Beekeeping

Beekeeping (or apiculture,) is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. A beekeeper (or apiarist) keeps bees in order to collect honey and beeswax, for the purpose of pollinating crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an apiary.

What are the advantages of beekeeping projects... ? Beekeeping is an activity that anyone can undertake as it requires minimal or no land, requiring only small investment in real terms - for risk aversive farmers, takes minimal time and effort in a season, therefore allowing for normal work-a-day activities to carry on and provides high returns to the beekeeper. Honey is a commodity that can be traded internationally as well as locally or regionally without special consideration as to storage or loss. Honey is a high value product with a stable and lucrative supply versus demand economy. Honey is portable. Honey and its by-products have many healthy benefits for the consumer and are lucrative trade commodities in value addition form. Bees pollinate the indigenous flora, adding value to wild harvested fruits, nuts and economic trees and plants as well as 1/3rd to any food production through targeted pollination. Honey is a valuable non-wood forest product thus contributing to the preservation of forests around the world. • Honey has been traditionally used in various diet preparations, medicines, cosmetics, ointments, candles and house-hold bee-wax items1 • Royal jelly is used to strengthen the human body, for improving appetite, preventing aging of skin, leukaemia and for the treatment of other cancers. • On an estimate, about 80% of honey is used directly in medicines and 10% is used in Ayurvedic and pharmaceutical production.

History •

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Beekeeping is one of the oldest forms of food production. Some of the earliest evidence of beekeeping is from rock paintings, dating to around 13,000 BC. It was particularly well developed in Egypt and was discussed by the Roman writers Virgil, Gaius Julius Hyginus, Varro and Columella. Traditionally beekeeping was done for the bees' honey harvest, although nowadays crop pollination service can often provide a greater part of a commercial beekeeper's income. Other hive products are pollen, royal jelly and propolis, which are also used for nutritional and medicinal purposes, and wax which is used in candlemaking, cosmetics, wood polish and for modeling. Propolis is a wax-like resinous substance Royal jelly is a type of bee secretion that aids in the development of immature or young bees

Castes of Bees..

 Workers - Reproductively underdeveloped females that do all the

work of the colony.  Queen - A fully fertile female specialized for producing eggs. When a queen dies or is lost, workers select a few young worker larvae and feed them a special food called "royal jelly." These special larvae develop into queens.  Drones - Male bees. Five species of honey bees are found all over the world, namely Apis florea, Acerana, A. dorsata, A. mellifera and Trigona iridipennis. However, A. cerana and A. mellifera are reared in hives in India..