Apiculture (0+1)

Migratory Bee Keeping

Flora and honey flow season vary from region to region. Several vegetation regions of the country exhibit short or long gaps in the flowering. Thus there are one or more floral dearth periods of short or long duration. Migratory beekeeping is practiced to overcome these deficiencies in bee forage availability and find out the places where flows can be availed by bees at different periods of the year. This helps not only to prevent colony losses, but even to increase colony number and getting additional honey production.
Preparing colonies for migration:

• Provide proper ventilation by using entrance screens and even top screen in place of inner cover during hot weather
• Close all cracks or openings in the hive
• Nail all the movable parts of the hive properly or tie with migratory belts
• Before packing the colony, remove frames of honey which are more than half sealed since honey combs cannot bear much jolts. However, the colonies should have sufficient food during the journey
• Close the entrance in the evening when all bees have returned. Colonies should be moved during night
• For deciding migrating site, the beekeeper should have a detailed knowledge of honey flow sources and density of bee colonies in the surrounding area. Avoid areas which already have lot of bee colonies
• Migration can involve shifting of one truck load of bees up to 200km or even more. If journey cannot be undertaken in one night during hot periods then the truck should be parked in the shade during day, entrances opened and providing water. Journey can be started in the evening after closing hive entrance
• On arrival at the destination, colonies are unloaded and placed at the desired site. Then the entrance screens are removed
• Check the colonies after 1 or 2 days for any damage to combs and working of queens.
Migration cycle: If a beekeeper of hilly area in northern India wants to exploit his colonies to the maximum extent, he may follow the following cycle:

• Migrate colonies to the plains of Punjab and Haryana during first week of November for availing toria, sarson, eucalyptus, berseem and sunflower till first week of June
• In case, a beekeeper is interested to avail litchi flow, he may migrate his colonies during end March till 3rd week of April to Dehradun in Uttrakhand after availing the Brassica, (sarson) flow and bringing back to the plains of Punjab and Haryana by end April to avail flows from berseem and sunflower
• In the first week of June, the colonies can be migrated to foot hills of Himachal to avail nectar of khair
• To avail Plectranthus flow, the colonies can be migrated by end August to the floral rich pockets of district Shimla, Chamba and Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh. However, the honey flow from this source is erratic and depends on the good monsoon rains needed for growth of this wild bush
• After Plectranthus flow the preparations can again be made for winter migration.
In South India, beekeepers generally migrate their bee colonies to sunflower, safflowers, cotton, sesamum and other crops. However, in the hilly areas, flowering of coffee in March-April and that of cardamom between June-August is exploited. In some regions extensive flowering of Schifflera spp. during May, helps in building strength of bee colonies between coffee and cardamom flowering.