Expert Advisory Details

Experts' suggestion for beekeeping

The weather generally starts warming in February. During this month, abundant pollen and nectar rewarding important bee flora such as Brassica (sarson/raya/gobhi sarson) and Eucalyptus are on bloom. Peach and pear are also on bloom. This is thus a favourable period for colony growth and thus ideal for starting beekeeping. With the onset of spring, remove the winter packing and clean the bottom board. Thoroughly examine the colonies at noon time on some calm and sunny day for availability of food stores, bee strength, brood rearing and performance of the queen bee. Unite the weak colonies, and queenless colonies with queenright ones. Provide stimulative sugar syrup (sugar: water = 1:2) feeding if needed. Prefer to provide this feed in empty drawn combs. Else, provide it in division-board feeders. Depending upon the strength of the colonies, provide already raised worker brood combs/frames with comb foundations. Depending upon the need, super chambers can be added wherein, to enhance bees’ activity on new frames with comb foundations, raised combs with honey should be provided as bait. Equalize the colonies the maximum possible for food reserves, brood and bee strength following standard techniques. Infestation of ectoparasitic mites (Tropilaelaps clareae & Varroa destructor) and brood diseases may be noticed in the honey bee colonies. Dust sulphur powder on the top bars of bee combs @ 1.0 g per comb against the Tropilaelaps mite. Alternatively, fumigation with formic acid (85%) @ 5 ml daily for two weeks may be applied which, however, should be avoided during nectar flow. The latter treatment will also take care of Varroa mite. In the case of infestation by Varroa, destruction of sealed drone brood comb part, Varroa trapping on drone brood and then its destruction, dusting of icing sugar powder on bees and use of sticky papers with Varroa bottom board should be followed. Oxalic acid (4.2 % in 60 % sugar solution) spray @ 5 ml per comb or trickling in between every two combs late in the evening once every week for three weeks can also be used. Keep vigil on the brood diseases and on suspicion, immediately consult experts and appropriate/advised control measures should be undertaken; non-chemical methods should be preferred. Use of antibiotics should be avoided. Colonies may also be prepared towards end February for mass queen bee rearing for requeening or for stock multiplication or for selling the bee colonies. For queens production, follow modified Doolittle Mass Queen Bee Rearing Technique using larvae for grafting from the best performing selected 'breeder' colonies. The beekeepers, who have already migrated their apiaries to sarson/raya belts, can extract ripe (sealed) Brassica honey. Follow recommended measures to prevent swarming of the colonies. During the second fortnight of the month, the colonies may be prepared for migration to Eucalyptus plantation.