electric-shock plate is usually placed on the hive’s alighting board. On
receiving a shock, a bee will sting the thin membrane that covers this plate. Because it is able to
withdraw its sting from this membrane, the bee then continues to enter the hive. The venom is captured
between the membrane and the glass, where it dries. Once the venom has been scraped off this plate
under hygienic conditions, the plate is placed on another hive’s entrance – colonies can become very
defensive if the plate is left on a hive for too long.

Beekeeping Equipments

Bee hives

Bee hives are hollow containers that can be closed and are purpose made to house bees. Under natural
conditions bee colonies will choose their own nesting site, which can be any cavity, any hollow tree, a
rock cavity or a discarded container. It will be helpful to any beekeeper to observe the characteristics of
such natural nesting sites, because the bees have shown their preference for them.

1. Traditional hives (Fixed comb hives)

These can be made from a hollow log, a wooden box, an earthen pot or a metal container. The bees fill
all the available space with combs from the top downwards.
You can’t remove the combs separately as they are attached to the top and sides of the hive. The honey
can be removed only by removing one wall of the hive & breaking or cutting out the honey combs.
Advantage

 They are cheap and easy to make

 They are seldom troubled by ants and raccoons etc. as the hives are usually hung up in a tree, or
covered with a layer of mud
 The colony is not constantly disturbed by a beekeeper

45
Disadvantage

 The colony cannot be inspected

 When cutting out the combs, the combs with brood cannot be put back, and are thus lost
 It is difficult to prevent swarming or to replace a queen
 The grass hive
Dry grasses are woven together in a basket or cylindrical form, usually with entry points at both ends.
The hive is installed high in tree-tops to avoid termites. Some beekeepers lower it carefully at harvest
time, while others drop it carelessly by cutting the suspension rope. Owing to the weakness of the
material, such hives' usefulness is usually less than one year, and they are used for seasonal beekeeping
only.

 The gourd hive

The gourd provides a natural hollow for bees, but most gourds are too small for an average bee colony,
so that their use often induces swarming. There are two types of gourds. One is more or less pot-shaped,
while the other has a long neck attached to the "pot" section. Both are installed by a suspension cord or
by resting the mouth on a wooden peg.

Most gourd hives have to be broken into pieces before honey and brood combs can be removed. In the
savannah areas, some tribes eat both honey and brood, and do not care to wait until there is a maximum
of honey to harvest.

 The log hive

Two main types of log hive are known. In some isolated areas of the Vest African coasts (e.g. Ghana
and Guinea-Bissau), the ciba or palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer) produces natural hollows for
interested beekeepers to use as hives. When the plant dies, the beekeeper waits for termites to consume
the soft inner pith. The tree is then felled and cut into pieces and the ends are sealed with woven grass, a
few small holes being left at the ends to provide entry and exit for the bees.

For the second type, found in East Africa (e.g. Kenya and Tanzania), a tree is felled and cut into
cylindrical logs which are carefully scooped out to form hollows. They are then sealed, leaving some
small holes for exit and entry. In Tanzania, the hive is split into halves, which the beekeeper attaches
together before baiting and installation. At harvest time, the hive is split open and the honeycombs
removed. The halves are then rejoined for the bees to start the next honey crop.

46
The East African log hive, while simple in construction, is however expensive and inefficient. Several
cheap and more productive hives could have been made with wooden planks from the same tree if only
it had not been crudely shaped into log sections first.

 The barrel hive

Metal and wooden barrels are sometimes employed as beehives in some places in West Africa. In
Guinea-Bissau, for instance, barrels containing pigs'-feet or wine, imported by the Portuguese, were
adapted for use as hives. Some of these old barrels are deteriorating, however, and no new ones are
available to replace them.

 The clay-pot hive

The cheapest and most durable of all the traditional hives is the clay pot, very popular especially in the
northern savannah of West Africa. The pot is similar to the type generally used to carry water or other
liquids, modified to provide a wider mouth and a small mid-section hole for both exit and entry.

