Equipments for Apiculture

Bee-plants:

           A large number of bee plants species are found plenty throughout the country round the year. At least 10 are major.They are: Brassica napus L., Litchi chinensis Camb., Zizyphus jujuba Lamk., Moringa oleifera Lam., Cocos nucifera, Helianthus annus L., Eugenia jambolana Lamk., Coriandrum sativum L., Citrus sp., Sesamum indicum Dc.

               

Colony Performance Standards

A strong colony has these characteristics:

1. Bee Population

A. Prolific queen

(1) Full brood pattern on frame

(2) Few skipped cells

(3) 8 to 16 or more frames of brood (beginning

of honey flow on approximately April 15)

B. Worker bees

(1) 60,000 to 100,000 bees

(2) 30,000 to 40,000 or more field bees

(3) 3,500 bees per pound or frame

(4) 20 full frames of bees in brood chambers

(5) 10 frames of super covered with bees

C. Drone bees

(1) 1,000 or more in strong colony

(a) Appear in March

(b) Disappear in October

(c) Seasonal (45-day life span) forindividual drones

Equipments:

* All equipment or colonies purchased from another beekeeper should be inspected by the bee inspector from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.

* All hive equipment should be of the modern Langstroth type with hanging, movable frames as

required by the Tennessee Apiary Law.

* All hive equipment should be the standard size for interchanging as needed.

Here  a typical model of Artificial honey bee chamber are given :
It is a box consisted of several frames having precise space of 1.0 cm that honeybees can pass through without instinctively connecting two adjacent surfaces with a bridge of wax. The concept of the "bee space" opened the way for development of this removable frame hive, which permit both the close examination of the bees and the nondestructive removal of honey. Numerous hive designs are available in Bangladesh, but a combination of trial, error, and research eventually led to the type of the hive in widespread use today made of wooden boxes with removable frames of comb.