Spices of Kerala

Spices of Kerala    

Bee Keeping In Russia

Bashkiria, the birth-place of honey, the country of worth

July 28, 2013 Ricardo Marquina, RIR

Beekeeping (or apiculture, from Latin apis, bee) is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans.

Beekeeping was known long before our era. Its development went through several stages. At first, wild beekeeping consisted of hunting for honey and beeswax—bees’ nests and their honeycombs were found in tree hollows. The stages of wild-hive beekeeping and stump beekeeping in logs and tree hollows (dupliankas) were followed by frame beekeeping, or the raising of bee colonies in sectional hives with movable frames. With the invention of the frame hive in 1814 by the Russian beekeeper P. I. Prokopovich and of the honey extractor in 1865 by the Bohemian apiarist F. von Hruschka, frame beekeeping became a highly productive branch of agriculture in many countries. 

Rehashing Robert Burns' poem we'd like to present Bashkiria region - the birth-place of honey the country of worth.

In Russia, beekeeping has been widespread for a long time in almost every area of the country. In 1910 there were 339,000 apiaries with an average size of six colonies, totaling 6,309,000 colonies, of which less than 18 percent were in frame hives. The marketable surplus from the apiaries was low. The average amount of marketable honey obtained from one bee colony did not exceed 5–6 kg. During World War I, the number of apiaries in the country decreased significantly, and by 1919 the number of bee colonies had fallen to 3.2 million. After the decree of 1919 of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR On Protecting Apiculture, beekeeping developed rapidly. In 1940 in the USSR there were more than 10 million bee colonies, 95 percent of which were in frame hives. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, the number of apiaries again decreased considerably, and the number of bee colonies dropped to 4.9 million. As a result of a number of party and government resolutions adopted in the postwar years concerning beekeeping, such as the resolution of 1945 of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR On Measures to Develop Apiculture, beekeeping was reestablished and became a profitable branch of the national economy.

With the amalgamation of kolkhozes, the size of apiaries increased. Specialized industrial sovkhozes and large bee farms have been set up, with the introduction of mechanization of the labor-consuming processes of uncapping and extracting the honey, outfitting the hive frames with wax, and loading and unloading the hives when the apiaries are to be transported to nectariferous areas. At these enterprises the technology of feeding and caring for the bee colonies is being perfected, and the efficiency of labor is increasing—one beekeeper can maintain 150–200 colonies instead of 35-40 as at nonamalgamated apiaries.

The three basic areas of specialization in apiculture are the production of honey, pollination, and bee raising.

In the Urals, Siberia, the Far East, Azerbaijan, Kirghizia, eastern Kazakhstan, and Armenia, where there are vast areas of wild nectariferous vegetation, there are large beekeeping sovkhozes with 4,000 to 20,000 colonies that specialize in the production of honey and beeswax. In intensive-farming areas, such as the Volga Region, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Northern Caucasus, large bee farms with 500 to 800 colonies use the bees primarily to pollinate agricultural crops, for which the apiaries are moved to areas with flowering nectariferous plants. (In most areas stationary beekeeping has been replaced by migratory beekeeping.) In the southern regions of the RSFSR and the Ukraine and in Moldavia, Transcaucasia, and Middle Asia, where the abundant spring and summer nectariferous plants allow the bees an extended honey flow of 2.5–3 months, bee farms specialize in rearing queen bees of the best strains and propagating bee colonies to supply the apiaries of other farms.  

Cultivating Fodder grass on rooftops

Scientists from the Krishi Vigyan Kendra-Kannur (KVK) of Kerala Agricultural University, Panniyur, have developed an innovative method to grow fodder grass (CO-3 variety) on rooftops of cattle sheds to help dairy farmers grappling with space constraints and fodder scarcity.

A recent experiment by Dr. T. Giggin, Assistant Professor of the Institute promises to address the green fodder requirement issue of space constraint for cattle growers easily.

High density planting

The technique, called high density double planting with drip irrigation, involves growing fodder grass in plastic ‘grow-bags’ usually used for cultivating vegetables.

The grass grows to a height of six to eight feet in a span of two months, according to Dr. Giggin.

At the KVK campus, the grass is grown in around 300 UV stabilized bags, placed equidistantly, with a foot’s space left between the bags.

Water and manure are supplied using drip irrigation. “The first harvest can be done after 10 weeks of planting and thereafter harvest can be done every 30 days. One set of plantation can give yield as many as eight times a year. Different varieties of grass can be grown by this method,” says Dr. Giggin.

The innovation is attractive because of the financial gain it can give the farmers. A cow, which is usually given concentrate feed costing Rs.22 a kg, can easily be given five kg of green grass at Rs.5 a kg.

Such a huge saving in production cost will be a boon for the dairy sector which faces regular decline in number of dairy animals every year.

Basic reason

“In a place where land availability for agricultural use is very low due to fragmentation and high cost, dairy farmers resort to expensive concentrate feeds as a replacement for green fodder. This is the basic reason for the high production cost of milk in many states and also the reason for many progressive farmers in Kerala moving away from dairy,” says Dr Giggin.

Apart from growing, farmers can also take up selling the root slips of the green grass that can give them some additional income. A single root costs Rs.2 and there is quite a demand for procuring fresh green grass.

Investment

An investment of Rs.100 a month produces fodder costing Rs.6,000 in six months. Grass grows faster in this method as ample sunlight is available. Moreover nagging problems of pests and weeds are mostly absent. A single bag has a three year utility span. The KVK has initiated this method for paddy cultivation also which is helpful even in water-scarce areas.

“The lush greenery in the terrace prevents direct sunlight from falling on the terrace which in turn reduces the temperature inside the cattle shed. This means less need for fans, and lower power consumption thus saving on electricity,” he says.

Providing green fodder for milch animals has always proved to be a difficult task for cattle rearers because sourcing the grass itself is hard work. Even if available, depending on the season (especially summer months), suppliers charge a huge amount.

Cost

A truckload of green fodder can cost anything from Rs.3000- Rs. 5,000 and depending on the number of animals the farmer needs to buy one or two times a month.

“We have tried this method as an experiment and found it to be quite successful. Our center is now trying to create awareness among cattle growers in the region to adopt a similar method and benefit,” says Dr. Giggin.

Interested farmers can get in touch with Dr. Giggin, Asst Professor, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kannur, Panniyur, Kerala Agricultural University,

Kanhirangad PO: 670142, email: kvkpanniyur@rediffmail.com, mobile:098473 35759, phone:04602 226087.