1. History of Bee keeping-1.pptx

Bee keeping

1. History and Development of bee keeping from ancestral and 1851 onwards, History of beekeeping in India, Karnataka, Institutes and Societies of beekeeping

2. Honey bees are reared in artificial hives for produces they give viz., honey, bee wax, royal jelly and for they help they render in pollinating crop. The practice of rearing bee is called ‘Apiculture ’ or ‘Beekeeping ’ The place where the hives are maintained is called ‘Apiary’

3. Man had known that honey is delicious, sweet and nutritious food long before he learnt the method of keeping bees in hives to provide him a more accessible supply of honey. Mention of this winged creature is found in all most all the religious epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata, and the Vedas, the Puranas and the Upanishads and Quran and many of other ancient books.

4. The Indian systems of medicines belonging to both Ayurveda and Sidha school heavily rely on honey as a carrier which enhances the properties of drugs Honey had been in use from very ancient days for religious rites of sanctity. There was flourishing trade of honey and wax in our country till the introduction of cane sugars

5. Figures, drawings and carvings of the honey bee and its combs are found in tombs, coffins, crowns and maces of Egyptian kings and coins of ancient and modern empires. Egyptians also hold bees in higher order. The great Prophet Mohammed is said to have advised many of his followers to use honey for various ailments

6. Hippocrates, piny and others have advocated the use of bee tea prerpared of burnt bees as a cure for kidney troubles and also a stimulant for growth of hair Though the virtue of honey bee and the utility of honey have thus been known from ancient days, the methods of bee keeping and honey extraction have been primitive and crude all over the world till recently.

7. The changes in Bee keeping is observed between the year1500 and 1851. 1586: Luis Mendez de Torres first described the Queen bee as female that laid eggs. It was the first revolutionary discovery. 1609: Charles Butler identified drone as Male bee 1637: Richard Remnant recognized worker bees as females. Advances in bee keeping

8. The understanding of the life cycle helped the beekeepers in management and care of their colonies. The next advancement was successful extraction of honey with least damage to the hive and bees. The understanding of the life cycle and the ability to harvest honey without disturbing the hive made beekeeping easier.

9. In 1851: L. Langstroth studied the natural colonies of bee and found the bees maintaining space between combs. Based on this bee space he designed a bee hive with movable frames with proper spacing which made it easy to extract honey without affecting the bee population. This created history in modern bee keeping.

10. Hence, Langstroth is considered as ‘ Father of Modern beekeeping ’ in USA He revolutionized the concept of bee keeping in India from 1851 onwards. Bee spaces or passage way: is the space required between any two frames for the bees to move about conveniently between the combs and it is too small to encourage bees building combs and too large to induce their depositing propolis. It is about 0.635 cm for A.cerena indica and 0.794 cm for A.mellifera

11. 1865 AD: During this period Major Von Hruschka invented the honey extractor for the first time Advantages of honey extractor are: We can get pure honey Bees are safe Combs can be reused

12. The successful use of movable frames, the discovery of bee space and invention of honey extractor completely revolutionized the primitive crude way of keeping bees and the modern bee hive came to be designed. This break through even increased the production of honey.

13. 1857 AD: Johanns Mehring invented the artificial comb Foundation sheet . This invention was another milestone in bee keeping Because worker bees have to secrete wax from their wax glands. They secrete wax after consuming ten times of its weight of honey besides labour they put in.

14. Therefore in the process it reduces production of honey firstly because of additional consumption Secondly due to additional labour which otherwise could have been utilized for the collection of honey. In India: In our country also beekeeping industry was in its primitive stage till recently.

15. In ancient times honey bees used to be kept in a crude manner in India as in other countries of the world. The earliest method of keeping bees was first started in South India in the 2 nd half of 18 th century , in parts of Karnataka (Coorg), Kerala and TN and later in J&K, WB In Karnataka they started bee keeping with log hives called horizontal log hives, empty pots or any other suitable receptacles smeared with wax and sweet scented leaves of Cinnamomum iners on the inner surface.

