The practice of keeping or rearing, caring and management of honey bee on a large scale for obtaining honey and wax is called apiculture.
The place where bees are raised is called apiary. Besides honey, other products of bee-keeping are bee wax, bee venom, propolis and royal jelly.
Bee-keeping require low investment and generates additional income, hence it is done by farmers along with agriculture.
Honey bee varieties used for bee-keeping:
Colony of honey bee:
Honey bees are social, polymorphic insects which live in colonies in nests (known as bee-hive).
The colony of honey bee has bees belonging to three castes.
Queen Bee: she is the supreme bee in a colony.
Drones: They are smaller and shorter than the queen bee.
Workers: They are the most active members of the colony.
Management for high yields of honey:
For the production of honey on the commercial basis, Italian variety of honey bee, Apis mellifera is commonly used for honey production throughout the country. It is preferred because:
It is gentle in nature.
It has high honey collection capacity.
It has more ability to protect itself from enemies.
The value or quality of honey depends upon the pasturage, or the flowers available to the bees for nectar and pollen collection..
In addition to adequate quantity of pasturage, the kind of flowers available will determine the taste of the honey.
So, the more of the abundance of flora and for longer duration, the better will be the quantity and quality of honey.
Further Topics on the Chapter Improvement in food resources can be seen on the below links
