Hobbies are a good pass time and those associated with nature always carry an added attraction.
One of such popular and fruitful hobbies is beekeeping; cultivation of honey bees and deriving various products from them.
Honey bees are special insects with a unique ability of producing honey; a sweet product savored by man.
They produce honey from the nectar of flowers and feed them to the bee larvae during winter.
There have been references to man s use of the sweet and tasty honey from natural bee hives during stone age.
Over centuries, man started beekeeping as a hobby in hollow logs and moved on to discover easier tools and methods to breed them.
Beekeeping is a worthwhile hobby and a unique experience.
The activity is generally done in a bee hive with bees.
Throughout the cultivation period it is wise to use gloves, veils and a smoker for protection from bee stings.
A bee hive can be either constructed with an expert s consultation or bought from the market.
The basic criteria for a bee hive is that it should consist of a bottom board and a hive cover with five square supers in between; each super containing nine to ten square frames of comb.
This is to ensure that the bees nurture their young; store honey and pollen.
The most important point is to have the right kind of bees in a bee hive for breeding.
There are three types of bees in a bee colony: the queen, the workers and the male drones.
The queen, with an identification mark on the thorax is the reproductive female and rules the bee family.
Workers are the non fertile females and drones are the male bees, comparatively larger in size than the workers.
Spring to summer is the peak of breeding season in bees.
During this period the queen mates with many drones outside the hive and stores enough sperm to fertilize thousands of eggs.
A fertile queen generally lays about two thousand eggs a day.
Larvae hatching take place in about three to four days.
Once the honey is stored to feed the larvae, it is extraction time.
It is done by removing the frames, blowing the bees with a blower, smoking the area to prevent them from stinging and uncapping the cells.
The main product honey is a kitchen s forever favorite ingredient relished by all age groups.
Honey is used in the preparation of cakes, baked products, salads, breakfast cereal, snack bars, jams etc.
It is a medical remedy for many ailments and widely used for beauty products.
The aroma of a beeswax candle makes an evening brighter and soothing. Beeswax is also used extensively in products like ear plugs, crayons, balms, dreadlocks, encaustic paintings, jewelry, bronze preservation, furniture polish etc.
An elevating and nature friendly activity; it enhances the natural cycle of nature, brings out useful products and creates an eco-friendly environment.
Practicing it certainly contributes to society at large.
A honeybee hive does not occupy a large area, so it can be every person s hobby.
All it requires is a dedicated and keenly interested individual.
The joy derived out of breeding bees is in itself as sweet as honey!