Major constraints in beekeeping in India are as follows:
1. Beekeeping with Apis Cerena Indica and Apis Mellifera:
The KVIC since 1952 promotes A.C Indica, the Asian honey bee. The number of colonic of this bee in India is about 0.96 million yielding 6300 metric tonnes of honey with an average yield of 6.7 kg per hive.
2. Using the Correct Species for Beekeeping:
All over the world the Italian honeybee is acclaimed to be the choice for commercial beekeeping. However the controversy regarding the suitability of the species i.e. Asian honeybee A.C. indica and the European bee A mellifera for beekeeping in India which has been going on for the last three decades gave a severe setback.
3. Availability of Genetically Superior Queens for Increased Honey Production:
It is essential to have requisite infrastructure for the production of large volumes of genetically superior queens for supply to the beekeepers.
4. Lack of Technical Knowledge for Efficient Management of Colonies for High Honey Yields:
This is a major constraint. Beekeepers are not aware of international methods of efficient management.
Some of the wrong practices followed by beekeepers are:
Few beekeepers use queen excluders. Further the excluders that are locally available get rusted and damage the bees.
Efficient swarm control is not practiced by beekeepers and they are most unaware of these techniques. Most beekeepers just divide colonies to prevent swarming.
Maximum yields from A mellifera are obtained when the colonies go up to 3 to 4 chambers with populations of 50 000 to 70 000 bees.
Beekeepers do not know the concept of the food chamber as a measure of colony build up and mostly maintain colonies on a single chamber leading to weak colonies that die in dearth periods.
Few beekeepers change queens every season before the honey flow leading to loss of queens during the crucial honey flow.
Some beekeepers even do not use full comb foundation sheets and only use strips of wax sheets for the frames which lead to excessive drone comb construction besides wasting the time and effort of bees in making extra comb. Therefore there is a great scope for improvement.
5. Lack of Infrastructure at the Grass Roots and National Level for Beekeeping:
There is no concept of beekeeping inspectors or trainers in beekeeping, at the village or even district level.
Beekeeping by its nature has seasonal crises of disease management and so on. There should be a hierarchy of beekeeping experts and trainers in the village’s blocks, Tehsils, Districts and then finally in the universities to be able to have effective feed back to and from the beekeepers.
6. Poor Quality Control for the Production of Honey:
This is a very important aspect of beekeeping and needs to be stressed on. Some beekeepers extract honey from brood frames by which damages the brood and the honey extracted is of poor quality.
All beekeepers do not maintain separate super chambers for the production of honey. Many beekeepers do not use queen excluders. The queen lays eggs in the honey chamber thereby lower the honey quality.
Honey only develops the flavour which is particular to each flower source if it is allowed to stay in the hive a little more after the bees seal the frames.
Beekeepers do not use the technique of keeping supers in warm rooms with a forced airflow before extraction.
In case, unripe honey is extracted, it is high in moisture content and lacking in colour, flavour and quality. Honey is also poorly stored by beekeepers. The honey in contact with the old tin plate becomes blackish in colour and loses flavour. Food grade plastic containers need to be developed for storing honey.
7. Bees Wax:
This easily produced, has great demand in the world market and is used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. The most important producer of beeswax in India is Apis dorsata.
8. Pollen:
Pollen is not produced at all in India. Pollen is a natural vegetarian protein source containing many nutritive elements and minerals and can do much to improve the general nutritional intake in rural areas. It also has a great demand in the export market.
9. Propolis:
Propolis is the resinous substance collected by bees from trees to seal cracks in the hive. Propolis has beer, found to be a natural antibiotic and has many medicinal qualities when used externally or internally and is valuable in the field of Apitherapy. There is great demand for propolis for export.
10. Bee venom:
This is an unexploited source of production from the bees in India Bee venom has various medicinal uses in Homeopathy, Allopathy and systems of natural medicine. Extraction is complicated and can be done by beekeepers with great technical skill using special bee venom extractors in front of the hive.
11. Royal Jelly:
This is secreted by the bees from special glands in their body and is used to feed the queen bee larva. It is supposed to have rejuvenant and beneficial properties like Ginseng. It contains various natural hormones and is a highly concentrated food. It has a great demand for exports.
All the above by products from bees are not produced yet in India and can add to the income of beekeepers besides having great scope for exports.
12. Disease Prevention Control and Analysis:
This is the major constraint for the development of beekeeping in India. We need to have regional and also central bee disease analysis laboratories.
Lack of sufficient financial help from government and lending institutions for the development of beekeeping. Beekeeping requires long term loans at easy rates of interest. The bee colony produces honey only after almost a year initially and then seasonally. Beekeepers need help to be able to get finance for bee colonies and equipment.
Insurance of bee colonies needs to be done at a reasonable premium so that beekeepers can recover their losses in case of disease or the loss of bees due to other factors.
No Tax or other Monetary Benefits for Beekeeping. Beekeeping is neither considered an industry nor an agricultural activity and there is no tax benefit on beekeeping income.
No Control on the Use of Pesticides by Farmers Leading to Death of Bee Colonies in Field Locations. The indiscriminate use of pesticides leads to the destruction of bee colonies in the field.
There is no legislation restricting the farmer from the use of pesticides that are harmful to bee colonies.
13. Pricing Structures for Honey:
There is a lot of lobbying by farmers beekeepers and beekeeping societies to give the beekeeper high prices for honey.
The Bee Keepers should get a reasonable price for their products.