The pots, usually made by the elderly women, are bisque-fired, and the inner part is smoked as part of
the baiting. They are then baited with cow dung or other waste and installed on the ground or on pegs in
trees. In some areas, the pots are turned upside down directly on the ground, for beekeepers find that
when they are installed on a flat plate or wood, bees glue the plate firmly to the hive with propolis,
making harvesting tedious. This method of installation, however, has a serious drawback: frequent ant
invasions force some bee colonies to abscond.

Traditional beekeeping utilizes cheap and plentiful local materials for hive construction, some of which
would otherwise be wasted, e.g. the ciba palm. But such simple beehives cannot be easily manipulated
because bees fix combs to the hive body. Combs cannot be inspected at all, and detached combs cannot
be easily replaced. To counter this problem, traditional beekeepers should adopt the top-bar system as a
simple, modern way to convert traditional hives into movable-comb hives.

2. Bee hives with movable combs ( Top bar hives)

These types of hives are used in some regions of tropical Africa for A. mellifera and in parts of Asia for
A. cerena. e.g. Kenyan Top bar hive and Tanzanian top bar hive. It is a long trough-shaped box with
sloping side walls (forming an angle of 115o with the floor) is covered with base of a fixed width. Round
sticks can also be used as long as the spacing between the sticks is correct.

47
The advantage of using adjoining bars is that when you inspect part of the combs, the rest of the colony
remains covered and not disturbed.

The bees will build a comb on each of the bars, especially if the underside of the bars is dipped in
molten wax. The remarkable feature of this kind of hive is that the bees do not attach the combs to the
sloping side walls – a bee space is left free. The center distance of top bars should be the same as the
comb spacing, which is specific for every bee race.

If you use a round sticks these should be placed at similar distance (measuring from the center of the
sticks). If you want to find the distance between combs for the local bees, you can do this by measuring
the combs of a colony which has built a natural fixed comb nest.

The advantage of top bar hives over fixed comb hives are:

 Each comb can be removed from the hive this enables you to inspect the development of the
colony
 The combs containing honey can be removed without damaging the brood nest; the colony can
develop undisturbed
 The quality of the honey is better because no brood is harvested
 You can use one or two queen excluder to separate the brood combs and the honey combs at one
side or both. A queen excluder is a board with openings of a certain width, which allow the
worker bees to pass, but not the queen. This enables you to obtain honey comb with a little
pollen in it, but absolutely no brood (because the queen cannot lay eggs in them)
The advantages of these top-bar hives over hives with frames for the combs are:
 They can be made with other locally available and inexpensive materials.
 If the combs are used only once, the raw wax hardly needs to be purified. In this case the wax
production is high
 You do not need a centrifugal honey extractor to extract honey; the honey can be pressed out of
the combs

48
3. Hives with frames

There are various kinds, two examples of beehives with frames are the Langstroth hive and the East
African long hive. The bees build their combs on wax sheet comb starters (foundation sheets) fixed in
the wooden frames. A foundation sheet is a 2-3 mm thick layer of beewax, a little smaller than the inner
measures of the frame, on which a pattern of hexagonal (the shape of the bottom of a worker cell) has
been imprinted with a press. A foundation sheet is fixed vertically in the middle of the frame. The bees
build the cell walls horizontally on both sides of the foundation sheet.
Advantage of a hive with frames:

 Combs with brood can be easily separated from combs with honey.
 The combs are firmly anchored in the frames, so the combs can be handled quickly and without
breaking. The hive can be transported without the combs breaking off.
 With the frame system the honey can be extracted rapidly with a centrifugal honey extractor,
after which the combs can be re-used.
This is a great advantage if you are mainly interested in the production of honey and not in the
production of beeswax. The bees need to produce less wax and can therefore use their all energy for the
care of the brood and the collection of food.

The most important parts of Langstoth hive are:

 A brood chamber with a fixed bottom board and flight board; or a loose bottom board on top of
which is placed a bottomless brood chamber. In the bottom board you can leave a ventilation

49
 hole of + 15x30 cm, which is covered with fine wire mesh. The brood chamber holds 10 frames,
which are kept separated at the right distance by means of side bars, nails or staples.
 A queen excluder (not absolutely necessary), placed horizontally on the top of the brood
chamber
 One or more supers with 9 or 10 frames. These are placed on the top of the brood chamber or on
the queen excluder.