16. Then those receptacles are kept in jungles to entice the bees, during swarming seasons When the bees are settled there, those receptacles are carried to and kept in desired places. This type of hive is called as Pot hive and hollowed wooden log with one end closed and another end is opened but closed with wooden plank and with a hole in centre.

17. Modern Bee keeping in India: 1882: During this period first attempt to keep bees in the standard/movable hives in India was made in W.B (Calcutta) by Mr. John Douglas , working in post and telegraph dept. He also in 1884 wrote a book called ‘Handbook of Beekeeping’ which was perhaps the first published book on beekeeping in India.

18. 1883: GOI collected information on bee keeping from different states and published in booklet form 1911: In South India it was around 1911 Father Newton designed a smaller hive suitable for Indian bee A.cerana honeybees in Kanyakuamri district and successfully maintained the honey bee in hives. This smaller hive named as Newton hive is in common use even today for bee keeping in maidan areas. He also gave training in beekeeping for many from 1911-1917

19. 1917-25: Work on beekeeping was started in Thiruvancoor and Mysore in 1925 Beekeeping was started during 1927, 1931, 34 and 1938 in Kashmir, Madras, Coorg and UP respectively. 1938-39: During winter season of 1938-39, beekeepers of India formed ‘ All India Beekeepers Association ’. This Association started publishing ‘Indian Bee Journal’ and also held conferences and meeting all over India

20. 1945: ‘Indian Council of Agricultural Research’ established ‘Central Beekeeping Research Station’ (CBKRS) in Punjab. Six year after this i.e., during 1951 ICAR also started CBKRS at Coimbatore (Madras), Baptala (AP) and Sundernagar (HP) IARI also carried out scientific investigation on cultural problems at New Delhi and Pusa (Bihar)

21. ‘All India Khadi and Village Industries Commission’ (AIKVIC) started ‘Central Bee Research Station’ (CBRS ) at Pune and Mahabaleshwar (Maharashtra) which transfers latest findings of research on beekeeping to various grass root implementing bodies.

22. The pioneering work in the establishment of modern beekeeping in India were done by certain noble personalities in their respective states. Notables were: Swami Shambhavananda from Coorg district in Karnataka Marthandam and Dr. Spencer Hatch from the southern most costal India Shri R N Muttoo from the Central Himalayas Smt. Ramadevi and Manamohan Chowdhary from Orissa

23. Shri T C Razdan, J N Raina and A M Shah from J&K All these efforts were restricted to smaller pockets in different states of the country After Independence the GOI took a policy decision to revive various traditional Industries and ‘ All India Khadi and Village Industries Board’ was constituted to undertake this work.

24. This board was later re-constituted as ‘ Khadi and Village Industries Commission’ in 1956 , a statutory body under the Ministry of Industry. However large scale implementation of bee keeping was possible due to role played by Khadi and Village Industries Commission and various ‘State Khadi and Village Industries Boards’.

25. Present Status of Beekeeping Apis cerena and Apis mellifera are only two species maintained in hives. European, A.mellifera bee is much better than Indian bee in all aspects and it has wide distribution both in Tropical and Temperate Countries and regions. European bee has 5 strains/races which are maintained in different regions

26. A.cerena found in Asian countries. In recent years it is replaced by A.mellifera in Japan and China (70% honey comes from this) In India also maintaining A.mellifera in Karnataka, TN and Kerala (South Indian states); in Punjab, HP, J&K, Haryana, Bihar and UP (North Indian states) In western countries they mainly maintain European bee. They done this on a large commercial scale and as a main occupation

27. In America, a bee keeper can maintain an average number of 100-300 colonies , can harvest an average yield of 15-20 kg/colony/year Similarly in California, 1000-2000 colonies ; yield 35kg/colony . In some places where there are lot of bee flora, have recorded upto 100-150 kg honey/colony/year. But in developing countries, the bee keeping is not done on a commercial, large scale.

