1943 Palestine HEBREW BOOK GUIDE Israel BEES - BEEKEEPING - BEEHIVES -APICULTURE

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1943 Palestine HEBREW BOOK GUIDE Israel BEES - BEEKEEPING - BEEHIVES -APICULTURE:
$95.00

DESCRIPTION : Up for sale is a thorough VERY RARE reference book regarding BEEKEEPING - APICULTURE in Eretz Israel - Palestine . The Hebrew book is named\" THE LIFE OF THE BEEE IN PALESTINE\" . It was written in Hebrew by Robert Blum. Published by Mizpah in 1943 ( dated ) . Propably the FIRST if not only Hebrew book regarding BEE , BEEKEEPING , APICULTURE , SERICULTURE , HONEY , HIVE , COMB HIVE etc. The 1943 book which was published in a limited edition is long ago out of print and sought after since . Original cloth HC. 9.5 x 7\" . Around 150 pp . Very good condition . Used . Inner clean. Age tanning of leaves. Cover slightly stained. Tightly bound. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images - Actual HC is different from the scanned one ). Book will be sent inside a protective rigid envelope .
PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal .SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 17 .Book will be sent inside a protective rigid envelope . Handling within 3-5 days after payment. Estimated Int\'l duration around 14 days.

Beekeeping(orapiculture, fromLatin:apis\"bee\") is the maintenance ofhoney beecolonies, commonly inhives, by humans. Abeekeeper(or apiarist) keeps bees in order to collect theirhoneyand other products that the hive produces (includingbeeswax,propolis,pollen, androyal jelly), topollinatecrops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called anapiaryor \"bee yard\".Depictions of humans collecting honey from wild bees date to 15,000 years ago.[citation needed]Beekeeping in pottery vessels began about 9,000 years ago in North Africa.[2]Domestication is shown in Egyptian art from around 4,500 years ago. Simple hives and smoke were used and honey was stored in jars, some of which were found in the tombs ofpharaohssuch asTutankhamun. It wasn\'t until the 18th century that European understanding of the colonies and biology of bees allowed the construction of the moveable comb hive so that honey could be harvested without destroying the entire colony.Contents[hide]· 1History of beekeeping· 2Originso 2.1Wild honey harvestingo 2.2Study of honey beeso 2.3Invention of the movable comb hiveo 2.4Evolution of hive designso 2.5Pioneers of practical and commercial beekeeping· 3Traditional beekeepingo 3.1Fixed comb hives· 4Modern beekeepingo 4.1Movable frame hiveso 4.2Top-bar hiveso 4.3Protective clothingo 4.4Smokero 4.5Effects of stings and of protective measureso 4.6Natural beekeeping· 5Urban or backyard beekeeping· 6Bee colonieso 6.1Castes§ 6.1.1Mating of queens§ 6.1.2Worker bees§ 6.1.3Droneso 6.2Differing stages of developmento 6.3Structure of a bee colonyo 6.4Annual cycle of a bee colony· 7Formation of new colonieso 7.1Colony reproduction: swarming and supersedureo 7.2Factors that trigger swarmingo 7.3Artificial swarming· 8Diseases· 9World apiculture· 10Images of harvesting honey· 11See also· 12References· 13External linksHistory of beekeeping[edit]At some point humans began to attempt to domesticate wild bees in artificialhivesmade from hollow logs, wooden boxes, pottery vessels, and woven straw baskets or \"skeps\". Traces of beeswax are found in pot sherds throughout the Middle East beginning about 7000 BCE.[2]Honeybees were kept inEgyptfrom antiquity.[3]On the walls of thesun templeofNyuserre Inifrom theFifth Dynasty, before 2422 BCE, workers are depicted blowing smoke into hives as they are removinghoneycombs.[4][5]Inscriptions detailing the production of honey are found on the tomb ofPabasafrom theTwenty-sixth Dynasty(c. 650 BCE), depicting pouring honey in jars and cylindrical hives.[6]Sealed pots of honey were found in the grave goods of pharaohs such asTutankhamun.There was documented attempt to introduce bees to dry areas ofMesopotamiain the 8th century BCE by Shamash-resh-ușur, the governor ofMariandSuhu. His plans were detailed in asteleof 760 BCE:[5]Stele showing Shamash-resh-ușur praying to the godsAdadandIshtarwith an inscription in Babyloniancuneiform.I am Shamash-resh-ușur , the governor of Suhu and the land of Mari. Bees that collect honey, which none of my ancestors had ever seen or brought into the land of Suhu, I brought down from the mountain of the men of Habha, and made them settle in the orchards of the town \'Gabbari-built-it\'. They collect honey and wax, and I know how to melt the honey and wax – and the gardeners know too. Whoever comes in the future, may he ask the old men of the town, (who will say) thus: \"They are the buildings of Shamash-resh-ușur, the governor of Suhu, who introduced honey bees into the land of Suhu.\"— translated text from stele, (Dalley, 2002)[7]In prehistoric Greece (CreteandMycenae), there existed a system of high-status apiculture, as can be concluded from the finds of hives, smoking pots, honey extractors and other beekeeping paraphernalia inKnossos. Beekeeping was considered a highly valued industry controlled by beekeeping overseers—owners of gold rings depicting apiculture scenes rather than religious ones as they have been reinterpreted recently, contraSir Arthur Evans.[8]Archaeological finds relating to beekeeping have been discovered atRehov, aBronzeandIron Agearchaeological site in theJordan Valley,Israel.[9]Thirty intact hives, made of straw and unbaked clay, were discovered byarchaeologistAmihai Mazarin the ruins of the city, dating from about 900 BCE. The hives were found in orderly rows, three high, in a manner that could have accommodated around 100 hives, held more than 1 million bees and had a potential annual yield of 500 kilograms of honey and 70 kilograms of beeswax, according to Mazar, and are evidence that an advanced honey industry existed inancient Israel3,000 years ago.[10][11][12]The Beekeepers, 1568, byPieter Bruegel the ElderInancient Greece, aspects of the lives of bees and beekeeping are discussed at length byAristotle. Beekeeping was also documented by theRomanwritersVirgil,Gaius Julius Hyginus,Varro, andColumella.Beekeeping has also been practiced inancient Chinasince antiquity. In the book \"Golden Rules of Business Success\" written byFan Li(or Tao Zhu Gong) during theSpring and Autumn Periodthere are sections describing the art of beekeeping, stressing the importance of the quality of the wooden box used and how this can affect the quality of the honey.The ancientMayadomesticated a separate species ofstingless bee. The use of stingless bees is referred to as meliponiculture, named after bees of the tribeMeliponini—such asMelipona quadrifasciatain Brazil. This variation of bee keeping still occurs around the world today.[13]For instance, in Australia, the stingless beeTetragonula carbonariais kept for production of their honey.[14]Origins[edit]There are more than 20,000 species of wild bees.[15]Many species are solitary[16](e.g.,mason bees, leafcutter bees (Megachilidae),carpenter beesand other ground-nesting bees). Many others rear their young in burrows and small colonies (e.g.,bumblebeesandstingless bees). Some honey bees are wild e.g. the little honeybee (Apis florea), giant honeybee (Apis dorsata) and rock bee (Apis laboriosa). Beekeeping, or apiculture, is concerned with the practical management of the social species of honey bees, which live in large colonies of up to 100,000 individuals. InEuropeandAmericathe species universally managed by beekeepers is theWestern honey bee(Apis mellifera). This species has several sub-species or regional varieties, such as theItalian bee(Apis mellifera ligustica),European dark bee(Apis mellifera mellifera), and theCarniolan honey bee(Apis mellifera carnica). In the tropics, other species of social bees are managed for honey production, including the Asiatic honey bee (Apis cerana).All of theApis melliferasub-species are capable of inter-breeding andhybridizing. Many bee breeding companies strive to selectively breed and hybridize varieties to produce desirable qualities: disease and parasite resistance, good honey production, swarming behaviour reduction, prolific breeding, and mild disposition. Some of these hybrids are marketed under specific brand names, such as theBuckfast Beeor Midnite Bee. The advantages of the initialF1 hybridsproduced by these crosses include: hybrid vigor, increased honey productivity, and greater disease resistance. The disadvantage is that in subsequent generations these advantages may fade away and hybrids tend to be very defensive and aggressive.Wild honey harvesting[edit]Wild bees\' nest, suspended from a branchCollecting honey from wild bee colonies is one of the most ancient human activities and is still practiced by aboriginal societies in parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. In Africa,honeyguidebirds have evolved amutualistrelationship with humans, leading them to hives and participating in the feast. This suggests honey harvesting by humans may be of great antiquity. Some of the earliest evidence of gathering honey from wild colonies is fromrock paintings, dating to aroundUpper Paleolithic(13,000 BCE). Gathering honey from wild bee colonies is usually done by subduing the bees with smoke and breaking open the tree or rocks where the colony is located, often resulting in the physical destruction of the nest.Study of honey bees[edit]It was not until the 18th century that European natural philosophers undertook the scientific study of bee colonies and began to understand the complex and hidden world of bee biology. Preeminent among these scientific pioneers wereSwammerdam,René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur,Charles Bonnet, andFrancois Huber. Swammerdam and Réaumur were among the first to use a microscope and dissection to understand the internal biology of honey bees. Réaumur was among the first to construct a glass walled observation hive to better observe activities within hives. He observed queens laying eggs in open cells, but still had no idea of how a queen was fertilized; nobody had ever witnessed the mating of a queen and drone and many theories held that queens were \"self-fertile,\" while others believed that a vapor or \"miasma\" emanating from the drones fertilized queens without direct physical contact. Huber was the first to prove by observation and experiment that queens are physically inseminated by drones outside the confines of hives, usually a great distance away.Following Réaumur\'s design, Huber built improved glass-walled observation hives and sectional hives that could be opened like the leaves of a book. This allowed inspecting individual wax combs and greatly improved direct observation of hive activity. Although he went blind before he was twenty, Huber employed a secretary, Francois Burnens, to make daily observations, conduct careful experiments, and keep accurate notes over more than twenty years. Huber confirmed that a hive consists of one queen who is the mother of all the female workers and male drones in the colony. He was also the first to confirm that mating with drones takes place outside of hives and that queens are inseminated by a number of successive matings with male drones, high in the air at a great distance from their hive. Together, he and Burnens dissected bees under themicroscopeand were among the first to describe theovariesandspermatheca, or sperm store, of