50
Frame: - in the brood chamber and honey super hang the frames in which the combs are to be built. A
frame consists of: a top bar, 2 side bars and a bottom bar. The top bar must extend some distance on
both sides of the frame, to form to small handles. The frame hangs by these handles in the indentations
made in the front and back walls of the brood chamber and honey super.

There are two ways of keeping the frame at the correct parallel distance from each other i.e. from bar
centre to bar centre.

 By using staples. In both handles, but at opposite side of the handles, a staple, screw or U-nail is
inserted in such a way that it protrudes from each side of the frame.
 By means of extra wide side bars. These extend on either side of the frame. To ensure that the bees
do not glue the side bars to each other too tightly, one side of the bar is beveled so that the area of
contact is as small as possible.
On the underside of the top bar a groove of 2mm wide and 4mm deep can be made, into which a
foundation sheet is fixed.

As the handles of the frames all rest on the sharp edge, the bees can only glue them on this small
surface. Bees have the habit of filling up all gaps smaller than 5mm with propolis. The bottom bar of the
frame must therefore be suspended so that there is a gap the size of a bee (1cm) between it and the
bottom board. The bees use the space to walk under and past the frames.

Hive frames

51
Queen excluder

A queen excluder is a board with openings of a certain width, which allow the worker bees to pass, but
not the queen. This enables you to obtain honey comb with a little pollen in it, but absolutely no brood
(because the queen cannot lay eggs in them)

It is a flat grid of slotted zinc, plastic or wire that lies on top of the brood box (placed between the honey
area and the brood area). Since the width of the opening is adjusted to the size of the bees, worker bees
can pass through the grid to the upper boxes to store honey, but the queen is unable to pass due to her
larger size. This means that the upper boxes will contain only honeycomb and stored honey and will
have no brood in them. This is important at harvest time because the beekeeper knows that any combs
they are placing in their extractor will have only honey in them and that any bees they accidentally
transfer to the honey room won’t be the all-important queen.

Zinc excluders may have sharp edges that can damage wings and, if you accidentally bend the zinc
(which is easily done when trying to lift it off after the bees have stuck it down with propolis), it stays
bent and the slots may warp and widen. Wire excluders usually have a wooden frame around them that
often warps, again exposing areas where the queen may slip through. Plastic excluders are tough, don’t
stay bent if knocked and are easy on the wings.

Many beekeepers don’t use queen excluders (calling them honey excluders instead), but they make life
much easier and, for the commercial beekeeper, ease means speed and therefore less hourly costs. My
advice is to use them until you have worked out a reason why you shouldn’t.

52
Queen excluder

Beeswax foundation mould

In modern beekeeping a sheet of beeswax is used as the starter for encouraging the bees to build their
honeycomb in the places the beekeeper wishes them to build it. The foundation consists of a sheet of
wax with the natural honeycomb patterns of the bees on its surface.

To make a sheet of foundation two options exist:

1) Milling sheets of wax through a roller mill with specially patterned rollers which then mill the
sheets by squeezing through the two rollers and leaving a honeycomb shape on their surface.
This is a high tech operation and requires a skilled operator and careful maintenance of the
milling machine.
2) If a simple negative template of a beeswax sheet is available, pouring hot wax into it and closing
the mould to allow it to cool will create a wax sheet that is slightly thicker and more brittle than a
milled sheet but just as functional.

Foundation sheet

This consists of a sheet of beeswax (2-3 mm thick) into which a cell pattern has been pressed. The bees
build up the cell walls on this pattern. The use of foundation sheet promotes the construction of a regular
comb; provided they are made of pure beeswax and the right cell size is pressed. Furthermore, the bees
need to use less energy to produce wax, which is very advantageous for honey production.

Foundation sheet can be ordered from beekeeping cooperatives or from the Department of Apiculture of
the Ministry of Agriculture or Forestry. Foundation sheet are commonly used in frame and hive
beekeeping, but are not strictly necessary. If they are not available pieces of so-called bur comb (i.e.
newly built small piece of comb, usually in the shape of a tongue) can be used. The beekeeper can attach
bur combs to the centre of the frame bar or top bar by melting its top.

