Are you willing to keep honey box in your home? Anybody living in cities or in flats all are culture this type of honey colony. It will not bite.
Bee keeping is an interesting hobby. Bees are main pollinating agents in our atmosphere. There are four types of bees around us namely Apis dorsata, Apis florae, Apis cerana and Dammer bee. Among these, only one species is adoptable to culture. We can keep it in the apiary. It is Apis indica or Apis cerena.(Indian hive bee) Now some bee keepers tried to culture the smallest bee which is called Dammer bee (Trigona irridepennis).
- This bee is not ferocious.
- Very small in size.
- It will adjust to occupy in box type cavities.
- Normally they live at tree holes, timber stored cavities, wall cavities etc.
- They live years together in same place.
- These bees are poor honey yielder.
- In a hive, we can collect maximum of 400-500 ml of honey.
- Because of propaganda and its nature of honey collection, now its honey is gaining medicinal importance.
- Anyhow for home purpose, it is advisable to keep this colony in every house veranda.
- Collection of honey is easy.
- Once in a year you can collect the honey without damaging the colony.
- If you are living in cities you can keep this honey bee box nearby window and collect honey once in a year.
method of culturing:
- Here we give you the method of culturing this bee colony. And also making a wodden box for its hive.
- It is not necessary to make highfy box.
- By waste materials also you can make the box. You can use bamboo also.
- First find out the place where the colony lives.
- Then remove the eggs from it.
- Keep all eggs inside the box and then keep some nectar in another compartment.
- Do not put honey comb. If you keep honey comb, the honey will drops inside the box and some ants will enter.
- If ants came, colony will not survive.
- So when culturing only egg part and nectar parts are advisable to put inside the box.
- And keep it aside till night in same place.
- After all bees come back and occupied to the egg layed place and then you can transfer it to anywhere.
- Once you catch the colony, it will not run out from the place.
- It will lives in same place years together.
- Every year you can collect the honey from it.
How to collect Honey:
- Honey collection process is very easy. This bee collects honey in small vessel type cavity made up of wax and resins.
- You can separate the honey part from the hive and squeeze it by hand. Machinery is not available for this.
- To separate few bees and wax, we have to filter it by cotton cloth.
- After collecting the honey we have to keep it in sun light for two days for evaporation of moisture.
- Culturing this bee colony, we will preserve the smallest bee colony which is endangered now.
- Also it will give you return in terms of honey to your goodness.
In cities there are certain limitations to keep regular honey bee colony (Apis indica). They flies surrounding areas and there is a chances of some objections from your neighbours. But keeping this particular bee (Dammer bee), nobody can irritate. It is like your family members.
Written by Dr.Rajeshwari K R