queens as well as thepenisof male drones. Huber is universally regarded as \"the father of modern bee-science\" and his \"Nouvelles Observations sur Les Abeilles (or \"New Observations on Bees\")[17]revealed all the basic scientific truths for the biology and ecology of honeybees.Invention of the movable comb hive[edit]Rural beekeeping in the 16th centuryEarly forms of honey collecting entailed the destruction of the entire colony when the honey was harvested. The wild hive was crudely broken into, using smoke to suppress the bees, thehoneycombswere torn out and smashed up— along with the eggs, larvae and honey they contained. The liquid honey from the destroyed brood nest was strained through a sieve or basket. This was destructive and unhygienic, but forhunter-gatherersocieties this did not matter, since the honey was generally consumed immediately and there were always more wild colonies to exploit. But in settled societies the destruction of the bee colony meant the loss of a valuable resource; this drawback made beekeeping both inefficient and something of a \"stop and start\" activity. There could be no continuity of production and no possibility of selective breeding, since each bee colony was destroyed at harvest time, along with its precious queen.During the medieval periodabbeysandmonasterieswere centers of beekeeping, since beeswax was highly prized for candles and fermented honey was used to make alcoholicmeadin areas of Europe where vines would not grow. The 18th and 19th centuries saw successive stages of a revolution in beekeeping, which allowed the bees themselves to be preserved when taking the harvest.Intermediate stages in the transition from the old beekeeping to the new were recorded for example by Thomas Wildman in 1768/1770, who described advances over the destructive old skep-based beekeeping so that the bees no longer had to be killed to harvest the honey.[18]Wildman for example fixed a parallel array of wooden bars across the top of a straw hive or skep (with a separate straw top to be fixed on later) \"so that there are in all seven bars of deal\" [in a 10-inch-diameter (250mm) hive] \"to which the bees fix their combs.\"[19]He also described using such hives in a multi-storey configuration, foreshadowing the modern use of supers: he described adding (at a proper time) successive straw hives below, and eventually removing the ones above when free of brood and filled with honey, so that the bees could be separately preserved at the harvest for a following season. Wildman also described[20]a further development, using hives with \"sliding frames\" for the bees to build their comb, foreshadowing more modern uses of movable-comb hives. Wildman\'s book acknowledged the advances in knowledge of bees previously made by Swammerdam, Maraldi, and de Réaumur—he included a lengthy translation of Réaumur\'s account of the natural history of bees—and he also described the initiatives of others in designing hives for the preservation of bee-life when taking the harvest, citing in particular reports from Brittany dating from the 1750s, due to Comte de la Bourdonnaye. However, the forerunners of the modern hives with movable frames that are mainly used today are considered the traditional basket top bar (movable comb) hives of Greece, known as “Greek beehives”. The oldest testimony on their use dates back to 1669 although it is probable that their use is more than 3000 years old.[21]Lorenzo Langstroth(1810–1895)The 19th century saw this revolution in beekeeping practice completed through the perfection of the movable comb hive by the AmericanLorenzo Lorraine Langstroth. Langstroth was the first person to make practical use of Huber\'s earlier discovery that there was a specific spatial measurement between the wax combs, later calledthe bee space, which bees do not block with wax, but keep as a free passage. Having determined this bee space (between 5 and 8mm, or 1/4 to 3/8\"), Langstroth then designed a series of wooden frames within a rectangular hive box, carefully maintaining the correct space between successive frames, and found that the bees would build parallel honeycombs in the box without bonding them to each other or to the hive walls. This enables the beekeeper to slide any frame out of the hive for inspection, without harming the bees or the comb, protecting the eggs, larvae and pupae contained within the cells. It also meant that combs containing honey could be gently removed and the honey extracted without destroying the comb. The emptied honey combs could then be returned to the bees intact for refilling. Langstroth\'s book,The Hive and Honey-bee, published in 1853, described his rediscovery of the bee space and the development of his patent movable comb hive.The invention and development of the movable-comb-hive fostered the growth of commercial honey production on a large scale in both Europe and the USA (see alsoBeekeeping in the United States).Evolution of hive designs[edit]Bees at the hive entranceLangstroth\'s design for movable comb hives was seized upon by apiarists and inventors on both sides of theAtlanticand a wide range of moveable comb hives were designed and perfected inEngland,France,Germanyand theUnited States. Classic designs evolved in each country:Dadanthives andLangstroth hivesare still dominant in the USA; in France theDe-Layenstrough-hive became popular and in the UK a British National hive became standard as late as the 1930s although in Scotland the smaller Smith hive is still popular. In some Scandinavian countries and in Russia the traditional trough hive persisted until late in the 20th century and is still kept in some areas. However, the Langstroth and Dadant designs remain ubiquitous in the USA and also in many parts of Europe, thoughSweden,Denmark, Germany, France andItalyall have their own national hive designs. Regional variations of hive evolved to reflect the climate, floral productivity and the reproductive characteristics of the various subspecies of native honey bee in each bio-region.Honey-laden honeycomb in a wooden frameThe differences in hive dimensions are insignificant in comparison to the common factors in all these hives: they are all square or rectangular; they all use movable wooden frames; they all consist of a floor, brood-box,honey super, crown-board and roof. Hives have traditionally been constructed ofcedar, pine, orcypresswood, but in recent years hives made from injection molded densepolystyrenehave become increasingly important.Hives also use queen excluders between the brood-box and honey supers to keep the queen from laying eggs in cells next to those containing honey intended for consumption. Also, with the advent in the 20th century of mite pests, hive floors are often replaced for part of (or the whole) year with a wire mesh and removable tray.Pioneers of practical and commercial beekeeping[edit]The 19th century produced an explosion of innovators and inventors who perfected the design and production of beehives, systems of management and husbandry, stock improvement byselective breeding,honey extractionand marketing. Preeminent among these innovators were:Petro Prokopovych, used frames with channels in the side of the woodwork, these were packed side by side in boxes that were stacked one on top of the other. The bees travelling from frame to frame and box to box via the channels. The channels were similar to the cut outs in the sides of modern wooden sections[22](1814).Jan Dzierżon, was the father of modern apiology and apiculture. All modern beehives are descendants of his design.L. L. Langstroth, revered as the \"father of American apiculture\", no other individual has influenced modern beekeeping practice more than Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth. His classic bookThe Hive and Honey-beewas published in 1853.Moses Quinby, often termed \'the father of commercial beekeeping in the United States\', author ofMysteries of Bee-Keeping Explained.Amos Root, author of theA B C of Bee Culture, which has been continuously revised and remains in print. Root pioneered the manufacture of hives and the distribution of bee-packages in the United States.A. J. Cook, author ofThe Bee-Keepers\' Guide; or Manual of the Apiary, 1876.Dr. C.C. Millerwas one of the first entrepreneurs to actually make a living from apiculture. By 1878 he made beekeeping his sole business activity. His book,Fifty Years Among the Bees, remains a classic and his influence on bee management persists to this day.Honey spinnerMajor Francesco De Hruschkawas an Italian military officer who made one crucial invention that catalyzed the commercial honey industry. In 1865 he invented a simple machine for extracting honey from the comb by means of centrifugal force. His original idea was simply to support combs in a metal framework and then spin them around within a container to collect honey as it was thrown out by centrifugal force. This meant that honeycombs could be returned to a hive undamaged but empty, saving the bees a vast amount of work, time, and materials. This single invention greatly improved the efficiency of honey harvesting and catalysed the modern honey industry.Walter T. Kelleywas an American pioneer of modern beekeeping in the early and mid-20th century. He greatly improved upon beekeeping equipment and clothing and went on to manufacture these items as well as other equipment. His company sold via catalog worldwide and his book,How to Keep Bees & Sell Honey, an introductory book of apiculture and marketing, allowed for a boom in beekeeping followingWorld War II.In the U.K. practical beekeeping was led in the early 20th century by a few men, pre-eminentlyBrother Adamand hisBuckfast beeandR.O.B. Manley, author of many titles, includingHoney Production in the British Islesand inventor of the Manley frame, still universally popular in the U.K. Other notable British pioneers include William Herrod-Hempsall and Gale.Dr.Ahmed Zaky Abushady(1892–1955), was an Egyptian poet, medical doctor, bacteriologist and bee scientist who was active in England and in Egypt in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1919, Abushady patented a removable, standardized aluminum honeycomb. In 1919 he also founded The Apis Club inBenson, Oxfordshire, and its periodical Bee World, which was to be edited byAnnie D. Bettsand later by Dr.Eva Crane. The Apis Club was transitioned to theInternational Bee Research Association(IBRA). Its archives are held in theNational Library of Wales. In Egypt in the 1930s, Abushady established The Bee Kingdom League and its organ, The Bee Kingdom.In India, R. N. Mattoo was the pioneer worker in starting beekeeping with Indian honeybee, (Apis cerana indica) in early 1930s. Beekeeping with European honeybee, (Apis mellifera) was started byDr. A. S. Atwaland his team members,O. P. SharmaandN. P. Goyalin Punjab in early 1960s.It remained confined to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh up to late 1970s. Later on in 1982,Dr. R. C. Sihag, working at Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar (Haryana), introduced and established this honeybee in Haryana and standardized its management practices for semi-arid-subtropical climates.On the basis of these practices, beekeeping with this honeybee could be extended to the rest of the country. Now beekeeping withApis melliferapredominates in India.Traditional beekeeping[edit]Wooden hives inStripeikiaihoneymaking museum, LithuaniaBeekeeping