If foundation sheets are available, but expensive, then it is more economic to use small strips of
foundation sheet only. This type of foundation sheet can also be used in top bar hive beekeeping.

53
A sheet of wax

Foundation wax in the frame

Other beekeeping equipment

The hive tool

This is used to loosen the cover, the honey super (s) and the top bars which have been glued together by
the bees. A piece of hard metal, crowbar like, bent at one end and sharp at the other end will do. You can
also use a screw driver.

54
Hive tools

Smoker

Smoke is a means of driving the bees away. If you need to inspect a lot of colonies, or if you work with
African or Africanized bees, it is advisable always to use a smoker. Cow dung, maize cobs, coconut
fibers, rags or card board can be used as smoke fuel. There are loads of theories as to why smoke calms
down bees but it does seem that the smoke in some way affects the bees’ sensory mechanisms. It
sometimes works the other way round, however – using a great deal of smoke on already-angry bees can
make things worse.

A smoker

Bee brush

Bees must sometimes be brushed gently into a container or a hive. A brush with soft hairs is useful for
this, but if the beekeeper can easily obtain a strong, large quill like an ostrich or turkey feather, there is

55
no need to acquire a brush. Indeed, the quill of a big bird is better than any artificial device for this
purpose.

Bee brush

Uncapping fork /Uncapping knife

This instrument is used to slice off the honey cells’ cappings so that the honey can flow out of the cells.
This knife could be a simple bread knife with a serrated edge if that’s all you can find. You can buy
them very cheaply, and the shape of the offset blade renders purpose-made knives easier to use.

Uncapping knives or forks are best used when they are hot so that they go through the wax more easily.
You can soak them in a bowl of hot water before slicing off the cappings or you can purchase an
electrically heated model or even a steam-heated model.

Honey extractor

A honey extractor is a mechanical device used in the honey extraction. A honey extractor extracts the
honey from the honey comb without destroying the comb. Extractors work by centrifugal force. A drum
or container holds a frame basket which spins, flinging the honey out. With this method the wax comb
stays intact within the frame and can be reused by the bees.

Bees cover the filled in cells with wax cap that must be removed (cut by knife, etc.) before
centrifugation.

56
Four frame honey extractor

Protective clothing

Most traditional honey-tappers prefer to strip themselves naked than to wear clothes when harvesting
honey at night, but the modern beekeeper is advised to acquire suitable protective clothes to keep the
bees from reaching his flesh. Thus overalls (a bee suit), gloves, bee hat (veil) and a pair of boots should
be acquired before the honey is harvested or any work involving the opening of the hive is undertaken.

When working with bees during the daylight hours, light-coloured clothing (preferably white, yellow or
green) should be worn; for night work, dark colours are better.

57
Overalls: - It is best to wear white overalls with a zip fastener. If you are working with defensive bees
the sleeves and trouser legs must be tied around the wrist and ankles with elastic, rope or sticking tape.
Overalls (bee suits) are worn to harvest honey and to control the brood nest during the daylight hours.

Bee hat (veil): - This serves to protect the head and neck from bee stings. The beekeeper can easily
make or purchase a straw hat (or any type of hat with a brim). Netting is sewn firmly around the hat and
attached at the back by a piece of cloth. The veil protects the head, face and neck from attack.

Gloves: - Bee gloves must be sewn with good, flexible white leather to protect the hand and fingers
from stings and help the beekeeper to scoop up bees with his hands if the need arises. Indeed, bee stings
on the hand or fingers are among the most painful, and the beekeeper is urged to acquire gloves to
ensure that he works with little or no difficulty.

The gloves should be regularly cleaned with a brush and water as the smell of the stings in the gloves
will stimulate aggressive behavior in the bees.

Boots: - A pair of long boots is also important to protect the feet from stings. When they are not
available, a pair of light shoes and thick white socks can be worn. Dark or black socks should only be
worn at night when the bee, vision is poor.

The honey harvest

How Do we know weather honey is ready to harvest or not?

 By smelling:- we smell honey test around the hive when we move around
 By inspection:- open the supper after 21 days of inserting the queen exclude, then harvest ripen
honey i.e ¾ sealed
The time to harvest honey depends on the flowering period of the bee-forage plants and the extent of the
honey flow. There are some rules which you should keep in mind when harvesting honey:

 Only remove combs with capped honey: uncapped honey contains too much water and will start
to ferment.

