Migratory beekeeping: smart Apiculture

Commercial beekeeping is the practice of profitable maintenance of honeybee colonies by collecting and selling the honeybee products like honey, wax, royal jelly, pollen and other bee products. But bees serve a greater role in maintenance of healthy ecosystem by acting as a pollinating agent in majority of the plant species.

“The entire human race would go extinct in less than a decade if bees disappear.”

- Albert Einstein

The bee acts as pollinator in more than 75% agriculture food crops. According to FAO, out of 100 crop species contributing more than 95% of world food production, 71 species are pollinated by bees and Apis mellifera is the most important commercially available pollinator. According to the National Commission on Agriculture, India needs minimum 200 million honeybee colonies just to pollinate and increase productivity of 12 major crops which are self-sterile and need insect pollination.

Types of beekeeping:

1. Stationary or Regular beekeeping

2. Migratory beekeeping

The apiary practiced in stationary beekeeping is the practice of keeping the hives stationary and are maintained at same place for whole of year. But in migratory beekeeping, only some hives remain stationary while majority of the hives are moved from one place to other place in order to pollinate as many as possible plants. The main purpose is to pollinate the crop and other business of producing honey, wax, pollen etc. become secondary.

When the crops are in bloom, beekeepers transport their bee colonies to the growers’ fields, referred as forage sites, to provide the required pollination service. Once flowering is over, the bee colonies must be immediately removed from the site as the crops are then treated with chemicals that are harmful to the health of the bees. Since crops do not all flower simultaneously, the beekeeper can move the same bee colony from one forage site to the next throughout the year to meet growers’ demands for pollination. 

The pollination services

This system of pollination services is not so common in India. In US, the pollination services are characterized as commercial and take place on crops on a contract basis: the beekeeper rents the bee colony to the farmer for a fee, which is the effective price of the commercial pollination service. Contracts between beekeepers and growers have evolved to the extent that they have given rise to a market in pollination services with prices varying according to farm and the time of year. Almond tree pollination in California is a typical example: the cost of

hiring a bee colony has passed the $162 threshold (2008 prices). If the forage site is covered by wild

vegetation, no contract is involved and the bee colony produces honey jointly with a non-marketed ecosystem service.

The Economics of beekeeping 

Agricultural scientists in America and Europe have estimated that the value of the increased crop yields due to honey bee pollination is several times more than the value of the honey and beeswax the honey bees produce. For commercial bee keeping one should start with minimum 100 bee colonies. Net income from stationary bee keeping is 4, 24,168/-. For migratory bee keeping total income is 10, 04,800.

Challenges

1. Protecting the health of bee colonies during migration.

2. Selection and control of pesticides (insecticides, fungicides, herbicides) applied to the cultivated sites and surrounding areas. 

3. Health control - migration of bee

colonies increases the risk of the spread of Varroa infestations, epidemics.

4. Nosema ceranae and Aethina tumida, a beetle native to South Africa that damages the honeycombs and causes loss of honey

in Mediterranean bee colonies.

Why the need of migratory beekeeping emerged?

The increased demand of food all over the world is met through technological adaptations focusing on maximum production. The honeybee performs the lead role in the play between plants as Mother Nature. Flowers have only several ways to pollinate one another, so they rely on nature’s cupid, the honeybee. But the technological adaptations have disrupted whole ecosystem only to make human survived and forcing every element of nature into jaws of death from soil, atmosphere, water etc. 

Two events have taken place.

1. Decrease in the fauna responsible for pollination

2. Increase in number of pollination requirements to meet high production needs.

So to meet the second need, the requirements must be met artificially and the whole migratory beekeeping purposes have been changed. The purpose earlier was to produce honey of different kinds from various floras available in the area like litchi honey etc. But at present the whole system have grown into an industry in US and very soon in India if steps will not taken. Migratory beekeeping is practiced in many states of India but has not taken such industrial role. At present, the sustainability is questioned in agricultural technological innovations which were not the case earlier.

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6216951/

https://www.beekeeping-101.com/an-introduction-to-migratory-beekeeping/

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/inside-the-unsustainable-world-of-commercial-beekeeping/

https://silverlakefarms.com/what-is-migratory-beekeeping/

https://lupinepublishers.com/agriculture-journal/