BEEKEEPING & DEVELOPMENT 48
LACK OF POLLINISERS
Honeybees for rent
few years ago the farmers had many apple varieties: Commercial, Golden, Jonathan, Red Gold, Kali Devi, Red and Royal Delicious. These provided compatible pollen to other varieties and good fruit set. Since 1980 because of the better market value of Royal Delicious, farmers have uprooted other varieties and planted Royal Delicious on a large scale. All new orchards have been planted
The number of bee colonies available for rent from the Department of Horticulture is low and the demand for bees is very high. Therefore, to provide bee colonies for a number of farmers, very weak colonies are offered, with only one or two frames covered with bees.
A
only with Royal Delicious. However, Royal Delicious is completely self-sterile and requires pollen from other compatible or polliniser varieties for fruit set to occur. Appropriate ratios of apple pollinisers do not exist and some farmers have no polliniser trees.
blooming.
Short-term solution Farmers place polliniser branches in plastic bags filled with water and hang these on Royal Delicious trees. This type of pollination management is called ‘Bouquet Pollination’, and the polliniser branches ‘Bouquets’.
Bouquet pollination was first started by Mr Gulab Singh in 1994 in Kullu District. Previously fruit set in his orchard had been down to only 10%, but using bouquet pollination he obtains excellent fruit set. All the farmers in nearby villages went to Mr Gulab Singh’s orchard to investigate his pollination management. They were very impressed and the following year all used bouquet pollination as a short-term solution for polliniser management. It increased fruit yield by about 50%.
ensure
beekeepers are being encouraged to rent their bees for pollination by increased rental fees.
in th
great pollin:
apple
by Uma Partap.,,
Some farmers who do not have enough polliniser trees are stealing polliniser branches from other orchards. There are many cases of such theft. As a result whenever farmers see somebody with scissors, they chase the intruder away. We met one farmer in the Manali Valley carrying a load of blooming polliniser branches. We asked him to stop as we wanted to photograph him with these branches. He was afraid and told us that he brought these branches from his own orchard and was going to hang them in his uncle’s orchard.
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Himachal Pradesh is in the north-w es as the ‘Fruit State’ of India. Applies State, accounting for over 80% of t planted in the mountainous Distri ct parts of Solan, of which Kullu and § hi producing areas. During the pasit Himachal Pradesh has bee:n Information gathered by the Beekee:p that this decline in productivity is (Jt 1998 a study was conducted t In recent years the best apple crop w
been a serious decline in productit pollination failure. The various
Farmers are ready to pay any price for hiring bees: some “Bouquet pollination”: a short-term solution which farmers hire Apis cerana provides polien immediately in log hives at the rate of Rs300 per colony. The State Government is making efforts to encourage farmers to keep their own bees for pollination and has created the
Unexpected problems
2.
Farmers go to
Some commercial beekeepers migrate their bees to the Indian plains during winter until June. They are not interested to bring their bees back earlier for apple pollination because they obtain abundant honey from berseem and sunflower in the plains. These crops bloom for long periods and produce much more nectar than apple. The beekeepers earn much better money from the sale of honey, than by renting bees for apple pollination. Now these
Farmers are now aware of the need for pollinisers, for good yields and apple quality, and are planting pollinisers. Some farmers are grafting pollinisers on to Royal Delicious trees. Farmers in Shimla District have grafted a polliniser variety called Snowdrift, selected from crab apple, a wild apple variety. Snowdrift acts as the bouquet and has a long flowering period of more than a month, providing pollen to many other varieties, whether early or late
1.
SUCCE. POLLIN OF AF
:
Beekeeping Development Office (BKDO), within the
The large-scale use of plastic bags for hanging pollinisers in trees has led to a four-fold increase in the price of plastic bags!
LACK OF POLLINATORS Lack of pollinating insects due to the heavy use of insecticides over the past decades is another factor. Farmers have been spraying pesticides eight to ten times each season including the blooming period of apple trees. Bees, butterflies, and moths on
Hiring honeybees for pollination Insect pollinators are still needed to transfer the pollen grains from the polliniser to the main variety. For this purpose farmers are renting honeybees (Apis cerana and Apis mellifera). The Department of Horticulture rents Apis mellifera colonies at the rate of Rs250 per colony, (Rs200 as security and Rs50 as rent). Private beekeepers = Rs42 charge Rs800 (Rs500 security, Rs300 as rent). SUS 1
SIX
PHOTOGRAPHS & UMA PARTAP
apple flowers have all disappeared.
Grafted polliniser branch which will take at least two years produce flowers
Large-scale apple cultivation
to
A Bees for Development publication
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