New means of collecting honey will no longer destroy the entire honey comb
TRADITIONAL honey hunters in India
have so far relied on crude methods for
gathering honey which mainly involves
lighting a fire under the hives to drive
out the bees. The honey is then manually squeezed out of the combs. While this
technique serves the main purpose -
gathering honey - it leads to the
destruction of the entire bee colony,
which in turn hampers cross pollination
in agricultural crops, forests and other
vegetation.
A scientific method for honey collection has now been developed by the
Centre of Science for Villages in
Wardha, Maharashtra and tried out in
various areas where the rock bee -
Apis dorsata - which contributes to
about 70 per cent of India's annual
honey production, flourishes (Technology Models for Rural Application,
Department of Science and Technology,
1995). Water is first sprayed at the beehive which not only wets the wings of
the bees preventing their free movement, but also lowers the temperature
in the hive. A person in full protective
clothing then climbs up to the hive and
separates the two chambers - lower
brood chamber and upper honey chamber - of the hive from each other. A
simple contraption made from bamboo
not only prevents the chamber holding
the bees from falling to the ground, but
also allows the bees to rebuild the honey
chamber without having to disperse from the site.
The detached honey chamber can be
cut into desired shapes and hung vertically over a wire gauge support in a steel
box with a glass lid known as the solar
honey separator. The box is placed in
the sun, the heat of which dilates the
cells of the comb allowing honey to
trickle down into a collector. Proper
organisational backup could make this
new method of collecting honey a
profitable enterprise.
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