Dr. Morey Madam RC.pptx

Dr. Morey Madam RC.pptx

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  Morphology and Life Cycleof honey Bee Dr. Chitra D. Morey Dept. of Zoology, Shri Shivaji College, Motala, Buldhana
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  GENERAL MORPHOLOGY •In honeybees, body parts are modified as per their food habits and social life. Like any insect, body of honey bee can be distinguished in to three parts : a. Head b. Thorax c. Abdomen • Head Bears a pair of antennae, two compound eyes. • Two mandibles are attached to ventro-lateral part of head capsule. • Mouth parts of worker bees are modified for sucking and lapping • Thorax consists of three segments: prothorax ,mesotmhorax and metathorax, each bears a pair of legs. Meso and metathorax, each bears a pair of wings • In abdomen of adult workers appears 6 segmented • Abdomen bears sting, wax glands and scent glands
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  COLONY ORGANIZATION ANDDIVISION OF LABOUR •Honey bees are social insects and live in colonies. •A normal colony, during active season is composed of 3 kinds of individuals: one queen, thousands of workers (10000 to 30000 or even more) and few hundreds of drones, which vary in size. •In addition, each colony has different developmental stages viz eggs, larvae and pupae which are collectively known as brood.
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  •The queen laysboth fertilized and unfertilized eggs. Fertilized eggs produce workers (also queens) and unfertilized eggs produce drones •Queen releases queen substance (pheromone) which helps in the colony organization. •Absence of queen pheromone is detected after about 30 minutes of queen loss and colony may start raising new queen. • The pheromones in queen substance stimulate brood rearing, comb building, hoarding and foraging in a colony and thus play important role in normal working of a colony. •The virgin queen mates with a number of drones (5-7) within 5-10 days of emergence in the air (not inside the hive) and spermatozoa are stored in spermatheca. Stored sperms are utilized to fertilize eggs throughout her life till exhausted. Queen: •Only one queen is found in a colony • She is the mother of the whole colony producing workers and drones •Her function is to lay eggs. •She is fed lavishly by a large number of nurse bees with highly nutritious food known as royal jelly •A good queen can lay 1500-2000 eggs per day •A laying queen is the longest bee in the colony.
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  Worker: • Workers areimperfect females. •A worker has an average life of only 40-50 days. • The workers perform all the useful work in the colony • Duties of workers include: Cleaning of the hive, feeding of larvae, raising queen cells when required, ventilate hive, guard the hive entrances, secrete bees wax, construct the combs, collect the nectar and convert it into honey , collection of pollen, water and propolis, produce a predigested food of royal jelly for feeding queens and young larvae and scouting for a new nest site during swarming. •The workers also feed the drones but when not needed, they are thrown out of hive Drone: •Drones neither perform any duty inside the hive nor do they collect food from flowers. Each drone is fed by 3 to 4 worker bees. •The sole function of a drone is to mate once which costs him his life. •Maximum life of drone honey bee in summer is 59 day
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  Structure of BeeComb •The comb of the bees is formed mainly by the secretion of the wax glands present in the abdomen of the worker bee. •A comb is a vertical sheet of wax with double layer of hexagonal cells. •The cells of the comb are of various types. •The storage cells contain honey and pollen. •They are built in the margin and at the top of the comb. •The brood cells contain the young stages of the honey bees and they are built in the centre and the lower part of the comb. •The brood chamber is divided into three types Worker chamber, Drone chamber and Queen chamber where the larvae developing into worker, drone and queen are reared
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  Life Cycle: •During nuptialflight, the queen receives spermatophores from drone and store in its spermatheca. •The queen walks over the combs depositing one egg (largest of queen, smallest of worker and in between of drone) •The eggs may be fertilized to produce females or unfertilized Egg Larva Pupa Total Queen 3 5 7 15-16 Worker 3 4-5 11-12 18-20 Drone 3 5-7 13-14 21-24
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  Methods of Beekeeping Bee keeping is a scientific method of keeping A. cerana or A. mellifera bees for the production of honey and other useful bee products. The main objective is to get more and more quality honey. There are two methods used by apiculturists. The traditional method and the modern method. Traditional Method of bee keeping/ Old or indigenous method: Traditional beehives simply provided an enclosure for the bee colony. Because no internal structures were provided for the bees, the bees create their own honeycomb within the hives, mainly clay hive or mud hives pot. The comb is often cross- attached and cannot be moved without destroying it. This is sometimes called a fixed-frame hive to differentiate it from the modern movable-frame hives. Movable hive in the pot Fixed hive: in which bees themselves build hive in the natural space provided. Movable hive: may be a hollow log, box or even earthen or wooden pots. The bees are collected from the wild and are placed into these hives Disadvantages of Indigenous method: Selection of species was not possible as swarming bees were used in this method. Bees were either killed or smoked to extract honey. This disturbed the natural population of bees. Honey from traditional methods was typically extracted by pressing – crushing the wax honeycomb to squeeze out the honey.
