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Bees and Pollination
Beekeeping has been identified as a non-land based food, employment and income generating option in mountain areas across HKH region. One does not need to own land to keep bees; bee hives can be placed in and around the house.
Beekeeping is an environment friendly activity as it helps in maintenance of biodiversity by providing pollination services. In fact, bees, as providers of pollination services make the crucial link between beekeepers who maintain bee colonies and the benefits of receiving fees for providing pollination services and the orchard owners who buy pollination services by renting bees and benefits in terms of crop yield and quality. So it leads to development and a win-win relationship between the rich and the poor. Bees are easy to handle — they can be handled by women and children.
Honey is a nutritious and healthy food, and can be used for medicinal purposes to cure various ailments such as cold and coughs, infections and wounds, and can be sold to earn cash income. Beeswax is another bee product that can be sold as such or developed into various value added products to earn cash income. Beekeeping also creates employment opportunities by establishing apiary and other bee based enterprises. These points are summarised below:
The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is one of the world’s richest in terms of honeybee species diversity. Six out of the eleven known species of honeybee are found in the region; and of them, five species including Apis dorsata, Apis florea, Apis laboriosa, Apis cerana, and Apis andreniformis are indigenous to the HKH region whereas Apis mellifera has been introduced. Among the indigenous species only Apis cerana can be managed in hives whereas the rest occur wild in nature.
Honeybees help in improving livelihoods and food security of mountain people, particularly the socio-economically marginalised and geo-physically isolated groups through their products and services. Indigenous honeybees benefit a large number of mountain households, crops, and other flora in HKH region. By providing pollination services, bees play a vital role in enhancing productivity of many mountain crops which sustain farm economies of several sub regions of HKH region. Indirectly, they contribute to environmental protection and biodiversity, and in maintaining soil fertility.
The wild bees – Apis andreniformis, Apis dorsata, Apis florea, Apis laboriosa and the hive bee Apis cerana produce large quantities of high quality, residue-free, organic, natural, and ecologically sound products (honey and beeswax) that are important sources of cash income, have strong market demand, and are of cultural value to human societies. Thus, conserving these bees and promoting their sustainable management can help in improving the livelihoods of communities associated with these bees.
Beekeeping with indigenous honeybee, Apis cerana has been proved to be an important livelihood option for poor mountain people who depend on integrated farming activities for their livelihoods by providing honey, beeswax, pollination services, selling bees, and creation of self-employment opportunities. Mountain communities throughout the HKH region keep Apis cerana in different types of hives such as log hives, wall hives, mud hives, box hives, pot hives, and benefit from their products (honey and beeswax) pollination services.
However, the introduction and promotion of Apis mellifera by GOs, NGOs and private sector organizations has led to a decline in Apis cerana beekeeping, particularly in plain areas and valleys that have road connectivity. Nepal, which had been the strongest gene pool of Apis cerana until 1990, has already imported and promoted Apis mellifera. Currently Apis mellifera beekeeping is flourishing in 17 terai districts replacing Apis cerana. Studies carried out by ICIMOD have shown that at present, Apis cerana is kept (managed) only in remote mountain areas. Some of these areas include southern parts of Bhutan, hills and mountain districts in Nepal, Northern provinces of India, Yunnan and Sichuan in China, and in hills and mountain areas of Pakistan.
The indigenous honeybee, Apis cerana, has distinct advantages over Apis mellifera, particularly for the mountain communities, mountain crops and mountain flora in the HKH region. There are several reasons as to why promote Apis cerana in mountain areas. These include the following:
There are various simple methods that one can use to find out whether a particular sample of honey is pure or adulterated with sugar. Some of them are given below:
The solidified honey is equally good in quality as the liquid honey. Solid honey can be used as table honey, on a toast like butter, or in drinks such as milk or tea. However, if one does not prefer solid honey, it can be brought back to the liquid form. For this, place the pot of honey containing the granulated/ solidified honey in sun for some time. It will liquefy. Alternatively heat water in a pot and place the jar of solidified honey in the pot containing hot water. After some time the solid honey will turn to liquid honey. Remember not to heat honey more than 40oC. Never heat honey directly on a flame. It will denature the enzymes.
Depends on the plants sources and amount of nectar in the flower. Flowers of some plants, for example Indian butter tree produce large quantities of nectar while others produce little. Generally bees visit 2,500,000 to 3,500,000 flowers to make 1 kg honey. Further a colony of honeybees fly about 90,000 miles, the equivalent of three orbits around the earth to collect 1 kg of honey.
