Honey was man’s earliest food, and it is produced in almost every country. Almost all the sacred books contain many references to both honey, and the bees. Chapter 16 of the Holy Quran is entitled `The Bee`. It records, “And the Lord taught the bee to build its nests in hills, on trees and in (men’s) habitations; then to suck nectar from all kinds of flowers, and follow the ways of Thy Lord made smooth; there issues from within their bellies a drink(honey) of varying colors, wherein is healing for mankind: Verily in this is a sign for those who give thought “.
What is Honey?
Honey is a sweet, viscous liquid prepared by bees from nectar collected from the special cells located on many parts of the flower called nectaries. In most of the flowers only a minute amount of nectar is available at any one time. The amount in a white clover floret is no more than a twentieth the size of a pin’s head. On an average a bee visits a couple of hundred flowers to collect a nectar load (load means the quantum of nectar collected at a time).The average load of nectar brought in by a bee is 40mg and 8-10 trips per day is a general average.
The performance of a bee is truly astonishing. The fuel consumption of a flying bee is about ½ mg honey per kilometer or 3 million km to the liter. In providing one kilograms of surplus honey for market, the colony has had to consume something like a further 8 kg to keep itself going , and forager probably covered a total flying path equal to six orbits round the earth-at a fuel consumption of about 25g of honey for each orbit.
The bee ingests nectar from flowers through her proboscis (tongue) and stores in the honey sac. Honey sac is simply a chamber used to temporarily store nectar while carrying it to the hive. Following the honey sac is the proventriculus or honey stopper. Proventriculus regulates the passage of food into the ventriculus (true stomach) and prevents the collected liquid from running into the ventriculus from honey sac, besides serves as a value to prevent any substance in the ventriculus from returning.
When a bee ingests nectar she mixes glandular secretion enzymes used in elaborating honey, invertase, diastase, and glucose oxidase. The inversion of sucrose into two simple sugar, glucose (dextrose) and fructose (laevulose) by the action of enzyme invertase.
When a bee arrives at the hive she passes the nectar to one or several bees for ripening or may directly regurgitate into a cell of the comb before the ripening is undertaken. The manipulated half ripe honey still contains large amount of water to allow storage, much of the water must be evaporated. This process is completed within a few days. As soon as moisture content of honey drops to 17-20%, the honey in ripe then the bees seal the cells with a thin layer of wax, providing it with airtight cover. Once the combs are full and at least 75% of the cells are sealed, the honey is extracted.
Honey Production
a. Honey hunting
Honey hunting means robbing of honey from wild bee colonies usually in the forests. This is the most ancient method of honey production and today it is still practiced in India and elsewhere. It is a laborious and messy affair for the honey hunter.The honeybee species Apis mellifera and Apis cerana commonly known as Europeon and Indian honey bee, respectively, nest in a cavity i.e. , in hollow trees, crevices in rocks and holes in the ground. They build multiple combs for brood rearing and food storage. These two Apis species are kept and managed in movable frame-hives primarily for honey production whereas two other bee species Apis dorsata and Apis florea (both these species are not found in the valley of kashmir) build a single comb in the open and will not nest in an enclosure. Honey from these bee species is harvested by `honey hunting`. This process process is accomplished by driving bees off the comb with the smoke. The whole comb which contains pollen, brood (honeybees in developing stages i.e., eggs, larvae and pupae is collectively called brood), besides honey, is cut .The whole comb along with its contents is crushed and honey squeezed. Almost invariably bee colony is destroyed.
b. Traditional fix-comb hives
Beekeeping (apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies in man-made hives. In Kashmir, and at other places in the some other countries, there are large number of simple hives, made of hollowed logs, earthenware pots, dried mud cylinders and wicker. This type of beekeeping dominated honey production till a few decades back. In Kashmir the general practice is to place these hives on shelves built into thickness of the house wall. Honey crop is collected normally in late autumn. The combs are crushed and honey squeezed colonies are preserved after removing honey crop and not killed.
c. Movable-Frame hive beekeeping
A bee hive (wooden box) with 10 standardized interchangeable frames was designed in 1851AD and it formed the basis of modern beekeeping throughout the world. In this hive honeybees build parallel combs, attached to the frames (which support them) but not to the hive surfaces, enabling the beekeeper to take out the combs for inspection and manipulations, without damaging them or disturbing the colony. This was beginning of revolution in honey production techniques. The combs are primarily used by honeybees to store honey, pollen for self-consumption and brood production.
This box is therefore referred to as `Brood Chamber`. Antibiotics or insecticides necessary to control various bee diseases is applied in brood chamber. Besides, sugar syrup is also fed to bees in the brood chamber, if and when needed, which bees store in combs. Extra box, called super chamber, is added and placed on the top of existing brood chamber for storing surplus honey. Honey combs, in the super chamber only, which have been nearly 75% sealed with wax cap by bees are removed and bees brushed off. Then honey is got out of there combs by a hand or a power driven machine called ‘honey extractor’ using centrifugal force after wax cappings over the cells has been sliced off with a sharp knife. Movable frame-hive beekeeping is scientific and commercial way of honey production.
Unfortunately nowadays the scientific way of honey harvest has been abandoned, instead a method, better to call ‘nectar robbing’ has been evolved. During the honey season, when bees bring in fair amount of nectar into the hive before they would carry out and complete the process of conversation of nectar into honey, beekeepers on daily basis, remove all the combs from brood chamber, because super chamber for surplus honey collection are no longer used now. These combs contain nectar, pollen, brood, residues of insecticides, antibiotics and sugar syrup. The bees are brushed off and extraction carried out. During the extraction centrifugal force blends all the ingredients in the combs. It is because of this ill-conceived honey harvest method that nowadays insecticides antibiotics and sugar is reported in the honey.
In nature a swarm of honeybees (Apis mellifera or Apis cerana) will occupy any cavity of suitable size and produce honey without man’s intervention. Since in such enclosures or in man-made traditional hives bees attach their combs to the inner surfaces of the hive, and beekeeper could obtained the honey only by breaking or cutting the combs away and then squeezing it. As such honey obtained by `honey hunting` or from man-made traditional hives is much inferior to honey from apiaries. One of the main object of movable-frame hive beekeeping is to have honey in its natural form. However, nowadays it is all ignored and end product is not that what used to be earlier.
Before the situation goes totally out of hands it is mandatory that experts on the helm of affairs to work out common strategies to educate the beekeepers and stop this ill-conceived method of nectar robbing so that people get natural honey ‘Where in is healing for mankind’.
Farooq Ahmed Shah is Apiculture Development Officer (Retired), Department of Agriculture,