Beekeeping in Sri Lanka

The Apiculture Development Project of Sri Lanka

by Dayarathne Howpage

In Sri Lanka beekeeping is practised mainly as a part-time activity. Most beekeepers manage their hives in the Eucalyptus or rubber zones, the major honey producing areas.

Beekeeping development in Sri Lanka has been confined to training, extension, honey marketing and supply of equipment. The extent of development was measured by the number of bee boxes issued by the Department of Agriculture. Such a measure is inappropriate since there is no relationship between total number of bee boxes issued and honey production. Low honey yields may be due to absconding, poor quality queens, lack of pollen, poor management and environmental factors such as droughts and high rains.

However beekeeping is very popular despite the various technological problems associated with it. Perhaps our extension and training have exceeded our research capacity. Also the supply of beekeeping equipment by funding agencies and subsidy programmes aggravate this popularity. It is essential to develop a strong research component to provide technical assistance.

Activities

Up to 1988, the Project's priorities were: training; production and distribution of equipment; honey promotion activities through processing, marketing, and model apiaries. Research was not considered a priority until 1988.

Beekeeping equipment is supplied using a revolving fund from CIDA (Canada). Since there is a great demand for bee boxes (6,000 per year), they are produced by private manufacturers, but frames are produced by the Apiculture Development Project. Equipment such as smokers, honey extractors, and bee veils are also produced by private manufacturers. Production and distribution of bee equipment was to be privatised by the end of 1990 and their standard supervised by the Department.

A marketing programme aiming to promote beekeeping and the honey market in Sri Lanka includes honey purchase, processing and sale, also using a revolving fund from CIDA. The ultimate goal is for the private sector to collect and process honey for marketing. A Cooperative Society of Honey Producers has been formed to continue these activities.

Research

Research work done in the past is inadequate to cater for our extension and training needs. Among the completed work, the identification of floral calendars, foraging distances, and the development of a metric hive are of major importance. Although these achievements help to upgrade beekeeping, there is more work to be done. The following are most important:

Colony multiplication

The supply of colonies according to the current method of colony division may lead to failure or degeneration of existing colonies for the following reasons:

• Emergence of poor quality queens The amount of royal jelly fed to queen larvae has a positive impact on the development of internal organs such as ovaries and mandibular glands. When a colony is divided, the queenless half is allowed to make emergency queen cells. The developing queens in these cells may be fed with inadequate amounts of royal jelly. The young bees necessary for royal jelly production occur in large numbers during the swarming period or should be added to queen cell-building colonies when queens are artificially reared. In addition, cell-building colonies are fed copiously with protein supplements to increase the production of royal jelly by young bees.

• Poor mating frequency

Mating with drones from many different genetic backgrounds results in progeny with different full and half-sisters. This mating behaviour increases colony resilience to stressful conditions and results in bees which work efficiently over a range of conditions. Virgin queens emerging from colony divisions may not be able to mate with an adequate number of drones (Apis cerana are reported to mate with 30 drones). Therefore it is essential to maintain a mating yard which is supplemented by productive drone rearing colonies.

• Possibility of inbreeding

Colony increase by division may lead to inbreeding (mating of virgin queens with drones from the same colony).

Considering these three factors, it may be essential to rear queens artificially from high producer colonies for requeening and for colony multiplication. The programme will include: 1) the maintenance of a mating yard 2) the maintenance of drone producing colonies and 3) the maintenance of queen producing colonies.

The production of nucleus colonies

This programme will be carried out with the queen rearing programme. The following studies must be completed before large-scale production can commence: 1) compare the growth and development of different sizes of nuclei; 2) determine the effect of producing nuclei from colonies kept for honey production; 3) estimate the benefit of pollen supplements for the production of nucleus colonies.

Colony management in the rubber zone

Since rubber, Hevea brasiliensis is an important bee plant, it is essential to develop a system to manage bees in rubber plantations. Among many problems, the poor keeping quality of honey from rubber has been a barrier in promoting beekeeping under this plantation crop. Since preliminary trials in 1989 to process rubber honey gave successful results, there may be a good future.

The off-season management, lack of pollen, swarming, absconding and variability in honey yields (with 1989 data, average yield per colony is 3.4 kg) are major problems that have to be solved.

Supplementary feeding

Pollen provides the total protein requirement of bees. Research has shown that an inadequate supply of protein led to absconding in Apis cerana colonies.

Last year our preliminary observations with a mixture of soya-flour, water, and sugar or honey showed promising results. This mixture provided as a pattie of 150 g was consumed bees in a moderately strong colony in 2-3 days.

Recent developments

l. From 1990 the Apiculture Development Project started selling limited numbers of mated queens at the introductory price of Rs20.

2. Asa result of the development of a rubber honey processing plant we started selling fresh rubber honey in February-April 1990.

3. Experiments are underway to determine the effects of feeding protein supplements on colony productivity by recording brood area, colony population, colony weight and honey yield.

4. We are studying the effects of swarming on colony productivity in the rubber and Eucalyptus zones of Sri Lanka.

5. Studies on absconding behaviour and a queen selection programme are being carried out at the Agricultural Research Station, Makadura. Mating behaviour has been studied here during 1988 and 1989.

6. Bee equipment from Sri Lanka has been exported to the Maldives from our Project as a result of the introduction of bees to that country by one of the officers attached to the Department with the assistance of FAO.

The literature available to develop our local Project is inadequate to cope with our technological demands. We still use temperate bee biology as a tool to teach beekeeping in Our region. Although there are similarities in the biology of European races of bees, it is very important to understand the biology of our local honeybee to improve beekeeping in our region.

Therefore we suggest that our literature, and technical work in the field of research and extension be exchanged in future research and development programmes.

Dayarathne Howpage is Assistant Director of Agriculture for the Apiculture Development Project at Bindunuwewa, Bandarawela, Sri Lanka.

OTHER VIEWS FROM SRI LANKA

The villagers around the rubber plantation house bees in inverted clay pots and smoke the bees out when the pot is full of combs. Our season here is from January- April when the rubber trees are full of flowers. I also have two bee boxes from the Department of Agriculture and two round clay pots. The villagers in the area where | am working bait the bees by smoking the empty inverted clay pot with incense or some coconut husk, and within a week or two a colony is sure to make a home in the pot. Harvesting the honey is the problem because the bees have to be driven out by smoke.

Joe M C Perera, Colombo.

My project consists of 100 Apis cerana colonies and is situated in the wet zone which consists mainly of rubber and coconut. I must however mention that apart from two large colonies consisting of 12 brood combs which are used for queen rearing the rest are small consisting of three to four combs which are sold as nuclei to potential beekeepers. No pollen substitute is fed. During the dearth season from June- December sugar syrup is fed at the rate of 200 g per colony per week.

Harvesting is possible during only four weeks in February and March, coinciding with the shedding of leaves and new foliage on the rubber. Harvesting is carried out every four to five days and a yield of 6-8 kg is obtained per colony.

The Manager, Bee Craft, Karangoda.