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  Modern method ofbee keeping: To overcome the drawbacks of the indigenous method, the modern method has been developed to improve the texture of hives. It was introduced by Rev. Lorenz Longstroth in 1851 for which he was awarded Nobel prize. In India, there are two types of beehives in practice namely, Langstroth and Newton. The Langstroth or Newton’s movable hive mainly consists of wood with basic six parts. 1. Stand is the basal part of the hive on which the hive is constructed. The stands are adjusted to make a slope for rain water to drain 2. Bottom board is situated above the stand and forms the proper base for the hive. It has a gate, gate functions as an entrance for the foraging bees to enter and leave the hive
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  3. Brood chamber(hive body) is the most important part of the hive. It is provided with 8-10 frames through which the workers can easily pass. The frame is composed of wax sheet which is held in vertical position. It is the most important part of the hive. This chamber is used for brood rearing. In addition to brood cells bees also maintain pollen cells and honey cells to store pollen and honey for brood rearing. 4. Super or Honey chambers are placed above the excluder depending on the honey flow and season. It is provided with many frames containing comb foundation to provide additional space honey storage. 5. Inner cover is a wooden piece used for covering the super with many holes for proper ventilation. 6. Top cover is meant for protecting the colonies from rains. It is covered with a sheet which is plain and sloping. Besides the bee box other accessory equipment used in beekeeping are: 1. Bee gloves are used by bee keepers for protecting their hands while inspecting the hives. 2. Bee veil is a device made of fine nettings to protect the bee -keeper from bee sting. 3. Smoker is used to scare the bees during hive maintenance and honey collection by releasing smoke. 5. Hive Tool is a flat, narrow and long piece of iron which helps in scraping excess propolis or wax from hive parts.
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  6. Uncapping knifeis a long knife which helps in removing the cap from the combs as a first step in honey extraction. 7. Bee brush is a large brush often employed to brush off bees from honey combs particularly at the time of extraction. 8. Queen introducing cage is a pipe made of wire nets used for keeping the queen for about 24 hours for acquaintance with the hive and worker bees. 9. Feeder is a basin with sugar syrup covered by grass to feed the bees during drought season. The grass prevents the bees from sinking into the syrup. 10. Honey Extractor is a stainless-steel device which spins the combs rapidly to extract honey. 11. Hive Entrance Guard/ Queen gate is a device similar to queen excluder in front of the hive entrance which prevents the escape of queen during warming season.
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  Selection of suitablesite for the hive •The site selected should have good bee flora(flowers) which produces large quantity of superior quality nectar and pollen which is the main food for the brood and adults. •The site should be free from the natural predators and enemies of bees like ants, spiders, wasps, birds and lizards. •The site should be free from pollution and excessive intrusion by man. Hygienic extraction of honey •In Modern bee keeping practices only honey stored in the super is extracted and thus it does not disturb the brood chamber. •Honey is extracted when honey super chambers are filled with ripened honey that are covered by a thin layer of wax (capped honey). •The frames from the super chambers are removed and bees sitting in these frames are removed using mild smoke using the smoker. •Honey from the honey filled frames is removed first by removing the wax cap using the heated knife. •Uncapped frames are placed in the metallic slots of extractor machine which is rotated to create a centrifugal force. The centrifugal force removes the honey from the frames and the honey collects at the bottom of the machine. •The collected honey can be filtered and heated (pasteurised) before filling in the sterile containers.