at KawahIjenMountain,IndonesiaFixed comb hives[edit]A fixed comb hive is a hive in which the combs cannot be removed or manipulated for management or harvesting without permanently damaging the comb. Almost any hollow structure can be used for this purpose, such as alog gum,skepor a clay pot. Fixed comb hives are no longer in common use in industrialized countries, and are illegal in some places that require inspection for problems such asvarroaandAmerican foulbrood. In many developing countries fixed comb hives are widely used and, because they can be made from any locally available material, are very inexpensive. Beekeeping using fixed comb hives is an essential part of the livelihoods of many communities in poor countries. The charityBees for Developmentrecognizes that local skills to manage bees in fixed comb hives[23]are widespread in Africa, Asia, and South America.Modern beekeeping[edit]Movable frame hives[edit]In theUnited States, theLangstroth hiveis commonly used. The Langstroth was the first successful top-opened hive with movable frames, and other designs of hive have been based on it. The Langstroth hive was, however, a descendant ofJan Dzierzon’sPolish hive designs. In the United Kingdom, the most common type of hive is the British National Hive, which can hold Hoffman, British Standard or popular Manley frames, but it is not unusual to see some other sorts of hive (Smith, Commercial and WBC, rarely Langstroth). Strawskeps, bee gums, and unframed box hives are now unlawful in most US states, as the comb and brood cannot be inspected for diseases. However, straw skeps are still used for collecting swarms by hobbyists in the UK, before moving them into standard hives.Top-bar hives[edit]Main article:Top-bar hiveA growing number of amateur beekeepers are adopting varioustop-bar hivessimilar to the type commonly found in Africa. Top bar hives were originally used as a traditional beekeeping method in Greece and Vietnam.[12]These hives have no frames and the honey-filled comb is not returned after extraction, as it is in the Langstroth hive. Because of this, the production of honey is likely to be somewhat less than that of a Langstroth hive. Top bar hives are mostly kept by people who are more interested in having bees in their garden than in honey production per se.Some of the most well known top-bar hives are the Kenyan Top Bar Hive with sloping sides, the Tanzanian Top Bar Hive with straight sides, and Vertical Top Bar Hives, such as the Warre or \"People\'s Hive\" designed by Abbe Warre in the mid-1900s.The initial costs and equipment requirements are far less. Scrap wood or #2 or #3 pine can often be used build a nice hive. Top-bar hives also offer some advantages to interacting with the bees and the amount of weight that must be lifted is greatly reduced. Top-bar hives are being widely used in developing countries in Africa and Asia as a result of theBees for Developmentprogram. Since 2011, a growing number of beekeepers in the U.S. are using various top-bar hives.[24]Protective clothing[edit]Beekeepers often wear protective clothing to protect themselves from stingsMost beekeepers also wear some protective clothing. Novice beekeepers usually wear gloves and a hooded suit or hat and veil. Experienced beekeepers sometimes elect not to use gloves because they inhibit delicate manipulations. The face and neck are the most important areas to protect, so most beekeepers wear at least a veil. Defensive bees are attracted to the breath, and a sting on the face can lead to much more pain and swelling than a sting elsewhere, while a sting on a bare hand can usually be quickly removed by fingernail scrape to reduce the amount of venom injected.The protective clothing is generally light colored (but not colorful) and of a smooth material. This provides the maximum differentiation from the colony\'s natural predators (such as bears and skunks) which tend to be dark-colored and furry.\'Stings\' retained in clothing fabric continue to pump out analarm pheromonethat attracts aggressive action and further stinging attacks. Washing suits regularly, and rinsing gloved hands in vinegar minimizes attraction.Smoker[edit]Main article:Bee smokerBee smoker with heat shield and hookSmoke is the beekeeper\'s third line of defense. Most beekeepers use a \"smoker\"—a device designed to generate smoke from the incomplete combustion of various fuels. Smoke calms bees; it initiates a feeding response in anticipation of possible hive abandonment due to fire. Smoke also masks alarm pheromones released by guard bees or when bees are squashed in an inspection. The ensuing confusion creates an opportunity for the beekeeper to open the hive and work without triggering a defensive reaction. In addition, when a bee consumes honey the bee\'s abdomen distends, supposedly making it difficult to make the necessary flexes to sting, though this has not been tested scientifically.Smoke is of questionable use with a swarm, because swarms do not have honey stores to feed on in response. Usually smoke is not needed, since swarms tend to be less defensive, as they have no stores or brood to defend, and a fresh swarm has fed well from the hive.Many types of fuel can be used in a smoker as long as it is natural and not contaminated with harmful substances. These fuels includehessian,twine,burlap, pine needles, corrugated cardboard, and mostly rotten or punky wood. Indian beekeepers, especially in Kerala, often use coconut fibers as they are readily available, safe, and of negligible expense. Some beekeeping supply sources also sell commercial fuels like pulped paper and compressed cotton, or even aerosol cans of smoke. Other beekeepers usesumacas fuel because it ejects lots of smoke and doesn\'t have an odor.Some beekeepers are using \"liquid smoke\" as a safer, more convenient alternative. It is a water-based solution that is sprayed onto the bees from a plastic spray bottle.Torpor may also be induced by the introduction of chilled air into the hive – while chilled carbon dioxide may have harmful long-term effects.[25]Effects of stings and of protective measures[edit]Some beekeepers believe that the more stings a beekeeper receives, the less irritation each causes, and they consider it important for safety of the beekeeper to be stung a few times a season. Beekeepers have high levels of antibodies (mainlyIgG) reacting to the major antigen ofbee venom,phospholipaseA2 (PLA).[26]Antibodies correlate with the frequency of bee stings.The entry of venom into the body from bee-stings may also be hindered and reduced by protective clothing that allows the wearer to remove stings and venom sacs with a simple tug on the clothing. Although the stinger is barbed, a worker bee is less likely to become lodged into clothing than human skin.Natural beekeeping[edit]The natural beekeeping movement believes that modern beekeeping and agricultural practices, such as crop spraying, hive movement, frequent hive inspections,artificial inseminationof queens, routine medication, and sugar water feeding, weaken bee hives.Practitioners of \'natural beekeeping\' tend to use variations of the top-bar hive, which is a simple design that retains the concept of movable comb without the use of frames or foundation. The horizontal top-bar hive, as championed by Marty Hardison, Michael Bush, Philip Chandler, Dennis Murrell and others, can be seen as a modernization of hollow log hives, with the addition of wooden bars of specific width from which bees hang their combs. Its widespread adoption in recent years can be attributed to the publication in 2007 ofThe Barefoot Beekeeper[27]by Philip Chandler, which challenged many aspects of modern beekeeping and offered the horizontal top-bar hive as a viable alternative to the ubiquitous Langstroth-style movable-frame hive.The most popular vertical top-bar hive is probably the Warré hive, based on a design by the French priest Abbé Émile Warré (1867–1951) and popularized by Dr. David Heaf in his English translation of Warré\'s bookL\'Apiculture pour TousasBeekeeping For All[28].Urban or backyard beekeeping[edit]Main article:Urban beekeepingHoney bee in TorontoRelated to natural beekeeping,urban beekeepingis an attempt to revert to a less industrialized way of obtaining honey by utilizing small-scale colonies that pollinateurban gardens. Urban apiculture has undergone a renaissance in the first decade of the 21st century, and urban beekeeping is seen by many as a growing trend.Some have found that \"city bees\" are actually healthier than \"rural bees\" because there are fewer pesticides and greater biodiversity.[29]Urban bees may fail to find forage, however, and homeowners can use their landscapes to help feed local bee populations by planting flowers that provide nectar and pollen. An Environment of year-round, uninterrupted bloom creates an ideal Environment for colony reproduction.[30]Bee colonies[edit]Castes[edit]A colony of bees consists of three castes of bee:· aqueen bee, which is normally the only breeding female in the colony;· a large number of femaleworker bees, typically 30,000–50,000 in number;· a number of maledrones, ranging from thousands in a strong hive in spring to very few during dearth or cold season.Queen bee (center)The queen is the only sexually mature female in the hive and all of the female worker bees and male drones are her offspring. The queen may live for up to three years or more and may be capable of laying half a million eggs or more in her lifetime. At the peak of the breeding season, late spring to summer, a good queen may be capable of laying 3,000 eggs in one day, more than her own body weight. This would be exceptional however; a prolific queen might peak at 2,000 eggs a day, but a more average queen might lay just 1,500 eggs per day. The queen is raised from a normal worker egg, but is fed a larger amount ofroyal jellythan a normal worker bee, resulting in a radically different growth and metamorphosis. The queen influences the colony by the production and dissemination of a variety ofpheromonesor \"queen substances\". One of these chemicals suppresses the development of ovaries in all the female worker bees in the hive and prevents them from laying eggs.Mating of queens[edit]The queen emerges from her cell after 15 days of development and she remains in the hive for 3–7 days before venturing out on a mating flight. Mating flight is otherwise known as \'nuptial flight\'. Her first orientation flight may only last a few seconds, just enough to mark the position of the hive. Subsequent mating flights may last from 5 minutes to 30 minutes, and she may mate with a number of male drones on each flight. Over several matings, possibly a dozen or more, the queen receives and stores enoughspermfrom a succession of drones to fertilize hundreds of thousands of eggs. If she does not manage to leave the hive to mate—possibly due to bad weather or being trapped in part of the hive—she remains infertile and become adrone layer, incapable of producing female worker bees. Worker bees sometimes kill a non-performing queen and produce another. Without a properly performing queen, the hive is doomed.Mating takes place at some distance from the hive and often several hundred feet in the air; it is thought that this separates the strongest drones from the weaker ones, ensuring that only the fastest and strongest drones get to pass on their genes.Worker bees[edit]Female worker beeAlmost all the