58
  Do not take any honey combs containing brood. In the fixed comb hives only take away the
combs at the side of the hive. In hives with loose frames only take the frames out of the honey
area and, at the most, the sides frame out of the brood chamber.
 Sometimes more is paid for certain kinds of pure honey than for a mixture of different kinds of
honey and it is then worthwhile harvesting this kind of honey separately.

Collecting honey comb

In fixed comb hives, where only the side walls can be removed, you should first blow some smoke into
the hive through the flight entrance. You then drive all the bees to one side of the hive with smoke. And
then cut away the light colored (new) combs, leaving about 1 cm of comb. The bees will rebuild a
complete honey comb on this strip of honey comb.

Hives that only have a loose bottom board are carefully turned upside down after quite a lot of smoke
has been blown into them. The bottom board is loosened and pushed aside a little. When the bees have
moved down, cut off the new combs against one side of the hive, leaving about 1cm of the comb. Then
move the bottom so that you can do the same on the other side of the hive. To avoid robbing you should
place the combs you have cut off in a pot or bucket that can be closed. It is advisable to put combs with
little or no capped honey into a separate container. This will mean that the rest of the honey harvested
will keep longer as it has a lower water content.

Honey harvesting from top bar hives and frame hives is much easier, but only combs with capped honey
must be taken out for extraction. In the weeks before the harvest the beekeeper can take precaution in
order not to have brood in the combs he wants to extract by repositioning these combs outside the brood
centre. In this way the queen is prevented from using them again for egg laying. This can be done in a
simple way by means of a queen excluder.

When starting harvesting first blow some smoke under the lid of the hive. Wait a while and then take the
frames with capped honey out of the honey super and brush of the bees. If you place damp cloths over
the other frames, not many bees will fly off. If you want to harvest wax as well as honey, cut off the
honeycomb, leaving a strip of 1cm on the top bar. If you only want to collect the honey, then you must
spin the combs in a centrifugal honey extractor. You should always either fill up the empty spaces in the
honey super, or remove it.

59
Extracting the honey

There are three ways of extracting honey:

 Floating
 Pressing and
 Centrifuging
Honey should be processed in a space where bees cannot enter (all openings must be closed with fine
wire mesh). It is also possible to work in the evening. You can also spin honey in a tent which seals well
with the ground so that there are no gaps. If necessary you can store well-capped frames in a well-sealed
container. If your honey contains to much water, you can “dry” your uncapped honey by making a
chimney of the honey supers and blowing air through them with a ventilator. If you place newspapers on
the floor of the room you can easily remove split honey.

Floating the wax

Floating is the simplest, but takes the longest, which is especially disadvantageous in the rainy season
(honey is hygroscopic and will absorb water from the air in times of high humidity) unless you work
with closed containers.

Remove the wax caps of the capped honey cells with an uncapping fork or knife. Uncapping knives
must be well filed and razor sharp. At temperature of less than 25oC you can make uncapping easier by
holding the uncapping tool in a basin of hot water for a short while (but dry it before use).

The combs are broken into small pieces and placed in a pot or other container. The container is sealed to
make it airtight. After a few days the wax which has floated to the top can be skimmed off. The honey is
strained through a clean cloth, nylon stocking or special honey sieve and is again put away for a day.
Any foam and wax particles which have floated to the surface can be skimmed off and the honey can
then be put into jars.

Pressing the honey

Pressing honey is more work, but takes less time.

Scrape open the combs, break them into pieces and tie them up in a clean cloth (cheese cloth, sheet,
pillow case) knead the combs in the cloth and then press the honey through the cloth. You can wring out

60
the cloth (you need two people for this, or one person and a fixed point), but it is faster to work with a
wooden press. There are various press constructions.

Pour the honey through a clean cloth or sieve into a pot or maturing vessel and leave it to stand for a few
days. Any remaining wax particles and pollen grains will float to the top and can be skimmed off. Then
pour the honey into a storage jar (airtight). To fill small pots and jars easily you can use a container with
a tap.

