Migratory Beekeeping

 

Introduction

In general, no one area will contain flowering plants all year round. However, honeybees need to collect nectar and pollen to meet their daily needs and to produce honey, and need supplementary feeding if no pollen and nectar are available. Thus it is useful to move colonies to different areas according to the flowering calendar. This is called migration, and when practised on a large scale is called migratory beekeeping. Migration can also be carried out primarily for pollination of fruit trees or other agricultural crops withhoney production a secondary consideration.

Colony migration is usually an essential part of commercial beekeeping. The main objectives are to

• Increase honey production,
• Strengthen and divide colonies,
• Reduce the cost of supplementary feeding.
• Increase crop productivity through bee pollination, and
• Increasing honey production: Two or more colonies can be united at the onset of the honey flow season to increase colony strength and maximize honey production.
• Help conserve biodiversity (agricultural and wild plants) through pollination.

 

Points to Consider

The main objective of beekeeping is to maximize honey production and minimize production costs. Thus beekeepers should first identify suitable bee pasture, know the costs of migrating, and migrate colonies with the proper technical knowledge and skills. The following points should be considered when planning migration.

 

Migration site selection

• Identify the type of floral sources, season and duration of blooming, and area of pasture and carrying capacity at the home site and possible migration sites.
• Collect information about the local environment and possible use of pesticides for crop protection in the bee pasture area.
• Investigate the likelihood of attack by natural enemies; only migrate colonies to places where the chance of attack is low.
• Estimate the distance of bee pasture from the apiary where the colonies will be located. Find out about the availability of transport to the possible sites for the apiary.
• Analyse the total costs and benefits of migration.

 

Selection and preparation of colonies

• Select only strong, healthy, and productive colonies for migration.
• Strengthen the bee colonies for at least two months before migration.
• Collect together all necessary materials, for example supers, frames, comb foundation, honey extractor, and vessels for collecting honey.

 

Timing of Migration

• Migrate the colonies when flowering of major bee plants has started and at least 5% are in bloom.

 

Migrating an Apiary

 

Preparation

Honeybee colonies should be prepared carefully for migration. If the preparation is not done properly, some bees may be left behind or may die during migration. Preparation includes the following:

• Clean the hives.
• Harvest excess honey and remove the super. Bees can die if migrated with honey stored in the hive. Fix frames tightly in the hive.
• Arrange supplementary feeding if migration is over a long distance.
• Seal all cracks and crevices to prevent the bees escaping.
• Fix the bottom board to the brood chamber, and the brood chamber to the super by nailing strips of wood from top to bottom. Use a wire netting inner cover nailed to the brood chamber to give more air if there is
• danger of overheating, especially during summer; remove the outer cover for long distance migration in the hot season.
• Hives can be tied with a hive belt, wire, or rope without removing the outer cover for short distance migration of a few colonies.
• Narrow the ventilation to prevent excess cold air entering the hive when migration is in the cold season.
• Close the hive entrance after all the bees have entered the hive in the evening using a cloth plug or nailed down wire netting. If bees are clustering at the entrance, they can be encouraged to enter by spraying water or giving a puff of smoke.

 

Migration

• Colonies can be migrated by truck, tractor, rickshaw, manually by porters, or a combination of these, depending on the location of the original and new pasture areas and the weather.
• Colony migration should be carried out at night if possible (in winter between 5 pm and 10 am and in summer between 7 pm and 7 am).
• Ensure that air can circulate between hives.
• Carefully load and secure the hives. A vehicle should go slowly and as smoothly as possible.
• Vehicles should not stop for long periods. If they have to stop for a whole day or more, unload the colonies, open the entrances to allow bees to go out to forage, and repack and reload after nightfall.
• Carefully unload the colonies one by one at the destination.
• Place the colonies in a group (the apiary) with at least 5 feet (1.5 m) between hives.
• In general, place so that the entrances face southeast, unless the direction of the forage area, or weather and wind direction, make a different orientation preferable.
• After setting up the hives, open the colony entrances one by one by removing the cloth plug or the nailed hive net, starting at one end of the apiary and moving to the other.
• Thirty minutes after the entrances are open, or as soon as it is day, inspect the flight condition of the colonies from outside. Inspect inside after 2 days unless there is no 54 flight, low flight, workers wet with honey, dead bees, or bees crawling on the ground, in which case the colony should be inspected immediately and the appropriate action taken.
• Inspect the hives every few days. Replace the super on the hive once the brood chamber is full, using old combs or comb foundation in the frames.

 

Migratory beekeeping in J&K

The A. mellifera colonies are generally used in migratory beekeeping and several thousands of such colonies are transported yearly to increase honey flow. The A. cerana colonies are usually not used in migratory beekeeping and mostly kept in wooden logs or modern bee hives. The Doda, Ramban, Banihal, Kishtwar and Udhampur Districts of Jammu region and Anantnag district of Kashmir are the most potential and suitable areas of beekeeping. There can be possibility for beekeeping at moderate level in other districts such as Kathua, Jammu, Rajouri, Poonch, Pulwama, Baramulla, Srinagar and Kupwara. Ladakh and Leh areas of the state are not suitable for beekeeping. Though beekeepers are undertaking migration for production, there is a great scope to increase the efficiency and improve honey production. This can be facilitated with knowledge of floral resources and evolving appropriate migration schedules for different beekeeping regions. A detailed study of the floral resources for A. mellifera in J&K and seasons for honey production in different regions has been presented (table 2). The flora required for beekeeping is available round the year and provides sufficient bee forage for production of honey and other products of commercial value. All this makes it best fit for both migratory and stationery beekeeping.