bees in a hive are female worker bees. At the height of summer when activity in the hive is frantic and work goes on non-stop, the life of a worker bee may be as short as 6 weeks; in late autumn, when no brood is being raised and nonectaris being harvested, a young bee may live for 16 weeks, right through the winter.Over the course of their lives, worker bees\' duties are dictated by age. For the first few weeks of their lifespan, they perform basic chores within the hive: cleaning empty brood cells, removing debris and other housekeeping tasks, making wax for building or repairing comb, and feeding larvae. Later, they may ventilate the hive or guard the entrance. Older workers leave the hive daily, weather permitting, to forage for nectar, pollen, water, and propolis.PeriodWork activityDays 1-3Cleaning cells and incubationDay 3-6Feeding older larvaeDay 6-10Feeding younger larvaeDay 8-16Receiving nectar and pollen from field beesDay 12-18Beeswaxmaking and cell buildingDay 14 onwardsEntrance guards; nectar, pollen, water andpropolisforaging; robbing other hivesDrones[edit]Larger drones compared to smaller workersDrones are the largest bees in the hive (except for the queen), at almost twice the size of a worker bee. They do not work, do not forage for pollen or nectar, are unable to sting, and have no other known function than to mate with new queens and fertilize them on their mating flights. A bee colony generally starts to raise drones a few weeks before building queen cells so they can supersede a failing queen or prepare for swarming. When queen-raising for the season is over, bees in colder climates drive drones out of the hive to die, biting and tearing their legs and wings.Differing stages of development[edit]Stage of developmentQueenWorkerDroneEgg3 days3 days3 daysLarva8 days10 days13 days:Successive moults occur within this period 8 to 13 day periodCell Cappedday 8day 8day 10Pupa4 days8 days8 daysTotal15 days21 days24 daysStructure of a bee colony[edit]A domesticated bee colony is normally housed in a rectangular hive body, within which eight to ten parallel frames house the vertical plates of honeycomb that contain the eggs, larvae, pupae and food for the colony. If one were to cut a vertical cross-section through the hive from side to side, the brood nest would appear as a roughly ovoid ball spanning 5-8 frames of comb. The two outside combs at each side of the hive tend to be exclusively used for long-term storage of honey and pollen.Within the central brood nest, a single frame of comb typically has a central disk of eggs, larvae and sealed brood cells that may extend almost to the edges of the frame. Immediately above the brood patch an arch ofpollen-filled cells extends from side to side, and above that again a broader arch of honey-filled cells extends to the frame tops. The pollen is protein-rich food for developing larvae, while honey is also food but largely energy rich rather than protein rich. The nurse bees that care for the developing brood secrete a special food called \'royal jelly\' after feeding themselves on honey and pollen. The amount of royal jelly fed to a larva determines whether it develops into a worker bee or a queen.Apart from the honey stored within the central brood frames, the bees store surplus honey in combs above the brood nest. In modern hives the beekeeper places separate boxes, called \'supers\', above the brood box, in which a series of shallower combs is provided for storage of honey. This enables the beekeeper to remove some of the supers in the late summer, and to extract the surplus honey harvest, without damaging the colony of bees and its brood nest below. If all the honey is \'stolen\', including the amount of honey needed to survive winter, the beekeeper must replace these stores by feeding the bees sugar orcorn syrupin autumn.Annual cycle of a bee colony[edit]The development of a bee colony follows an annual cycle of growth that begins in spring with a rapid expansion of the brood nest, as soon as pollen is available for feeding larvae. Some production of brood may begin as early as January, even in a cold winter, but breeding accelerates towards a peak in May (in the northern hemisphere), producing an abundance of harvesting bees synchronized to the mainnectar flowin that region. Each race of bees times this build-up slightly differently, depending on how the flora of its original region blooms. Some regions of Europe have two nectar flows: one in late spring and another in late August. Other regions have only a single nectar flow. The skill of the beekeeper lies in predicting when the nectar flow will occur in his area and in trying to ensure that his colonies achieve a maximum population of harvesters at exactly the right time.The key factor in this is the prevention or skillful management of the swarming impulse. If a colony swarms unexpectedly and the beekeeper does not manage to capture the resulting swarm, he is likely to harvest significantly less honey from that hive, since he has lost half his worker bees at a single stroke. If, however, he can use the swarming impulse to breed a new queen but keep all the bees in the colony together, he maximizes his chances of a good harvest. It takes many years of learning and experience to be able to manage all these aspects successfully, though owing to variable circumstances many beginners often achieve a good honey harvest.Formation of new colonies[edit]Colony reproduction: swarming and supersedure[edit]Main article:Swarming (honey bee)A swarm about to landAll colonies are totally dependent on their queen, who is the only egg-layer. However, even the best queens live only a few years and one or two years longevity is the norm. She can choose whether or not to fertilize an egg as she lays it; if she does so, it develops into a female worker bee; if she lays an unfertilized egg it becomes a male drone. She decides which type of egg to lay depending on the size of the open brood cell she encounters on the comb. In a small worker cell, she lays a fertilized egg; if she finds a larger drone cell, she lays an unfertilized drone egg.All the time that the queen is fertile and laying eggs she produces a variety of pheromones, which control the behavior of the bees in the hive. These are commonly calledqueen substance, but there are various pheromones with different functions. As the queen ages, she begins to run out of stored sperm, and her pheromones begin to fail. Inevitably, the queen begins to falter, and the bees decide to replace her by creating a new queen from one of her worker eggs. They may do this because she has been damaged (lost a leg or an antenna), because she has run out of sperm and cannot lay fertilized eggs (has become a \'drone laying queen\'), or because her pheromones have dwindled to where they cannot control all the bees in the hive.At this juncture, the bees produce one or more queen cells by modifying existing worker cells that contain a normal female egg. However, the bees pursue two distinct behaviors:1. Supersedure: queen replacement within one hive without swarming2. Swarm cell production: the division of the hive into two colonies by swarmingDifferent sub-species ofApis melliferaexhibit differing swarming characteristics that reflect theirevolutionin differentecotopesof the European continent. In general the more northerly black races are said to swarm less and supersede more, whereas the more southerly yellow and grey varieties are said to swarm more frequently. The truth is complicated because of the prevalence of cross-breeding and hybridization of the sub species and opinions differ.Supersedure is highly valued as a behavioral trait by beekeepers because a hive that supersedes its old queen does not swarm and so no stock is lost; it merely creates a new queen and allows the old one to fade away, or alternatively she is killed when the new queen emerges. When superseding a queen, the bees produce just one or two queen cells, characteristically in the center of the face of a broodcomb.In swarming, by contrast, a great many queen cells are created—typically a dozen or more—and these are located around the edges of a broodcomb, most often at the sides and the bottom.New wax combs between basement joistsOnce either process has begun, the old queen normally leaves the hive with the hatching of the first queen cells. She leaves accompanied by a large number of bees, predominantly young bees (wax-secretors), who form the basis of the new hive. Scouts are sent out from the swarm to find suitable hollow trees or rock crevices. As soon as one is found, the entire swarm moves in. Within a matter of hours, they build new wax brood combs, using honey stores that the young bees have filled themselves with before leaving the old hive. Only young bees can secrete wax from special abdominal segments, and this is why swarms tend to contain more young bees. Often a number of virgin queens accompany the first swarm (the \'prime swarm\'), and the old queen is replaced as soon as a daughter queen mates and begins laying. Otherwise, she is quickly superseded in the new home.Factors that trigger swarming[edit]It is generally accepted that a colony of bees does not swarm until they have completed all of their brood combs, i.e., filled all available space with eggs, larvae, and brood. This generally occurs in late spring at a time when the other areas of the hive are rapidly filling with honey stores. One key trigger of the swarming instinct is when the queen has no more room to lay eggs and the hive population is becoming very congested. Under these conditions, a prime swarm may issue with the queen, resulting in a halving of the population within the hive, leaving the old colony with a large number of hatching bees. The queen who leaves finds herself in a new hive with no eggs and no larvae but lots of energetic young bees who create a new set of brood combs from scratch in a very short time.Another important factor in swarming is the age of the queen. Those under a year in age are unlikely to swarm unless they are extremely crowded, while older queens have swarming predisposition.Beekeepers monitor their colonies carefully in spring and watch for the appearance of queen cells, which are a dramatic signal that the colony is determined to swarm.When a colony has decided to swarm, queen cells are produced in numbers varying to a dozen or more. When the first of these queen cells is sealed after eight days of larval feeding, a virgin queen pupates and is due to emerge seven days later. Before leaving, the worker bees fill their stomachs with honey in preparation for the creation of new honeycombs in a new home. This cargo of honey also makes swarming bees less inclined to sting. A newly issued swarm is noticeably gentle for up to 24 hours and is often capable of being handled by a beekeeper without gloves or veil.A swarm attached to a branchThis swarm looks for shelter. A beekeeper may capture it and introduce it into a new hive, helping meet this need. Otherwise, it returns to aferalstate, in which case it finds shelter in a hollow tree, excavation, abandoned chimney, or even behind shutters.Back at the original hive, the first virgin queen to emerge from her cell immediately seeks to kill all her rival queens still waiting to emerge. Usually, however, the bees deliberately prevent her from doing this, in which case, she too leads a second swarm from the hive. Successive swarms are