Among different insect orders, only 8 have been recognized by insect taxonomists which have some communal life. Out of these 8 orders only two orders viz. Isoptera and Hymenoptera have well developed social organization. Even in Hymenoptera, only two families namely Halictidae and Apidae of superfamily Apoidea contain fully social species. Most of other bees live solitary life. Social behaviour Honey bees are among the fully social insects having overlap of many generations in the same nest. The colony is a well organized social group having division of labour in terms of laying of eggs, nursing, comb building, guarding, food collection and its storage. They have well developed communication system through different types of dances as well as trophallaxis. Biological communication can be defined as…

Knowing when to harvest Honey can be extracted when it has been capped over by the bees on the comb. At this stage, the honey will have been ‘matured’ by the bees, sealed up and is ready to eat. Often, when you want to remove the honey, not all will have been sealed. I always use a rule of thumb here if three quarters of the honey is sealed, I am happy to remove it from the hive. This is an important point. If you extract honey that has not been sealed, the water content will inevitably be too high, and the honey will ferment in storage and explode if sealed in a jar or tank. It will also taste foul if this happens. You…

Method 1 Collect together the same number of spare boxes, floors and lids as the number of hives you want to re-queen what you are going to do is make some mini-hives or nucleus chives. Using a piece of wood, make the entrances to these small hives just one or two bee spaces wide. Place the nucleus hives on the lids of the hives you are going to re-queen, but facing in the opposite direction. Block the entrances with grass. In the hives you want to re-queen, first make a split by removing from them two frames of emerging brood, one frame of stores and a frame of empty comb. The emerging brood should cover only about half of the frame. Don’t brush off any…

Introduction Pollination is the transfer of pollen grains from the anther to the stigma of the same flower or another flower of the same plant or another plant but of the same species. In other words, pollination is  the mixing of the male and female parts of a flower. Pollination is a vital step in the reproduction of flowering plants and is necessary for all seed and fruit production. Plants require pollen to be transferred from one plant to another and many depend upon insects to do this as they forage. Bees play a vital role in food production and overall agricultural productivity, as pollinators. Pollination Plants require pollen to be transferred from one plant to another to aid reproduction. This transfer of pollen grains…

Some may surprised to know why on earth beekeeper would keep bees in a city area. In fact some of best honey comes from city parks and garden and some areas richer in nectar than many areas of the crops countryside. There are main things to think about beekeeping in urban area is neighbours, neighbours and neighbours. If you want bees your neighbours don’t. The neighbours will be scared of bees because many peoples think that honey is produced by nice, bumble bees & so when they see your fast horrid little wasp like things around all over the place, they will not always be pleased or happy about it keep them happy by trying to adhere to the hive placements outlined below and always…