Table 2. Migratory sites and major bee flora in areas of the state for optimal utilization of floral resources

 

Migration Routes of Beekeepers

Interstate Migration

The beekeepers migrates colonies from Jammu to farms of Sorghum, Eucalyptus, Brassica and Cajanus cajan crops (10-15kg honey/colony) in the plains of Uttar Pradesh (Aligarh) during ending October to end of December (Table 3). The colonies are then migrated during ending November/December to Mid of February in Alwar and Kota areas of Rajasthan for flow from sarson (20-25kg honey/colony). Colony development and breeding is done during mustard blooming. Half of the mustard flow and other blooms are utilized for honey extraction. Beekeeper reports an average 1:1 colony multiplication during these migrations. Generally colonies ranging 250 to 300 are migrated in single truck and cover a distance of 300 to 800 km. The colonies are migrated during February to March in areas of Bara (Kota) in Rajasthan for Coriander flow (10-15kg honey/colony), or Saharanpur in western Uttar Pradesh for the mustard and Eucalyptus flow (5-10 kg honey/colony). The colonies taken to plains of Uttar Pradesh are then brought back during March-April to locations around Jammu to utilize the flows from the multiflora (5-10 kg honey/colony). After the multiflora season, colonies from the Jammu area are migrated to Srinagar (Pampore) for forage from saffron (8-10 kg honey/colony) in April-July. The colonies from Jammu can be migrated to locations around or near Srinagar for Robinia pseudoacacia during March-April. This species is dependable source of nectar and colonies can produce surplus honey. Some beekeepers migrate their colonies to local areas of Jammu for flow from berseem (5-6 kg honey/colony) in April - May and from Acacia/Toona in June- July. Colonies in some cases are further shifted to Banihal and Ramban areas during June to October to utilize the flows from the Plectranthus or upper elevations for flow from buckwheat during June to September. The colonies are brought back to Jammu during ending October to November to utilize the flow from toria and ber (10-15 kg/colony). Some beekeepers practice only one migration. They migrate their colonies to Ganga Nagar (Rajasthan) flow from mustards (20 kg honey/colony) during Ending November to mid of March and brought back their colonies during March-Ending to locations around Jammu to utilize the flows from jamun, neem, eucalyptus, berseem, mustard, shisham (15-20 kg honey/colony). The beekeepers are able to harvest 50-60 kg honey/colony/year which is about five times more than obtained with stationery beekeeping. In addition, beekeepers could increase their colonies by at least 20 per cent and save the maintenance cost during dearth period. The strength of the colonies also improved by migration more conveniently than by artificial feeding at one place during dearth period and the duration of the dearth period is also minimized.

 

Within State Migration

Several vegetation regions with in the state exhibit short/long gap of flowering. Migratory beekeeping can be practiced to overcome these deficiencies in bee forage availability. The migration between hills and plains is a routine procedure adopted by commercial beekeepers of the state. Inter migration between the plains, lower and upper hills help cut down these losses (Table 3)

Beekeepers under stationary beekeeping kept an average of 22.85 bee colonies, incurring a cost of about Rs. 442.50 per colony, while those practicing migratory beekeeping with in the state and outside the state kept 39.00 and 165.75 bee colonies and spent about Rs. 787.50 and Rs. 1300 per colony, respectively. Honey production was an average of 9.35 kg/colony in the stationary beekeeping while it was 34.50 and 17.50 kg/colony in the outside and with in state migratory system of beekeeping, respectively. The net returns were Rs. 445.75, 875.00 and Rs. 1812.50 in the stationary beekeeping, with in state and outside state migration, respectively. This shows that differences in cost structure are marginal between the three types of beekeeping but due to higher honey yield net returns are almost three times higher in case of migratory bee keeping. In Himachal Pradesh, beekeepers harvest 15.66 and 41.60 kg of honey/colony/year from stationery and migratory beekeeping, respectively (Sharma and Bhatia, 2001). While in Bihar, the honey yield is highest as compared to other states with a production rate of 40 and 60kg/hive/year under stationery and migratory A. mellifera colonies, respectively (Bansil, 2011). Deodikar and Thakar (1966) discussed the aspect of migration of bee colonies from forests in hills to farms and orchards in the adjacent plains in order to utilize the local bee flora and improve bee forage availability to bee colonies. Chaturvedi et al. (1969) stated that migratory beekeeping in the Kumaon region of Uttrakhand could enhance honey production and colony multiplication. Ahmad et al. (1984) developed schedules for migration of bee colonies of profitable honey production (16.08 kg/colony) compared with non migrated colonies (2.8 kg/colony) with 60 per cent mortality of the colonies during dearth season. Sihag (1990) suggested migration as an important beekeeping practice for A. mellifera in Haryana. Singh et al. (1998) suggested certain migratory routes for honey production and colony multiplication in Bihar, India. Gatoria et al. (2001) gave a brief account of examples of some routes followed by beekeepers practising migratory beekeeping in different parts of the country.