called \'after-swarms\' or \'casts\' and can be very small, often with just a thousand or so bees—as opposed to a prime swarm, which may contain as many as ten to twenty-thousand bees.A small after-swarm has less chance of survival and may threaten the original hive\'s survival if the number of individuals left is unsustainable. When a hive swarms despite the beekeeper\'s preventative efforts, a good management practice is to give the reduced hive a couple frames of open brood with eggs. This helps replenish the hive more quickly and gives a second opportunity to raise a queen if there is a mating failure.Each race or sub-species of honey bee has its own swarming characteristics. Italian bees are very prolific and inclined to swarm; Northern European black bees have a strong tendency to supersede their old queen without swarming. These differences are the result of differing evolutionary pressures in the regions where each sub-species evolved.Artificial swarming[edit]When a colony accidentally loses its queen, it is said to be \"queenless\". The workers realize that the queen is absent after as little as an hour, as her pheromones fade in the hive. The colony cannot survive without a fertile queen laying eggs to renew the population, so the workers select cells containing eggs aged less than three days and enlarge these cells dramatically to form \"emergency queen cells\". These appear similar to large peanut-like structures about an inch long that hang from the center or side of the brood combs. The developing larva in a queen cell is fed differently from an ordinary worker-bee; in addition to the normal honey and pollen, she receives a great deal of royal jelly, a special food secreted by young \'nurse bees\' from the hypopharyngeal gland. This special food dramatically alters the growth and development of the larva so that, after metamorphosis and pupation, it emerges from the cell as a queen bee. The queen is the only bee in a colony which has fully developed ovaries, and she secretes a pheromone which suppresses the normal development of ovaries in all her workers.Beekeepers use the ability of the bees to produce new queens to increase their colonies in a procedure calledsplitting a colony. To do this, they remove several brood combs from a healthy hive, taking care to leave the old queen behind. These combs must contain eggs or larvae less than three days old and be covered by youngnurse bees, which care for the brood and keep it warm. These brood combs and attendant nurse bees are then placed into a small \'nucleus hive\' with other combs containing honey and pollen. As soon as the nurse bees find themselves in this new hive and realize they have no queen, they set about constructing emergency queen cells using the eggs or larvae they have in the combs with them.Diseases[edit]Main article:List of diseases of the honey beeThe common agents of disease that affect adult honey bees andpoisons. The gross symptoms displayed by affected adult bees are very similar, whatever the cause, making it difficult for the apiarist to ascertain the causes of problems without microscopic identification of microorganisms or chemical analysis of poisons.[31]Since 2006 colony losses fromColony Collapse Disorderhave been increasing across the world although the causes of thesyndromeare, as yet, unknown.[32][33]In the US, commercial beekeepers have been increasing the number of hives to deal with higher rates attrition.[34]World apiculture[edit]World honey production and consumption in 2005CountryProduction(1000 metric tons)Consumption(1000 metric tons)Numberof beekeepersNumberof bee hivesEurope and to AmericaUnited Statesof America (*2006, **2002)70.306*158.75*12,029** (210,000 bee keepers)2,400,000*Canada45 (2006); 28 (2007)[35]2913,000500,000Latin AmericaArgentina93.42 (Average Zealand9.6982602313,399AsiaChina299.33 (average 245)2387,200,000[36]Turkey82.34 (average African Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations[39]Sources:· Denmark: beekeeping.com[40](1996)· Arab countries: beekeeping.com[41](1997)· USA: University of Arkansas National Agricultural Law Center,[42]Agricultural Marketing Resource Center[43]· Serbia[44]Images of harvesting honey[edit]· A beekeeper removing frames from the hive· A frame· Smoking the hive· Using a blower to remove bees from honey super· Uncapping the cells by hand using an uncapping knife· An uncapping fork· Extracting the honey· Filtering the honey· Pouring in pots (after maturation)See also[edit]· Africanized bee· Agriculture· Beekeeping in New Zealand· Beekeeping in the United Kingdom· Beekeeping in the United States· Beekeeping in Nepal· Beekeeping in the india· Biosecurity· Westernhoney bee life cycle· Castoreum, a product used by medievalbeekeepersto increasehoneyproductionAbeehiveis an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of thesubgenusApislive and raise their young. Natural beehives are naturally occurring structures occupied by honeybee colonies, such as hollowed-out trees, whiledomesticatedhoneybees live in man-made beehives, often in anapiary. These man-made structures are typically referred to as \"beehives\". Several species ofApislive in hives, but only thewestern honey bee(Apis mellifera) and theEastern honey bee(Apis cerana) are domesticated by humans. A natural beehive is comparable to a bird\'snestbuilt with a purpose to protect the dweller.The beehive\'s internal structure is a densely packed group ofhexagonalcells made ofbeeswax, called ahoneycomb. The bees use the cells to store food (honeyandpollen) and to house the \"brood\" (eggs,larvae, andpupae).Artificial beehives serve several purposes: production of honey,pollinationof nearby crops, housing supply bees forapitherapytreatment, as safe housing for bees in an attempt to mitigate the effects ofcolony collapse disorder, and to keep bees as pets. Artificial hives are commonly transported so that bees can pollinate crops in other areas.[1]A number ofpatentshave been issued for beehive designs.Contents[hide]· 1Natural hives· 2Ancient artificial hives· 3Traditional artificial hiveso 3.1Mud and clay hiveso 3.2Skepso 3.3Bee gums· 4Modern artificial hiveso 4.1Hives optimized forApis mellifera,Apis cerana§ 4.1.1Langstroth hives§ 4.1.2Commercial hives§ 4.1.3WBC hives§ 4.1.4CDB hives§ 4.1.5Dartington Long Deep hives§ 4.1.6Beehaus§ 4.1.7Long Box Hive§ 4.1.8Top-bar hives§ 4.1.9Warré hives§ 4.1.10Perone hives§ 4.1.11Flow Hiveso 4.2Hives optimized for meliponineso 4.3Hives optimized for bumblebees· 5Symbolism· 6Relocation· 7Destructiono 7.1By other natural organismso 7.2By humanso 7.3Method of destruction· 8See also· 9References· 10External linksNatural hives[edit]Natural beehive in the hollow of a treeHoney bees use caves, rock cavities and hollow trees as natural nesting sites. Members of other subgenera have exposed aerial combs. The nest is composed of multiple honeycombs, parallel to each other, with a relatively uniformbee space. It usually has a single entrance.Western honey beesprefer nest cavities approximately 45litresin volume and avoid those smaller than 10 or larger than 100 litres.[2]Western honey bees show several nest-site preferences: the height above ground is usually between 1 metre (3.3ft) and 5 metres (16ft), entrance positions tend to face downward,Equatorial-facing entrances are favored, and nest sites over 300 metres (980ft) from the parent colony are preferred.[3]Bees usually occupy the nests for several years.The bees often smooth the bark surrounding the hive entrance, and the cavity walls are coated with a thin layer of hardened plant resin (propolis). Honeycombs are attached to the walls along the cavity tops and sides, but small passageways are left along the comb edges.[4]The basic nest architecture for all honeybees is similar: honey is stored in the upper part of the comb; beneath it are rows of pollen-storage cells, worker-brood cells, and drone-brood cells, in that order. Thepeanut-shapedqueencells are normally built at the lower edge of the comb.[2]Ancient artificial hives[edit]Bees were kept in man-made hives inEgyptin antiquity.[5]The walls of theEgyptian sun templeofNyuserre Inifrom the 5th Dynasty, dated earlier than 2422 BC, depict workers blowing smoke into hives as they removehoneycombs.[6]Inscriptions detailing the production of honey are found on the tomb ofPabasafrom the 26th Dynasty (c. 650 BC), and describe honey stored in jars, and cylindrical hives.[7]ArchaeologistAmihai Mazarof theHebrew University of Jerusalemcites 30 intact hives that were discovered in the ruins of the city ofRehov(2,000 residents in 900 BC,IsraelitesandCanaanites). This is evidence that an advancedhoneyindustry existed in Israel, approximately 3,000 years ago. The beehives, made of straw and unbaked clay, were found in orderly rows, with a total of 100 hives, many broken.Ezra Marcusfrom theUniversity of Haifasaid the discovery provided a glimpse of ancient beekeeping seen in texts and ancient art from theNear East. An altar decorated with fertility figurines was found alongside the hives and may indicate religious practices associated with beekeeping. While beekeeping predates these ruins, this is the oldest apiary yet discovered.[8]Traditional artificial hives[edit]Hives from the collection ofRadomysl Castle,[9]Ukraine, 19th centuryBeehives–watercolourpainted byStanisław MasłowskiinWola Rafałowska village,Polandin 1924,Silesian MuseuminKatowice,PolandTraditional beehives simply provided an enclosure for the bee colony. Because no internal structures were provided for the bees, the bees created their ownhoneycombwithin the hives. The comb is often cross-attached and cannot be moved without destroying it. This is sometimes called a \"fixed-frame\" hive to differentiate it from the modern \"movable-frame\" hives. Harvest generally destroyed the hives, though there were some adaptations using extra top baskets which could be removed when the bees filled them withhoney. These were gradually supplanted with box hives of varying dimensions, with or without frames, and finally replaced by newer modern equipment.Honey from traditional hives was typically extracted bypressing– crushing the wax honeycomb to squeeze out the honey. Due to this harvesting, traditional beehives typically provided morebeeswax, but far less honey, than a modern hive.There are three basic styles of traditional beehive; mud hives, clay/tile hives, skeps and bee gums.Mud and clay hives[edit]Bees in a baked clay jar in MaltaMud hives are still used inEgypt. These are long cylinders made from a mixture of unbaked mud, straw, and dung.[10]Claytiles were the customary homes of domesticated bees in the Eastern end of theMediterranean. Long cylinders of baked clay were used in ancientEgypt, theMiddle Eastand to some extent inGreece,ItalyandMalta. They sometimes were used singly, but more often stacked in rows to provide some shade, at least for those not on top. Keepers would smoke one end to drive the bees to the other end while they harvested honey.Skeps[edit]Traditional manufacture ofskepsfromstrawin EnglandA bee skep atDalgarven Mill. The base is part of an old cheese pressSkeps, which are baskets placed open-end-down, have been used for about 2000 years. Initially they were made fromwickerplastered with mud and dung but from the Middle Ages they were made of straw. In northern and westernEurope, skeps were made of coils ofgrassor straw. In its simplest form, there is a single entrance at the bottom of the skep. Again, there is no internal structure provided for the bees and the colony must produce its own honeycomb, which is attached to the inside of the skep.Skeps have two disadvantages; beekeepers cannot inspect the comb for diseases and pests, and honey removal is not easy – often resulting in the destruction of the entire colony. To get the honey beekeepers either drove the bees out of the skep or, by the use of a bottom extension called an eke or a top extension called a cap, sought to create comb with just honey in it. Quite often the bees were just killed, sometimes using lightedsulfur, to allow the honeycomb to be removed. Skeps could also be squeezed in a vise to extract the honey. As of 1998, most US states prohibited the use of skeps because they can not be inspected for disease and parasites.