Beekeping equipment-modified-24.7.2023-1.pptx

Brief description about Beekeeping equipments....

1. Beekeeping Equipment

2. Bee keeping- The Methods Primitive or indigenous Modern

3. Primitive or indigenous Two types of hives are used: Fixed type: Receptacles are provided on the wall of the house with an entrance and an observation hole Moveable type: Anything that can protect bees from rain and sun like empty busket, boxes, hollowed logs, mud pipes, earthen pipes etc. are provided for establishment of the colony

4. Disadvantages This method involves many drawbacks and is not suitable for commercial honey production. The bees are first killed or made to leave from the hive with smoke when the bees are at rest during night. Disadvantages: Honey can’t be extracted in pure form as the honey contains the body parts / fluids of larvae, pupae and pollen cells. Future honeybee rearing is affected as the colony is destroyed to extract the honey. Besides, the bees expend a lot of energy to build new hive. The bees may not construct new hive in the same place as that of the old one. Natural hives also have the danger of attack by the enemies e.g. rats, monkeys, ants, toads etc. They can also be damaged by the climatic factors. Scientific intervention is difficult in the indigenous method and thus improving of the bee race is impossible.

5. Modern techniques In this technique, frame hives are fitted with moveable frames on which bees are persuaded to build their comb They are generally composed of several boxes one on top of the other Lower boxes (1-2) are for holding the broods Upper boxes (1-2) for collection of honey, pollen & propolis Artificial comb was first introduced by Revd. L. L. Langstroth in 1851 in America. In India, during 1910, Rev . Father Newton designed a small hive suitable for A. cerana.

6. Types of Frame Hives Smith British Commercial Langstroth Modified Dadant type The design and principle of all these hives are same. They only differ in their dimension and employment of number of frames However, the first two are confined to Britain only and the last two are used in many countries of the world.

7. Principles followed for bee hive Bees are managed in modem hives. The hive design is based on the principle of “ bee space ”. There is space between the frames, between top bars of frames and inner walls and this space allows the free movement of bees. Because of the bee space, the parts are not attached to each other. Measure of bee space- A. melllifera- 9.52mm /// A. cerana- 7 & 9 mm . Hive is composed of different parts viz. bottom board, brood chamber, brood chamber frames, super chamber, super chamber frames, inner cover and top cover (Fig. 8.1).

8. There are different types of hives with different bee space being used for different species and races of bees. A. cerana is largely kept in modem movable frame hive but even now, especially in tribal areas, the species is still kept in log and pot hives . Wall hives are also made while constructing houses and sometimes mud receptacles are fixed in the wall. The outer surface of such structures has small entrance hole while a board covers large inner opening.

9. Log hive

10. NOT NECESSARY- Bee hives Various types of bee hives are available for beekeeping. They are wooden boxes having two parts: upper ¼ comb is chamber and lower ¾ is brood chamber. Following types of bee boxes are used: Sl. No. Type of box Dimensions Comments 1. Ghosh box 36 cm x 21.5 cm 2. Newton box (BIS hive) 20.2 cm x 14.0 cm 3. Langstroth hive 42.2 cm x 31.1 cm 4. Pant, Kanje and Jeolikote No.l 42.2 cm x 12.3 cm 5. Dadant box (Russian hive) 47 cm x 28.6 cm 6. Thompson box 30.5 cm x 15.2 cm

11. Parts of a movable frame hive Bottom board

12. Different parts of a moveable frame hive 1. Beehive Stand: Four legged, to support floor / bottom board Bottom board: A tray with all its four sides raised and a piece is removed from the middle of the front side to allow entry of the bees i.e. it has an entrance hole Brood chamber : A rectangular box without top and bottom- used for rearing brood. Frames are placed in this chamber. Dimensions and no. of frames vary with the type of hive. A wooden dummy board is used to limit the size of brood chamber and is placed at the end of brood frames .

13. Hive Stand: R ectangular four legged angle iron. It is used to support the hive and protect from soil moisture and keep colony safe from ants, termites, etc.

14. Parts of a moveable frame hive Hive frames: Made of wooden frames; Each frame consists of a top bar, two side and a bottom bar. Inner aspect of the top bar has a groove for fixing comb foundation sheet. Side bar has 4 holes for wiring the frame. The frame holds a comb. Queen excluder: Covers : Outer and inner cover

15. Dimensions of bee hives Super : Dimensions remain same as that of brood chamber or ½ of it (depending on type of bee hive). Actually, in this chamber bees store surplus honey. Inner cover : A board which acts as a partition between brood/super chamber and the roof. Top cover : A kind of lid serves as a roof placed over inner cover In general for A. mellifera, we use Langstroth hive (named after L.L. Langstroth) & for A. cerana , BIS (Bureau of Indian Standard) hive A & B type. Well seasoned wood of “Kail, “Toon”, teak or rubber can be used for making good quality bee hives. Wood having strong smell is not used.

16. 2. Nucleus hive: Small bee hive for keeping 4-6 frames . Used for mating of queens and division of colonies. 3. Observation hive : Small hive with glass sides so as to observe movements and behaviour of bees. 4. Comb foundation mill: Used to print natural cell size of desired comb foundation sheet for A. mellifera & A. cerana. 5. Bee veil: Used for preventing bee stings on face and neck. 6. Smoker: Used to calm down the bees while opening the hive.

17. 7. Uncapping knife: Large sized knife used to uncap the frames before honey extraction. 8. Hive tool: An iron strip used for opening of hive and its cleaning. 9. Queen cell protector: A spring like structure for protecting queen cells. 10. Queen cage: For introducing a queen to new colony & also to transport queen. 11. Bee brush: To brush the bees from frames.