Centrifuging the honey

The combs must be uncapped before you centrifuge the frames. With a knife (preheated if necessary) cut
away the cell caps in one movement. Irregularities in the comb, however, will mean that some of the
cells will remain capped.

The advantage of centrifuging is that you can extract the honey very quickly and that you can use the
combs again.

Storing the honey

Store the honey in glass jars or plastic buckets with well-sealing lids or in metal containers which have
been coated on the inside with a layer of liquid paraffin or plastic, or which have been treated with acid-
resistant varnish. In humid areas the honey must be stored in airtight containers within a few days after
extraction.

The honey can start to ferment during storage if the water content is too high (>19%). Fermentation can
be prevented by heating the honey to a temperature of 55 or 60oC over a period of 8 hours, followed by
rapid cooling. However, heating the honey for too long will cause both the taste and smell of the honey
to deteriorate. Heated honey is of an inferior quality as the enzymes are broken down.

61
 Disease and Pests of Honey Bee

Disease is a deviation from normal physiological activities like all living organisms, honey bees can be
infested by disease and pest.

Honeybee disease is more of a problem where intensive beekeeping is carried out because of the large
number of colonies are concentrated in a small area.

Since the honeybee is a colonial insect it is often necessary to look at the colony as a whole to determine
damage by disease and pest. However, the beekeepers must be careful not to assume all conditions
leading to population decline or reduced honey production are the result of diseases. Because colonies
can be slightly damaged by pesticides and /or nutritional deficiencies.

Transmission methods

 By robbing action of adult bees

 Feeding contaminated combs
 Reuse of contaminated combs
Category of bee’s disease

Bees have two distinct life forms (brood and adult) and most diseases are specific to either one stages or
the other. Hence we have brood diseases and adult bee diseases.

American foul brood is the most serious of all brood diseases, followed by European foul brood. They
are so called not because they are peculiar to each of these continents but because the two diseases were
studied separately by American and European researchers at the same time.

Adult stage of bees is also affected. But both symptoms and damage done to colonies are less well
defined than those resulting from brood disease.

62
A. Bee brood disease

American foulbrood (AFB)

It is the most virulent brood disease known in honeybee because the causative organism forms heat- and
drought resistant spores. Not found in Ethiopia

Cause: -Spore forming bacterium, Bacillus larvae. It attacks older larvae and young pupae which are
literally are digested by enzymes secreted by the bacterium

Symptoms: -A characteristic odor, sometimes described as sour or “of a glue pot”. Perforated or sunken
capping, darker in color than healthy brood capping. Resultant black scales, difficult to remove from the
cell because of their stickiness

Transmission: -

 Feeding infected honey and pollen. Because honey from unknown source is always suspected it
is preferable to use sugar syrup to feed bees in almost all circumstance.
 Using contaminated equipment. It is recommended that hands and hive tools be kept as clean as
possible at all times to avoid possible contamination among colonies.
 Installing infected package bees or queens.
Diagnosis: -

Diagnosis of AFB requires experience

 The “ropy test” can be used to make a preliminary diagnosis

A stick or twig is inserted in to the cell and then with drawn, the affected larvae” sticks”
tenacious and the contents can be drown out in to a long string or “rope”
 The holst milk test
An affected individual or scale is swirled in a weak solution (1%) of skim milk if the milk clears,
AFB is suspected

 Brood sample may be sent for microscopic diagnosis

63
Prevention: -

 Burning the beehive and all its contents, including bees, combs, top-bars and frames, and bury
the ashes deep in the soil.
 Drugs such as sulfathiazole and oxytetracycline (terramycin) can be used both as preventives and
as remedies if available.

European Foulbrood (EFB)

Closely related to AFB in symptoms. However the causative organism doesn’t form spores and so the
disease is considered less problematic than AFB. Not Found in Ethiopia

Cause: - Bacterium, Streptococcus pluton. The bacterium attacks younger larvae. As a consequence,
perforated capping may be absent and the affected individual may still be in a coiled state.