[11]Later skep designs included a smaller woven basket (cap) on top over a small hole in the main skep. This cap acted as a crude super, allowing the harvesting of some honey with less destruction of brood and bees. In England such an extension piece consisting of a ring of about 4 or 5 coils of straw placed below a straw beehive to give extra room for brood rearing was called an eke, imp or nadir. An eke was used to give just a bit of extra room, or to \"eke\" some more space, a nadir is a larger extension used when a full story was needed beneath.[citation needed]A person who made such woven beehives was called a \"skepper\", a surname that still exists in western countries. In England the thickness of the coil of straw was controlled using a ring of leather or piece of cows horn called a \"girth\" and the coils of straw could be sewn together using strips of briar. Likenesses of skeps can be found in paintings, carvings and old manuscripts. The skep is often used on signs as an indication of industry (\"the busy bee\").In the late 18th century, more complex skeps appeared which had wooden tops with holes in them over which glass jars were placed. The comb was built in the glass jars which made it commercially attractive.Bee gums[edit]\"Barć\" in a museum inBiałowieżaIn the Eastern United States, especially in the southeast, sections of hollow trees were used until the 20th century. These were called \"gums\" because they often were from black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) trees.[12]Sections of the hollow trees were set upright in \"bee yards\" or apiaries. Sometimes sticks or crossed sticks were placed under a board cover to give an attachment for the honeycomb. As with skeps, harvest of honey from these destroyed the colony. Often the human bee \"robber\" would kill the bees before even opening their nest. This was done by inserting a metal container of burning sulfur into the gum.Natural tree hollows and artificially hollowed tree trunks were widely used in the past by beekeepers in Central Europe. For example, in Poland such a beehive was called a \"barć\" and was protected in various ways from unfavorable weather conditions (rain, frost) and predators (woodpeckers,bears). Harvest of honey from these did not destroy the colony, as only a protective piece of wood was removed from the opening andsmokewas used to deter the bees for a short time.[citation needed]Bee gums are still used by beekeepers today, for bee species whose honey output is less than that of the more productive honeybee. Unlike most manmade beehives (which are usable only withApis melliferaandApis cerana), the bee gum allows housing of many more bee species. The bee gum allows the bees themselves to make their hive (hive structure and cells in which to store their honey and pollen).In some instances, bee gums are also still used, even with bee species that do produce large quantities of honey (i.e.Apis mellifera nigra). However, in these instances, part of the reason why bee gums are then used is that this allows the producers of the honey to distinguish themselves from other honey producers and to ask a higher price for the honey. An example where bee gums are still used is Mont-Lozère, France.[13][14][15][16]It should be noted however that the length of the bee gums used are rather on the short side; unlike regular bee gums, the bee gums are slightly modified artificially (hollowed out artificially and cut to a specific size).Modern artificial hives[edit]Frame ofhoneycombwithhoneyin the upper left andpollenin most of the rest of the cellsThe earliest recognisably modern designs of beehives arose in the 19th century, though they were perfected from intermediate stages of progress made in the 18th century.Thus, intermediate stages in hive design were recorded for example by Thomas Wildman in 1768/1770, who described advances over the destructive old skep-based beekeeping so that the bees no longer had to be killed to harvest the honey.[17]Wildman, for example, fixed a parallel array of wooden bars across the top of a straw hive or skep (with a separate straw top to be fixed on later) \"so that there are in all seven bars of deal\" [in a 10-inch-diameter (250mm) hive] \"to which the bees fix their combs\".[18]He also described using such hives in a multi-story configuration, foreshadowing the modern use of supers: he described adding (at the proper time) successive straw hives below, and eventually removing the ones above when free of brood and filled with honey, so that the bees could be separately preserved at the harvest for a following season. Wildman also described[19]a further development, using hives with \"sliding frames\" for the bees to build their comb, foreshadowing more modern uses of movable-comb hives. Wildman acknowledged the advances in knowledge of bees previously made bySwammerdam, Maraldi, andde Reaumur– he included a lengthy translation of Reaumur\'s account of the natural history of bees – and he also described the initiatives of others in designing hives for the preservation of bee-life when taking the harvest, citing in particular reports from Brittany dating from the 1750s, due to Comte de la Bourdonnaye.In 1814,Petro Prokopovych, the founder of commercial beekeeping in Ukraine, invented one of the very firstbeehive frames. However, for easy operations in beehives the spaces between elements need to be correct. The correct distance between combs was described in 1845 byJan Dzierżonas 1½ inches from the center of one top bar to the center of the next one. In 1848 Dzierzon introduced grooves into the hive\'s side walls replacing the strips of wood for moving top bars. The grooves were 8mm ×8mm (0.31in ×0.31in), the spacing later termedbee space. TheLangstroth hivewas the first successful top-opened hive with movable frames. Langstroth hive was however a direct descendant ofDzierzon\'shive designs.There are two basic types of modern hive in common use, the movable-frame \"Langstroth hive\" (including all the size variants) which has enclosedframesto hold the comb and the movable-comb \"top-bar hive\", which - as the name implies, has only a top-bar to support the comb. Movable frames and movable combs - as opposed to fixed combs - both allow the apiarist to inspect for diseases and parasites and also allow a beekeeper more easily to split the hive to make new colonies.Bees occupy the new hive \"correctly\" only if it already contains frames with some honeycomb or wax plates. If only empty frames are present, bees often build honeycomb that does not follow them and cannot be later removed with the frame.Hives optimized forApis mellifera,Apis cerana[edit]Langstroth hives[edit]Dadant-Blattbeehive, a hive in the Langstroth-hive classMain article:Langstroth hiveNamed for their inventor, Rev.Lorenzo Langstroth, Langstroth hives are not the only hives of this style, but the most common in North America. Langstroth patented his design in 1852[20][21]originally for comb honey production; it has become the standard style hive for many of the world\'s beekeepers. This class of hives includes other styles, which differ mainly in the size and number of frames used. These includeSmith,Segeberger Beute(German), D.E. hive, Modified Commercial, and Modified Dadant (developed in USA in 1920 from the Dadant-Blatthive, a variant of theDadanthive), plus regional variations such as the British Standard National Hive.Langstroth hives make use ofbee spaceso that frames are neither glued together nor filled withburr comb–comb joining adjacent frames.Langstroth hives use standardized sizes of hive bodies (rectangular boxes without tops or bottoms placed one on top of another) and internal frames to ensure that parts are interchangeable and that the frames will remain relatively easy to remove, inspect, and replace without killing the bees. Langstroth hive bodies are rectangular in shape and can be made from a variety of materials that can be stacked to expand the usable space for the bees. Inside the boxes, frames are hung parallel to each other. The minimum size of the hive is dependent on outside air temperature and potential food sources in the winter months. The colder the winter, the larger the hive and food stores need to be. In regions with severe winter weather, a basketball-shaped cluster of bees typically survives in a \"double-deep\" box. In temperate and equatorial regions, a winter cluster will survive in a single box or in a \"nuc\" (short for nucleus colony).Langstroth frames are thin rectangular structures made of wood or plastic and have a wax or plastic foundation on which the bees draw out the comb. The frames hold thebeeswaxhoneycombformed by the bees. Ten frames side by side will fill the hive body and leave the right amount of bee space between each frame and between the end frames and the hive body.Langstroth frames are often reinforced with wire, making it possible to spin the honey out of the comb in a centrifuge. As a result, the empty frames and comb can be returned to the beehive for re-filling by the bees. Creating honeycomb involves a significant energy investment, conservatively estimated at 6.25kilogramsof honey needed to create 1 kilogram of comb in temperate climates.[22]Reusing comb can thus increase the productivity of a beekeeping enterprise.[23]The modern Langstroth hive consists of the following parts:· Hive stand: the upper hive components rest on this, providing a landing board for the bees and helping to protect the bottom board from rot and cold transfer.· Bottom board: this has an entrance for the bees to get into the hive.· Brood box: the lowest box of the hive and where the queen bee lays her eggs.· Honey super: usually shorter than the brood box, but is the uppermost box(s), where honey is stored.· Frames and foundation: wooden or plastic frames with wax or plastic sheets with honeycomb impression where bees build wax honey combs.· Inner cover: provides separation from an overly hot or cold outer cover and can be used as a shelf for feeding or other purposes.