18. A mating hive is a small hive filled with nursing bees and brood frames without a queen (Figure 22). A matured queen cell at a stage 1 or 2 days before emergence is put into the mating hive. After emergence, the virgin queen is nourished by the nurse bees. She mates with drones within a few days and starts laying eggs. If the egg laying pattern is good, she can be sold or used to replace a queen in a colony (requeening).

19. 12. Feeders: Different types of feeders are used for feeding sugar syrup to the bee colonies. These can be (i) slow feeder ( friction top pail feeders ) in which holes are made in the lid and the feeder is placed inverted inside the hive (ii) fast feeder ( division board feeder ) which is of the size of a regular frame and the trough contains a wooden float inside the cavity. 13. Swarm basket: Basket to catch bee swarm. 14. Queen excluder: Perforated zinc sheets or round wires assembled in such a way that workers can pass through them and queen cannot (perforation size is 4.20 mm for A. mellifera whereas worker thorax size varies from 3.33 to 3.50 mm ). Used: During honey flow season to restrict queen to brood chamber & thereby preventing egg laying in the super. Also used in maintaining multiple queen system in a colony.

20. 15. Honey extractor: It is a machine to centrifuge out the honey from uncapped frames. 16. Wax melter: Double walled chamber for melting of bees wax for making comb foundation sheets. 17. Pollen trap: For trapping corbicular pollen of returning bee foragers. For A. mellifera, pollen trapping screen has holes of 4.7 to 5.0 mm. and for A. cerana 3.5 to 3.7 mm. 18. Bee escape: To provide one way passage to bees.

21. Pollen trap

22. Parts of Newton’s bee hive Floor board Brood chamber Wooden frames Top cover

23. c) Bee Smoker: A device to puff cool smoke into the colony for suppressing the stinging instinct of the bees. Parts: Bellows, smoker body, fire pot and nosecone are important parts. Besides, PAD Battery Operated Smoker can also be used, which works on just one push button and is operated through 9V dry cell battery . Fuels e.g. burlap, pine needles, wood pellets, twigs or cardboard. As role of smoke is to calm bees, we should never use synthetic materials or paper that's been bleached as it can irritate bees

24. d) Bee Veil and Gloves These are protective coverings to prevent bee stings on the face, hands and other body parts.

25. e) Bee Brush: Usually a thin 16” long horizontal brush having light soft bristles of about 2” long. It is used to brush off the bees from the comb and other hive parts during comb examination or at the time of honey extraction.

26. f) Queen Excluder It is a perforated or wired device with wooden frame which is placed just above the brood chamber to restrict the queen bee in the brood chamber to prevent her to lay eggs in the honey chamber combs. Thus, by using the queen excluder, brood free honey combs can be obtained. Queen gate

27. g) Comb foundation sheet It is bee's wax sheet with worker brood cell impressions providing the base to the bees for raising comb. The comb foundations are fixed in the empty wooden fames (one in each). It is a thin sheet of bee wax embossed with a pattern of hexagons of size equal to the base of natural brood cells on both sides. The size of the hexagon varies with bee species. The sheet is fixed to the frames on fine wires threaded through holes in the side bars and stretched tight

28. g) Comb foundation sheet

29. h) Wire Embedder It is a tool to fix comb foundation with the wires of frame. Presently, the electric operated wire embedder is also available.

30. i) Uncapping Knife It is double edged ordinary or steam heated knife of about 10” long and 2“ wide with a handle. It is used for removing the capping from the comb of fully ripened honey prior to honey extraction.

31. j) Drip Tray It is a tray about 3' long , 1 to 2' wide removable screened stand is placed inside it. It is used to collect the dripping honey and wax capping while uncapping the sealed honey combs by placing on the screened stand.

32. k) Honey Extractor It is used to extract honey from uncapped combs with least damage to the raised wax combs. Two to four frames tangential honey extractors or multi-frame ( 4-8 frame ) radial honey extractors are available in the country. While tangential extractors need reversing of combs for extraction of honey from other side of the comb, radial extractors require rotation in the opposite direction for the extraction.

33. Honey strainer

34. l) Feeder: Is used for feeding of the bees during lean period. It is an ordinary one litre tin , wide mouth bottle having two-three narrow holes in lid placed on bottom board and inverted on division board. Sugar syrup feeding can also be done through polythene bags or in raised empty combs. Division board feeder is a frame sized feeder with a rectangular receptacle for filling sugar syrup and it has a wooden bar serving as float, sitting on which the bees can pick-up the feed.

35. m) Queen Cages: These are small captivities used for transporting/mailing the queen bees or introducing the queen in a queen-less colony. Benton queen cage is extensively used. It is made up of wood and has three round compartments which are covered ,with a wire screen. The outer round compartment is used for filling candy. Plastic made hair-roller type queen cages can also be used.

36. Other equipment needed for bee keeping Bee-veil : Made up of frames, covered on four sides with small mesh wire gauge, top and bottom with cloths. Used to cover head and face of the person handling bees. Overall: Protective germant worn over the cloths so that the bees can not get under them to sting. Bee gloves: Used to protect hands from bee sting.

37. Other equipments needed for bee keeping High boots: Used to protect legs, ankles as well as to prevent bees from climbing up under the trouser Hive tool: It is a flat piece of steel sharpened at one end for inserting between hive boxes to separate them and the other end bent to separate the frames . Scrapper: Used to scrap propolis and extra comb Smoker: Used to drive out bees in time of honey collection. Smoke should be without heat and flame.

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