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…

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…

The Beekeeping is an ancient art that has fascinated its devotees since earliest times. Honey robbed from wild colonies in trees & caves was early people’s main source of sweet food. Dominance of honey  the major sweetener continued until cane and beet sugar became generally available in comparatively recent times. Honey with its unique flavors and aromas and natural origin still has wide appeal. World production was estimated at 1,446 million pounds in 1976 and more than 1,415 million pounds in 1977. In the United States about 200,000 people keep almost 5 million colonies and produce 200 million to 250 million pounds of honey annually. Beekeepers can be classified as full-time, sideline, or hobbyist, with the number of colonies operated by individual owners varying from one…