Passion for learning about honey bees

Bee hive spotted

One morning while watering the garden I noticed a beehive that was built by a colony of small varieties of honey bees which was on a branch of the jasmine creeper growing in my garden.
                                 

Trip to Madikeri

I came across a Kannada article about bee keeping where it said that a person named Thimmaiah is a professional bee keeper and is successfully keeping bees on his farm in Madikeri. So I decided to leave the next day itself to Madikeri to know more about honey bees .. I took a KSRTC bus to Mysore and from Mysore I found a bus that was going to Madikeri. As I was travelling in the bus I had no idea that it would take nearly half of my day to travel all the way to Madikeri. It started raining heavily when I reached around Kushalnagar.Felt like I am  somewhere far away from Bangalore. By the time I reached Madikeri it was already 6- 6:30 in the evening and I still had some 30 kilometers of travelling to  to reach Chettimani a small village very close to Bhagamandala. From Madikeri I had to take a small minibus that would go through the Ghats and it was a slow journey as it involved climbing up and down through the Ghats so by the time I reached Chettimani it was around 7:30 and was dark.Conductor said he knows Thimmaiahand he will drop me at the right palace .The bus conductor dropped me at the wrong Thimmaiah masters house as his name was also Thimmaiah and he also lived in Chettimani. But thankfully this Thimmaiah and his son were kind enough to show me the way to the other Thimmaiah master who I was looking for.They called for a minivan that took me to my destination. When I reached the farm Thimmaiah master was actually surprised to see me. Thimmaiah lives with his wife and has a cofee plantation and paddy field  .He told me he wasn’t expecting me at this point of time and he had assumed that I had stayed in my cousin’s house which is in Madikeri. Night was so peaceful I spent the night at his place had dinner and went to sleep. I got up early at 6 in the morning and I started my classes with him. These were some of the facts and knowledge that I got from him about honey bees, the facts given here are his own practical experience with bees and does not include scientific knowledge as such.

Thimmaiah master lesson -1

Enemies of the bees :vairiee (as he calls them):

·         Wasps (kaNaja, kadandu) àThese wasps come to hijack the colony and invade the hive, they kill the bees for their food and take them to their nests, they even take the eggs, larvae and the honey for their nest. The bees do fight off these wasps if the number of wasps are less by forming a clump/surrounding the wasp and kill it.

·         Ants (kenjiragu, chavali)à Most of the ants come in large numbers and can easily destroy a hive.

·         Mammals (Maranaayi)àThis mammal looks like a small bear that can climb trees and it destroys hives for getting honey.

·         Snail/slug (basavanahula) àThese are sticky and slimy, so the bees cannot really attack them and kill them, the snails come to feed on the waxy nest that is made by the bees.

·         Wax beetle (Maenachetty)àIts larvae feeds on the bees wax of the hive and builds a cottony cocoon across the whole of the hive thereby preventing the bees from doing their work and this makes the bees to leave their nest.

·         Spiders(Jedra hula)à Builds web and traps bees, also some spiders capture the bees waiting near the hive.

Thimmaiah master lesson -2

The Colony/The office (he says)

·         The bee hive colony works like an office/department. They have surveyers, army, doctors, forest revenue and collectors. Army mostly consists of very old bees and they just guard the hive/attack and do not go to collect nectar/pollen.

·         The average lifespan of a bee can be upto 2-6 months whereas the queen bee can live upto 1-3 years. The hive usually consists of two sections the top part of the hive stores/contains jenu/honey and the bottom portion has the larvae chambers known as yeri/combs which contains honey for the growing larvae.

·         The queen bee can produce male drones as well as female worker bees at random whenever it is required, the queen bee also lays eggs that can develop into new queens to start a new colony.

Thimmaiah master lesson -3

Attack..!! Attack..!

When food does get scarce one colony of bees can invade another colony for getting nectar and other resources for food. The major varieties of bees that can attack other bee colonies are Hejjenu(large forest varieties/wild bees) and Koljenu(smaller shrub dwelling varieties)

There is one more variety of honey bees known as Umanijenu/Nusijenu/black honey bees that produce sticky hives and the honey they produce is said to be the highest/good quality of honey.

Emergency….!!.emergency..!!

 If due to any circumstances the queen bee dies there arise many changes in the hive. The female worker bees develop an egg laying structure called the ‘Mendiblor’ because the scent/pheromone of the queen bee will be missing from the hive. The female workers during this period do not go to collect nectar or do any work. They become idle and start to lay eggs. These eggs when they hatch can only develop into male drones. and the hive results in forming many male drones .The hive gets destroyed due to starvation as there are no more female workers or queen bee.

Emerging Queen..!!

In other circumstances if by chance after the death of the queen bee the other baby princes will hatch from the cells, and they fight against each other  to become a next queen .The princes that is strongest becomes the new queen of the hive. The new queen bee successfully cross/mate with other male drones within 3-8 days or else if no crossing has occurred the new queen may become infertile and can only lay eggs that result in forming male drones.

 Many male drones try to mate/cross with the queen by following her pheromones but only one is successful. The male drone that the female has crossed with dies because its internal organs get torn/are expelled after crossing. The new queen then returns to its hive and within a period of 10 days starts laying eggs male/female.

Queen from outside:

In some cases a stranger queen enters a hive that has no queen and the hive members are not its own, the workers may except her  as a new queen considering  its scent/pheromone  or they kill her

Old v/s new

The older queen has to leave her colony if her daughter (new queen) is ready to become a queen.

The old, mother queen immediately leaves the hive to make a new colony by gathering some members/workers of that colony.The workers of the colony that decide to form a new colony along with their queen and leave the hive with her.

In a nutshell mother queen bee has to leave the nest when new queen emerge out of the combs.

The male drones

The male drones are black in color and are slightly dwarf, they do not work and do not possess the sting. When male bees are seen in a hive it is a sign that the hive is ready for swarming or there is death of a queen and the hive could be destroyed. Sometimes when more food is present the faster the hive will have male bees and it will be ready for swarming.

Thimmaiah master lesson -4

The major trees of the Western Ghats and flowering plants that is suitable for good quality honey:

Bethumara(5 varieties), Kari mara, Valeymara(Philiagenyphillonigay), Barkattey, Coffee flower, Yelaki flower,(Cardamom )Shikakai flower,(soap nut)Nerleyhannu(Jamun).

Thimmaiah master lesson -5

The basic methods to produce a new queen for starting a new colony (artificially): not perfect info

Take an empty box for the hive, and in that put 4 frames that have empty combs to one side. Put one frame that has queen’s eggs and introduce female workers and male drones, it should be 1 furlong distance away from the four frames and should be put at night. No gate is needed for this process.

The empty box should have yeri/combs; have male drones, workers and queen. The empty box can also be cultivated to form a new colony by pasting the bees wax onto the frames in the empty box and hope a new colony comes inside the box.

There are 2 major varieties of bees that are used in apiculture:

Apisindica-very small in numbers, but are very quick in producing honey, small in size, do not require much of food,much preferred by apiculturists.

Apismallipura-large in numbers, much bigger, very slow in producing honey, produce large quantities,need a large number of food.

Few points about honeyàbees wax/honey used for improving lustre of skin, hair, lovely physique is developed, should be taken in small amounts like medicine.

The lessons over .Timmayya master was a good teacher. He wanted me to learn 100 percent. As he spoke Coorg kannada which i dint understand properly .Whenever I said I din’t get it…he was surprised  after completing B.Sc also i cant understand what he says ...He gave me  a award of "pedda" which means dumb in Kannada.