Symptom: -

 A characteristics odor
 Perforated or sunken capping, rarely present
 A resultant black scale often twisted or contorted in its cell and easier to remove than AFB.
Transmission: - The same as for AFB

Hands and hive tools should be kept clean of debris (Wax, propolis) when working with a number of
colonies

Diagnosis: - The same as AFB

 The ropy test shows less stringyness or ropyness

 The Holst milk test doesn’t result in a clearing of the solution
 Send the sample to beneficial insect’s laboratory.
Treatment: -

 Only in a very severe cases is burning is recommended.

 Requeening with more resistant stock will clear up the disease.
 Routine prophylactic with the antibiotics (oxytetracycline)

64
Chalk brood

The name "chalk brood" derives from the chalky appearance of the dead brood. This fungal disease,
caused by Ascophaera apis, may cause serious problems to bee colonies in humid areas. Spores of the
fungus are ingested in the brood food. The spores germinate in the gut, and the growth of the fungus
causes the death of the brood, which occurs in the pre-pupal stage.

Importation of pollen from abroad is correlated with the increase of incidence of chalk brood

Factors that enhance the growth of the causative agent for chalk brood are

 High moisture content (colonies not well ventilated in high humidity situation)
 Cool temperature
 Colony stress

B. Adult bee disease

Nosema

Cause: - Caused by a spore- forming microsporidian (protozoa) Nosema apis. That infects hindgut
(ventricles) of the digestive tract. Attack the epithelial cell of the gut of adult bees and feed on protein
materials of the gut.

It is worldwide in distribution and always present in colonies, but at varying levels. High results of
incidence are directly related to stress such as:

 periods of long confinement

 rapid brood building
 nutritional imbalance
 inclement (cold and stormy) weather
In Ethiopia it occurs only in winter season (death period). Since Nosema is more virulent in confined
bee population, it is considered much more a problem in temperate areas.

65
Symptoms: -

 distended abdomens
 crawling of bees at entrance
 Disoriented or paralyzed behavior
 Reduction in honey crop
Diagnosis: -

 In the field remove the workers bee and examine the digestive tract. If it is straw brown in color
it is normal. White and distended hind gut (ventriculus) indicate very high infestation of Nosema
 In Laboratory crush the ventriculus of several bees, count the number of spore and calculate the
resultant number per bee
Treatment and control: -

Accomplished by one or a combination of practicing good management technique and feeding antibiotic
called fumagillin

Heat treatment of empty box and supers in room where they are kept, to kill the spore.

In case of Ethiopia the only control method is strengthen the colony (feeding, sanitation)

Varroa (varrosis)

Cause: -It is caused by a parasitic mite called Varroa jacobsani. All stages of the mite feed on both
larval and adult honeybees.These mites are about the size of a pinhead and are copper in color.

Female mites cling to adult bees and suck their blood (hemoparasite). Female then enter a bee brood cell
and produce several offspring, which, in turn, suck the blood of the developing bee.

Both larval stage of the bee and the mite take place in the same comb cell and drone comb gives ample
time to complete the life cycle.

Symptom: -

 Stunted and malformed young worker and down bees

 Arrest development
 High rate of mortality in short period of time

66
Treatment: - Amitraz in solution form

Control: - Remove the drone comb from the hive

Pests and predators

Pests are usually easier to deal with in beekeeping. They can be seen, their effect is immediate and the
solution to the problem is more obvious to the beekeeper.
These include:

 Wax moth
 Arthropods- these include several species of ants, Wasps , robber flies, mantids yellow jackets,
beetles and mites
 Amphibians toads and lizards
 Birds- king bird, common birds
 Mammals – black bear, human, Honey badger
 Bee louse (Braula coeca) - wingless ectoparasite found world wide
*Found near head and thoracic layer of bee and feed on nectar and pollen from the mouthpart of bee.

Most common serious pests of honey bees

Wax moth

They are different in type – great wax moth, dry fruit wax moth, Mediterranean flower wax moth

The wax moth (generally the Great wax moth, Galleria millennial) commonly enters bee hive to lay it
eggs/ if the hive is weak, they can be very distractive, eating honeybee brood and destroying comb (it
changes the comb cell in to wax dust).

Wax moth is not generally a problem with a strong hive, as they have enough worker bee on the frames
to keep the moth population at the minimum.