· Outer cover: provides weather protection for the hive.Commercial hives[edit]Commercial hives have the same cross-sectional dimensions as a National hive (460mm x 460mm), but deeper brood box (267mm/10.5\") and supers. The internal structure of the boxes is also simpler, resulting in wider frames (406mm/16\") with shorter handles or lugs. The brood box is picked up using small hand holds cut into the external wall of the hive. Supers have this same feature, which some find difficult to use when the super is full of honey. Some beekeepers therefore use National supers on top of a Commercial brood box.WBC hives[edit]WBC hiveThe WBC, invented by and named afterWilliam Broughton Carrin 1890, is a double-walled hive with an external housing that splays out towards the bottom of each frame covering a standard box shape hive inside. The WBC is in many respects the \'classic\' hive as represented in pictures and paintings, but despite the extra level of insulation for the bees offered by its double-walled design, many beekeepers avoid it, owing to the inconvenience of having to remove the external layer before the hive can be examined.CDB hives[edit]CDB hiveAn Irish hive. In 1894, the British Charles Nash Abbott (1830–1894), advisor to Ireland’s Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, oversaw the design of a new Congested Districts Board (CDB) hive, in Dublin.Dartington Long Deep hives[edit]The Dartington Long Deep (DLD) hive takes 14 x 12inch and can take up to 24 frames. It is possible to have two colonies in the brood box as there is an entrance at either end. It has half-size honey supers, which take 6 frames that are lighter than full supers and are correspondingly easier to lift.[24]The Dartington was originally developed by Robin Dartington so that he could keep bees on his London rooftop.Beehaus[edit]The Beehaus is a proprietary design for a beehive launched in 2009. It is based on similar principles to a Dartington. Kobe T Monzon was the first to consider this in the lower 48 states.Long Box Hive[edit]The Long Box Hive is a single story hive utilizing fully enclosed frames (per the dimensions of Langstroth hives or deeper by variation,) but is worked horizontally in the manner of Kenya/Tanzanian Top-bar hives. This non-stacked style had higher popularity a century ago in the Southeast United States, but faded from use due to lack of portability. With the recent popularity of horizontal Top-bar hives, the Long Box Hive is gaining renewed but limited utilization. Alternative names \"New Idea Hive\", \"Single Story Hive\", \"Poppleton Hive\", or simply \"Long Hive\".[25]Top-bar hives[edit]Main article:Top-bar hiveThe top-bar or Kenya-hives were developed as a lower-cost alternative to the standard Langstroth hives and equipment. They are becoming very popular in the US due to their alignment with the organic, treatment-free philosophies of many new beekeeping devotees in the United States. They are also popular, owing to their simplicity and low cost, in developing countries. Top-bar hives have movable comb and make use of the concept of bee space.The top-bar hive is so named because the bees draw their comb from a top bar, suspended across the top of a cavity, and not inside a full rectangular frame with sides and a bottom bar. The beekeeper does not provide foundation wax (or provides only a small starter piece of foundation) for the bees to build from. The bees build the comb so it hangs down from the top bar. This is in keeping with the way bees build wax in a natural cavity. There is some belief that the use of natural wax in a top-bar hive supports the bees\' natural systems in ways that improve their health.The hive body of a common style of top-bar hive is often shaped as an inverted trapezoid* in order to reduce the tendency of bees to attach the comb to the hive-body walls, though this reasoning has become less popular recently. It may be more likely that the trapezoid shape helps to improve the ratio of the weight of the comb to the amount of attachment at the bar and helps to lessen the likelihood of heavy combs detaching from the top bar when being handled or harvested. Unlike the Langstroth design, *this style of top-bar hive is expanded horizontally, not vertically. The top-bar design is a single, much longer box, with the bars hanging in parallel. This common style is sometimes referred to as a horizontal Top Bar hive, or hTBH. Most horizontal top bar hives in the UK are based on the tandem-follower system designed by Phil Chandler, and free plans are available at Some top bar hives do stack vertically, much like the Langstroth, National, or other frame hives, although vertical designs use bars with gaps between them, unlike the adjacent bars of the horizontal design. Vertical top bar hives have been largely unknown in the United States until about 2010. This is largely due to the work by Dr David Heaf, who, along with wife Patricia, translated a book by Abbé Emile Warré (~1852) from French and implemented some hives in 2007. These are commonly referred to as Warré Hives, but the abbé named them, \"The People\'s Hive,\" for their intended economy and simplicity of construction. Since then, the book has been translated into about 6 other languages as of 2014, and is a free ebook download on some sites.Unlike the Langstroth hive, the honey is usually extracted by crushing and straining rather than centrifuging because a top bar does not have wire reinforcement. There is a laterally oriented extractor available, made by Swienty, but these are not overly popular in the US. Because the bees have to rebuild their comb after honey is harvested, a top-bar hive yields a beeswax harvest in addition to honey.However, like the Langstroth hive, the bees will store most of their honey separately from the areas where they are raising the brood. For this reason, bees are not killed when harvesting from a top-bar hive, unlike the old practice of harvesting from a skep by driving bees out or killing them over a sulphur pit.Warré hives[edit]Inspecting brood comb from a Warré hiveThe Warré hive was invented by the abbotÉmile Warré, and is also called \"ruche populaire\" (fr) or \"The People\'s Hive\" (en), the Warré hive is a modular and storied design similar to a Langstroth hive. The hive body is made of boxes stacked vertically; however, it uses Top Bars for comb support instead of full frames, as a general rule. The popularity of this hive is growing among \'sustainable-practice\' beekeepers.The Warre hive differs from other stacked hive systems in one fundamental aspect: when the bees need more space as the colony expands, the new box is \"nadired\". i.e. positioned underneath the existing box(es). This serves the purpose of warmth retention within the brood nest of the hive, considered vital to colony health. The 1948 book \"Beekeeping for All\" by Abbé Warré has been translated from French in 2010 by Dr. David and Patricia Heaf and is available as a free download at;/~heaf/beekeeping_for_all.pdfMore information on the Abbé and the hive is available at/bfa.htmPerone hives[edit]The Perone or Automatic Hive was designed by Oscar Perone, and aims at managing bees in a way more closely analogous to their natural behavior. It is favoured by proponents of \'Natural Beekeeping\', who seek to allow more natural bee behaviour and minimise intervention into the hive.Perone Hives are very large 2m-high vertical top bar hives that remain the same size all year, split into a bee area underneath, and a bee keepers area above (Mark 1) or side by side (Mark 2). The total hive volume is large, around 280 litres, which it is proposed allows the bees to develop into a \'super-colony\' differing in behaviour to colonies in smaller hives. They are managed so that under normal circumstances the bee area is never opened, and the bee keepers area is opened only once per year when any honey is harvested. These hives are managed around bees using their own honey supplies in winter, not replacing these with sugar syrup.The limitations for direct inspection of this type of hive and its management raise issues around disease monitoring, and they are criticised as sources of varroa for other nearby hives, as the large colony will have many foragers and many standard techniques for managing varroa populations cannot be practiced. However the hive will also have more bees available for defence, and many standard treatments for varroa also cause damage to the bees.Flow Hives[edit]The Flow Hive[26]is a prototype easy-harvest hive describing a design for supers filled with a split plastic deep comb. The Flow Hive became the subject of a crowdfunding campaign, collecting just over US $12 million as of 2015 Apr 20.[27]A patent was applied for in 2011.[28]The bees use their wax to seal the splits, build out the comb and fill the cells with honey. According to the 2011 patent, once the comb is filled with honey and capped, turning a crank splits the hexagonal cells in the artificial comb vertically, allowing the honey to flow down the resulting zig-zag channels into a sealed trough and out of the hive. According to the inventors, this allows harvesting the honey with minimal disruption to the bees who are standing on the still capped comb. When drained, the crank is used to reset the comb. The bees then chew open the capping, reseal the splits and refill the cells.Hives optimized for meliponines[edit]Hives have been designed for some meliponines such asMelipona beecheii. Examples of such hives are theNogueira-Neto hiveand theUTOB hive.[29]Hives optimized for bumblebees[edit]Some designs have been optimized for housing bumblebees. Seehere.Symbolism[edit]A doorknob of theSalt Lake TempleofThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsbearing an image of a skep beehiveA straw skep engraved on a gravestoneThe beehive is a commonly used symbol dating at least to Roman times. In medievalheraldryit was considered a symbol of industry.In modern times, it is used inFreemasonry. In masonic lectures it is explained as a symbol of industry and co-operation,[30]and as cautioning against intellectual laziness, warning that \"he that will so demean himself as not to be endeavoring to add to the common stock of knowledge and understanding, may be deemed a drone in the hive of nature, a useless member of society, and unworthy of our protection as Masons.\"[31]The beehive is also used with similar meaning byThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, orMormons. From Mormon usage it has become one of theState symbols of Utah. (Seedeseret.)InWellington,New Zealand, the round building used for Parliamentary offices is known as the \"Beehive\". The official website of the New Zealand Government is Beehive Brand matches made byBryant and Maypopular in New Zealand have a logo based on the traditional skep beehive design.Relocation[edit]A common misconception of non-beekeepers is that smoke will cause bees to move their hive. Smoke is used by beekeepers to hide the alarmpheromoneemitted by bees during inspections or harvest. One-way traps can be used to reduce the size of a colony, but is a limited and time-consuming solution. Beekeepers and companies can be hired to do \"cut-outs\" (remove bees from a home). Once honey, pollen, and wax are built up in a hive, only physical removal is an option. Some homeowners resort to using spray-foam, but the bees will wait and live off reserves until the foam is weakened, then will burrow through it. An important fact in understanding a hive is that fewer than 10% of the bees will ever leave at once, other than when swarming. A fertilized queen will lay up to 2000 eggs a day. If bees are killed and the hive products are left, heat and time will loosen the wax and honey causing further problems in the future.Destruction[edit]By other natural organisms[edit]Black bearsdestroy hives in their quest for honey.[32]Elephants sometimes also destroy hives erected by humans as a defense for their crops against elephants. These hives are hung on a single metal wire that encircles the crop field of some farms in elephant territory, in Africa. The installation is called a BeeHive Fence and was conceived by Lucy King.