28. A bee keeper can maintain an average number of 10-20 colonies (at the most 50 colonies) and can harvest 8.5 kg honey/colony/year in India [that too after the introduction of European bee otherwise still low] World honey production is 1.1 million tonnes (1991). Out of this major contributors are Europe [>2,00,000 m.t ], USSR [>1,00,000 m.t ] and USA [1,10,000 m.t ]

29. Worlds largest producer is China – production >2,00,000 metric tonnes (1991). China also produces 1800 m.t of royal jelly & 1000 m.t of pollen and exported Royal jelly and pollen are good source of proteins and Royal jelly is in demand in America Because it is believed to delay ageing or prevents ageing. Most of honey is imported by Europe

30. According to 1994, India’s production in 30000 m. tonnes >50% of honey comes from natural colonies. Though we have the capacity to keep 4 million colonies and the potential is about 6 lakh metric tonnes of honey, we have only 1 million colonies in the country. In Karnataka: In Karnataka, actual bee keeping started in 1925 in Coorg by Swami Shambhavananda [Associated with Ramakrishna mission] is the father of bee keeping in Karnatka

31. He found that Newton hive was very small and he brought some Langstroth hive which was very long and he constructed hives called as ‘Coorg Standard hive’ In 1936 he started ‘Coorg honey and wax produces Co-operative society’ as a leading society in Karnataka. In Karnataka, bee keeping is practiced in 18 districts: Coorg, S.Canara , N.Canara , Hassan, Kolar , Bengaluru and Dharwad .

32. During 1979 – ‘Bengaluru Beekeepers Association’ was registered with 300 members. Today there are 12 registered Beekeepers Associations Sirsi Bhagamandala Sakaleshapura S. Canara N. Canara

33. In dry belt: Kolar Dharwad Bengaluru Among these ‘Coorg Progressive Bee keepers Society’ (CPBKS) is the major one. “Bengaluru Beekeepers Association’s” head quarters is Entomology Department, UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru.

34. In 1997, a separate department for Apiculture was started by Dr. G K Veeresh was the then Vice – Chancellor of UAS and Dr. D Rajgopal was made as Head of the Apiculture Number of bee keepers in Karnataka – 51200

35. Bee Products in Karnataka * Decrease is due to viral infection known as THAISAC Brood diseases [Thai – Thailand, the brood becomes sac like] Production 91-92 93-94 No of colonies 1,60,000 45119* Honey 860 metric tons 206 m.tons* Wax Production 8.2 metric tons* 2.09 m tons*

36. Thaisac brood disease was 1 st appeared in J&K in 1980’s and in 1991-92 attacked in South India Research on Beekeeping In the last few years, GOI has shown a very keen interest in this eco-friendly activity and launched a number of new research schemes with the following objectives:

37. To promote the development of bee keeping and honey production in the country To identify the potential of beekeeping in different agro-climatic zones of the country. Confronting problems and their possible remedies In 1952, the first research institute was established [i.e., Apicultural Research Laboratory in Mahabaleshwar (near Bombay) –

38. Here major work done is standardization of bee keeping equipments, management practices; bee flora; Bee genetics and quality control of Bee products etc. In 1962, “Central Bee Research and Training Institute ” was started in Pune (Maharashtra) by KVIC. Now it is a premier institute It also have substations: One is at Aldur ( Chickmagalur district).They train people in bee keeping

39. AICRP: [All India Co-ordinated Research Project] on honey bee research and training started in 1981 and funded by ICAR. It has 8 centers in different parts of the country. One is in Coorg in Chetthalli [Near Gonikoppal ] Training in bee keeping is also extended by ‘Central Bee Research and Training Institute’. There are 2 courses in Pune :

40. Apiary men course Demonstrator course/ Field man course 3 month duration course At local level, Co-operative societies also conduct 3 days training. Even our UAS also conduct training.

41. Thank you