Strongly populated honeybee colonies always have wax moths, but are unaffected because the moth
larvae are being continually sought out and then cast out of the hive. Wax moth is a consistent and

67
vexing problem in stored comb, the rate of moth development in a stack of stored supers rivals the
imagination.

Stage of development: -

 Female adult moth enters the hive at night and lays her egg in hidden areas. Like in between
frames and at the joining corner of the hive. Avoid being stung to death.
 In between 5-8 days the egg changed to larvae- the stage which causes damage to the colony.
 Larva stage takes 15 days to 3 month depending on temperature. The larvae are whitish in color
(similar to larvae of bee) but latter changed into darker
 The larvae fed on honey, pollen and casts skin or cocoon of the larvae. To search for cocoon the
larvae bore the comb and hide itself in the comb cell. And finally it changes the comb cell in to
wax dust.
Control methods: -

 Regular seasonal management: - regular inspection of hive, feeding and strengthening the
colony.
 Store reduced supper and frames in a place where there is enough ventilation
* Use wire mesh screen for ventilation and also sometimes keep the frame under roof.

 Physical treatment: Cooling- expose the comb to very low temperature at 20C for a day, at 50 C
for 3 weeks.
 Chemical treatment –fumigate the room containing frames and boxes by using chemicals
ethylene dibromide(EDB), Para dichlorobenzen(PDB)
 CO2 Treatment – keep the combs and supers in a room where the concentration of CO2 is higher
for hrs. This can kill all stages of development
 Melt all infected combs and reconstruct new foundation sheet.
 Sometimes we can burn fire in front of hive during evening to attract the adult moth

68
Ants

Ants are social insects invading in a large group causing a serious damage or loss on a colony usually it
is the weaker colonies that are most bothered.

Species:-

 Fire ants
 Carpenter ants
 Tropical Army ants or safari ants or driver ants
The most dangerous ant in Africa

Over whelm any colony by sheer weight of numbers

Feed on honey, pollen and broods sometimes egg. If bees fail to protect them the final result is
absconding.

Control: -

 Clearing and cleaning the apiary from grass, debris and pieces of broken combs, dead brood,
honey combs and other smelling materials not to attract ants.
 Use ant guards on hive stands with barriers of oil or grease and smooth metal sheet
 Distract the nest and killing the queen of the ants
 Use ash around the hive stand.
 Aldrine treatment: - not promising because it is dangerous and have residual effect. Open the
nest of the ant and apply the chemical.

Poisoning

Poisoning of bees by chemicals such as insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.

Honey bees can pick up the poison in several ways

 By contact – if the bees are flying when the actual spraying or dusting is being carried out,
causalities can be heavy.
 In food, either nectar or pollen:-

69
 Spraying or dusting when the flowers are in bloom will result in the bees collecting poisoned
nectar and pollen

In case of poisoned nectar  the bees die before they come back to their hive  so the poison is
not spread

In case of poisoned pollen bees come back to their hive and will kill the nurse bees and larvae to
which it is fed.

 From water poison falling in to water from which the bees drink will result in the death of the
water collectors
Sign of poisoning:-

 Excessive number of dead bees

 Presence of dead brood in the hive
 Regurgitation – body of bees become wet
 Erratic attempt to clean their body
 Aggressiveness
 Paralysis
Control: -

 The beekeeper must pre informed a given time to protect their bees.
When bees are sited permanently near the crop, which is to be sprayed, the farmer must warn the
beekeeper before hand of the dates of spraying or dusting. The beekeeper should shut up his
hives the night before spraying is to begin making sure that the hives are nowhere near where the
dust or spray will fall.

 Time of application:-
Bee forging time is form 9Am to after noon. So spraying or dusting at this time could cause
hazardous damage on bees.

Spraying or dusting when the flowers are in bloom will result in the bees in collecting poisoned
pollen and nectar.

 There must be rules and regulations to test the toxicity level of the imported chemicals to bee

70
 Use right pesticide formulation.
Wetable powders (dust chemicals mixed with H2O) have a residual effect not only on bees but
also on human beings who consume the hive products.

Better to use liquid chemicals because after certain period of time the toxicity will evaporate and
don’t have residual effect.

 Avoid Airplane application during flowering period.

71