[33][34]By humans[edit]Humans often destroy hives of honey-producing bee species in the interest of obtaining honey and other bee products.Humans may at times also determine that a beehive must be destroyed in the interest of public safety or in the interest of preventing the spread of bee diseases. The U.S. state ofFloridadestroyed the hives ofAfricanized honey beesin 1999.[35]The state ofAlaskahas issued regulations governing the treatment of diseased beehives via burning followed by burial,fumigationusingethylene oxideor other approved gases,sterilizationby treatment withlye, or by scorching.[36]In New Zealand, the treatment of hives infected with the diseaseAmerican foulbroodwith antibiotics is prohibited, and beekeepers are required by law to destroy such colonies and hives with fire.Method of destruction[edit]Spraying the hive with a solution ofsoapand water may be effective, since soap dissolves the bees\'waxyexterior that protects them from drowning. However, the procedure should be undertaken with caution, as it angers the bees.[37]See also[edit]· Apidictor· HoneycombAhoneycombis a mass ofhexagonalwaxcells built byhoney beesin theirneststo contain theirlarvaeand stores ofhoneyandpollen.Beekeepersmay remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey. Honey bees consume about 8.4lb (4kg) of honey to secrete 1lb (500 g) of wax,[1]so it makes economic sense to return the wax to the hive after harvesting the honey, commonly called \"pulling honey\" or \"robbing the bees\" by beekeepers.[citation needed]The structure of the comb may be left basically intact when honey is extracted from it by uncapping and spinning in a centrifugal machine—thehoney extractor. If the honeycomb is too worn out, the wax can be reused in a number of ways, including making sheets of combfoundationwith hexagonal pattern. Such foundation sheets allow the bees to build the comb with less effort, and the hexagonal pattern of worker-sized cell bases discourages the bees from building the larger drone cells.\"Artificial honeycomb\" plate where bees have already completed some cellsFresh, new comb is sometimes sold and used intact ascomb honey, especially if the honey is being spread on bread rather than used in cooking or as a sweetener.Broodcombbecomes dark over time, because of the cocoons embedded in the cells and the tracking of many feet, called travel stain[citation needed]by beekeepers when seen on frames of comb honey. Honeycomb in the \"supers\" that are not allowed to be used for brood (e.g. by the placement of aqueen excluder) stays light-coloured.Numerouswasps, especiallyPolistinaeandVespinae, construct hexagonal prism-packed combs made of paper instead of wax; in some species (such asBrachygastra mellifica), honey is stored in the nest, thus technically forming a paper honeycomb. However, the term \"honeycomb\" is not often used for such structures.Honeycomb geometry[edit]Natural honeycombs on a buildingHoneycomb with eggs andlarvaeThe bees begin to build the comb from the top of each section. When a cell is filled with honey, the bees seal it with wax.Closeup of an abandonedApis floreanest,Thailand– the hexagonal grid of wax cells on either side of the nest are slightly offset from each other. This increases the strength of the comb and reduces the amount of wax required to produce a robust structure.The axes of honeycomb cells are always quasihorizontal, and the nonangled rows of honeycomb cells are always horizontally (not vertically) aligned. Thus, each cell has two vertical walls, with \"floors\" and \"ceilings\" composed of two angled walls(disparity with image \"Honeycomb-Process\"). The cellsslopeslightly upwards, between 9 and 14°, towards the open ends.Two possible explanations exist as to why honeycomb is composed of hexagons, rather than any other shape. First, the hexagonaltilingcreates a partition with equal-sized cells, while minimizing the totalperimeterof the cells. Known ingeometryas thehoneycomb conjecture, this was given byJan Brożekand proved much later byThomas Hales. Thus, a hexagonal structure uses the least material to create a lattice of cells within a givenvolume. A second reason, given byD\'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, is that the shape simply results from the process of individual bees putting cells together: somewhat analogous to the boundary shapes created in a field ofsoap bubbles. In support of this, he notes that queen cells, which are constructed singly, are irregular and lumpy with no apparent attempt at efficiency.[2]The closed ends of the honeycomb cells are also an example of geometric efficiency, albeit three-dimensionaland little-noticed. The ends are trihedral (i.e., composed of three planes) sections ofrhombic dodecahedra, with thedihedral anglesof all adjacent surfaces measuring 120°, the angle that minimizessurface areafor a given volume. (The angle formed by the edges at the pyramidal apex, known as thetetrahedral angle, is approximately 109° 28\' 16\" (= arccos(−1/3)).)The three-dimensional geometry of a honeycomb cellThe shape of the cells is such that two opposing honeycomb layers nest into each other, with each facet of the closed ends being shared by opposing cells.Opposing layers of honeycomb cells fit togetherIndividual cells do not show this geometric perfection: in a regular comb, deviations of a fewpercentfrom the \"perfect\" hexagonal shape occur. In transition zones between the larger cells of drone comb and the smaller cells of worker comb, or when the bees encounter obstacles, the shapes are often distorted. Cells are also angled up about 13° from horizontal to prevent honey from dripping out.[3]Honeycomb section containing transition from worker to drone (larger) cells – here bees make irregular and five-cornered cells (marked with red dots).Western honeybees and honeycombIn 1965,László Fejes Tóthdiscovered the trihedral pyramidal shape (which is composed of threerhombi) used by the honeybee is not the theoretically optimal three-dimensional geometry. A cell end composed of two hexagons and two smaller rhombuses would actually be .035% (or about one part per 2850) more efficient. This difference is too minute to measure on an actual honeycomb, and irrelevant to the hive economy in terms of efficient use of wax, considering wild comb varies considerably from any mathematical notion of \"ideal\" geometry.[4][5]See also[edit]· Honeycomb structureEssay on ApiculturebyDK SinhaEssayAdvertisements:Apiculture or beekeeping is the practice of maintaining honeybee colonies, usually in hives.This could be for collecting honey and beeswax, or for pollinating crops, or for the purpose of selling bees to other beekeepers. About 85 per cent crops plants are cross-pollinated, and colonies of honeybees, placed in the field when the crop is in flowering stage, can set about the needed pollination; abundance of pollinators helps in early setting of seeds, resulting in early and a more uniform crop yield.Diversity:In India, due to the diversity in flora, topography and activities of people, beekeeping and management is diverse. Here, beekeeping has been adapted to various ecosystems, socioeconomic profiles and habitat preferences.From commercial beekeepers in Himachal Pradesh to local honey collectors in the hills and forests of Tamil Nadu to migratory beekeepers of Kanyakumari—they all practise some form of beekeeping.Rural beekeeping has a role to play as not all can become commercial beekeepers. This rural sector needs to be enhanced by appropriate tools, support systems and bring them to the forefront. It is this informal sector which is providing up to 70 per cent of the honey and beeswax market in India.The recent past has witnessed a revival of the industry in the rich forest regions along the sub- Himalayan mountain ranges and the Western Ghats, where it has been practised in its simplest form.Bee Species:There are many species of honey bees to be found across the Indian subcontinent.Apis cerana are found across the breadth and range of the country. There are rural beekeepers in the high mountains of the Himalayas who keep log hives in house walls and revetments.Beekeeping with Apis cerana has been a growing industry in the central parts of the country under the supervision of the Bee Research and Training Institute and the Khadi and Village Industries Commission, located at Pune and Mumbai, respectively. The hills of Mahabaleshwar located in Maharashtra were the pioneering areas for beekeeping training and experiments.Beekeeping with this species is a traditional industry in West Bengal and some North-Eastern states like Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. In Karnataka and Tamil Nadu there is a strong tradition of beekeeping with Apis cerana. Areas such as Coorg in Karnataka and Marthandam in Tamil Nadu are famous for their beekeeping culture. In Kerala, especially in the rubber growing afeas, beekeeping is a regular activity and large quantity of honey (from extra floral nectar) is being produced.Apis dorsata are the giant rock bees found in large numbers in the Himalayas. Apis laboriosa is found in higher reaches while Apis dorsata is commonly found in the lower areas of the Terai (foothills).In the central parts of the country honey yields are substantial from Apis dorsata, primarily due to good forest patches in and around sanctuaries and protected areas. Mainly tribals collect Apis dorsata. Honey for health and Ayurvedic niedicines has been a traditional industry in this region.The mangrove forests of the Sunderbans are an excellent habitat for Apis dorsata. The entire southern region is rich in Apis dorsata populations—contributing to a large share of the total Indian honey market. In Andhra Pradesh, farmers and honey hunters in the hills of the Eastern Ghats collect honey. Intricate technologies and practices have been going on for a long time. Honey hunting is done on rocks and trees.Commercial migratory beekeepers with Apis mellifera are steadily increasing in the northern hill state of Himachal, the plains of Punjab, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Rich bee farmers come in trucks bringing hundreds of colonies of Apis mellifera to apple orchards for pollination business in Himachal Pradesh.They move up the mountains during summer and come down to plains for placing the bee hives amongst eucalyptus and sun flower during winter. The introduction of Apis mellifera is developing in West Bengal.Advantages of Beekeeping:1. Beekeeping requires less time, money and infrastructure investments.2. Honey and beeswax can be produced from an area of little agricultural value.3. The honey bee does not compete for resources with any other agricultural enterprise.4. Beekeeping has positive ecological consequences. Bees play an important role in the pollination of many flowering plants, thus increasing’ the yield of certain crops such as sunflower and various fruits.5. Honey is a delicious and highly nutritious food. By the traditional method of honey hunting many wild colonies of bees are destroyed. This can be prevented by raising bees in boxes and producing honey at home.6. Beekeeping can be initiated by individuals or groups.7. The market potential for honey and wax is high.The National Bee Board oversees the development activities of beekeeping.