Question

Write a brief account of apiculture.

Answer 1

Hint: Apiculture is related to maintenance of social species ie. honey bees. Apiculture or bee-keeping is the artificial way of maintaining bees within an artificial environment by scientific methods.

Complete step by step answer:
-In a colony of bees, it contains one queen which is fertile, a few thousand drone bees or fertile males and a large proportion of unfertile worker female honey bees.Hiving a swarm is done by traditional and quick methods.Products that are used from a beehive are – honey, beeswax, honey dew, bee bread, propolis, bee venom or apitoxin and royal jelly.
The several culture practices that are used in apiculture are-
-Genetic manipulation of bees-
Sub- Species of Apis mellifera are capable of interbreeding and hybridizing.
Most of the bee breeding companies strive for selective breed and hybridized varieties to produce desirable qualities; disease and parasite resistance, good honey production, swarming behavior reduction, prolific breeding and mild disposition.
-Indigenous methods of beekeeping:
Some villagers make wall or fixed types of hives in rectangular spaces in the walls with a small hole or movable types of hives in wooden boxes or earthen pitchers.
The traditional bee-keepers catch clustered swarms from trees, bushes, etc. and transfer them to rectangular spaces. When the bees accumulate honey on the hive, the bees are sent away from the honeycomb usually by smoking the hive.After that honey is squeezed out by cutting the honey comb and putting it on meshed cloth.
-Modern hives- Langstroth Box-
The modern hives are made up of wooden frames that are moveable.This helps in managing bee colonies quite easily.The wooden boxes are made up of a series of square or oblong boxes without tops or bottoms, set one above another.
This hive has the floor at the bottom with a crown board at the top and a roof over all.
Inside these boxes, wooden frames are vertically hung, parallel to each other.
The wooden frames are filled with sheets of wax foundation on which the combs are built by the bees.The only entrance to the hive is below the large bottom box which is known as brood chamber.The queen is usually confined to the brood chamber.The boxes termed supers are used for storage of honey.The queen is prevented from going to the supers by the queen excluder that allows only the workers to move.

Note:
A beekeeper is also known as an apiarist.
A location where bees are kept is known as apiary.