On an average a bee in its whole life time produces about one-tenth of a spoonful of honey.
It depends on the species (type) of bees. A colony of bees can have from few hundred individuals (in Apis florea) to upto 80,000 bees (Apis dorsata and Apis laboriosa). A colony of Apis cerana has around 20,000-25,000 bees and Apis mellifera about 50,000-60,000.
There are 11 species of honeybees found in the world. These include Apis andreniformis, Apis florea, Apis cerana, Apis koschevnikovi, Apis mellifera, Apis nigrocincta, Apis nuluensis, Apis binghami, Apis breviligula, Apis dorsata, and Apis laboriosa.
In addition to true honeybees there are several species of stingless bees found in different parts of the world including northeastern part of India, Southern Bhutan, and western Nepal of the HKH region.
Five species of true honeybees (Apis spp.) and a few species of stingless honeybees are found in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. True honeybees include the giant honeybees or rock bees (Apis dorsata) and Apis laboriosa, the little honeybee (Apis florea), the Asian honeybee (Apis cerana), and the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). Several types of stingless honeybees, including species of Melipona and Trigona are also found in the region.
No. Only two species – the Asian honeybee, Apis cerana and the European Apis mellifera can be kept in the hives and managed for honey production and crop pollination. Other species make the nests in open and cannot be managed.
Honeybees make their nests with the beeswax. Beeswax is secreted by eight (four pairs) of wax glands located in the abdominal segments 4 to 7 of the 13-18 day old worker bees. Wax glands become active in 13-18 day old worker bees. To secrete 1 Kg of beeswax bees eat 10 kg of honey.
Honeybees live in colonies. A honeybee colony can contain up to few hundred to 80,000 bees depending on the species. A colony of honeybee consists of one queen, a few drones and thousands of worker bees.
The queen is the only fertile female in the colony. She is much longer and darker than drones and worker bees. However, it is difficult to find her in the colony because she is usually covered by many workers bees.
The queen is the mother of all other bees in the colony. The most important function of the queen is to lay eggs to produce offspring. Immature stages (eggs, larvae and pupae) are collectively called the brood. The majority of fertilised eggs laid by the queen develop into worker bees or daughters. She also lays a few unfertilised eggs during the swarming or reproduction season that develop into drones (male bees).
Workers bee are sterile females and are produced in thousands. They are the smallest members of the colony. They do all the work required for its survival. They feed the queen and the brood, take care of the young, build the nest, clean the hive, defend the colony from the pests and predators, and regulate colony temperature. They store both nectar and pollen in the hive to provide food for the colony. Workers also collect nectar and convert it into honey.
No. The worker bees are sterile females. Under normal circumstances they do not lay eggs. However, in the absence of a queen for a long time, they develop functional ovaries and lay unfertilised eggs that develop into drones.
Drones are generally produced when a colony is preparing for swarming. In this situation, the colony will also construct queen cells. Thus both drones and queens are reared together. The drones fly from the colony to mate with a queen. Drones are bigger than workers and smaller than the queen, and have large eyes. A drone dies after mating the queen. Drones are starved to death after the queen is successfully mated and starts laying eggs.
A bee visiting the flowers of a crop becomes conditioned to that particular crop. During a single foraging trip, it visits a number of flowers of the same crop. While collecting nectar and pollen, the bee brushes against the anthers of a flower and some pollen grains are picked up by the hairs on its body and head. When the bee visits another flower some of the pollen grains on the bees’ body are captured by the sticky surface of a receptive stigma, thus effecting cross-pollination.
Apitherapy is the use of products derived from bees including honey, pollen, beeswax, propolis, royal jelly, and bee venom as medicine. Bee products are known to cure more than 500 diseases such as common cold, cough, arthritis, multiple sclerosis etc. Honey is used in a number of Ayurvedic preparations.
Beeswax is used ion more than 300 different products such as candles, creams, lip balms, soaps, beauty products, medicinal salves, paints, polishes etc. use beeswax.
No. It is not OK for anyone to take bee stings. Though bee stings are very effective in treating joints pains, arthritis and muscle related problems, but if a person is allergic to bee stings it can lead to serious condition – even death. So it is important to take bee stings by an expert apitherapist.
