Roland Y. Fajardo, DVM, MSc.

February 2024
5 DVM A and 5 DVM B
CLASS SCHEDULE
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM, online
Long Quiz 1: March 14, 2024
1 Hour Exam: April 2, 2024
Midterm*: April 8 to 12, 2024
References:
Philippine National Standards: Code of Good Beekeeping
Practice (DA-BAFS- available Online)
Philippine National Standards: Honey (DA-BAFS- available
Online)
Good beekeeping practices for sustainable apiculture (Food
and Agriculture Organization- available online)
Various online sources, published research, and educational
beekeeping videos in youtube.com
Roland Y. Fajardo, DVM, MSc.
February 2024
The science and art of beekeeping.
 It involves all aspects of the sector: knowledge of bees,
maintaining of hives and colonies, bee products, their
uses and markets, trade and equipment fabrication.

Meliponiculture: Beekeeping of Stingless Bees

(Meliponines: Tribe Meliponini)
20,000 species
Adults range in size
from about 2 mm to 4
cm
 SOCIAL BEES
• Related bees live • 10% of total bee
together species
• Infertile females • Produces honey
• Division of labor • Can be aggressive

SOLITARY BEES
• Bees are isolated • Super pollinator
• All females are fertile• Gentle
• Builds own nest • 90% of total bee
• No hive and honey species
All bees that produce honey
Social bees that live together in nests or hives
Generally refers to the 7 members of the genus Apis.
Apis mellifera, the most popular domestic honeybee,
also called the European honeybee or the western
honeybee.
Apis mellifera (European honeybee)
• Most widespread bee for honey production
• introduced honey bee species in the
Philippines, commonly used
• in commercial beekeeping; produces an
average of 30 to 40 kg of honey per colony
per year. Some can reach to 100 kg!
Apis florea (dwarf honey bee)
• The dwarf honey bee (or red dwarf honey
bee), is one of two species of small, wild honey
bees of southern and southeastern Asia.
• First identified in the late 18th century, Apis
florea is unique for its morphology, foraging
behavior and defensive mechanisms like
making a piping noise.
• They have open nests and small colonies
Apis dorsata dorsata- black and yellow
Apis dorsata breviligula- black and white
• Giant honeybee/ rockbees
• Putyukan, pukyutan
• Builds single comb, suspended from the
rocks or branches of tall trees and reaching
a maximum length of 6ft.
• Aggressive and truly wild
• 40-60 kg of honey per year
Apis cerana indica (Asian Honeybee)
• Ligwan, Laywan
• constructs multiple combs in sheltered
places
• prone to heavy swarming and abandoning
(absconding), robbing , and does not
collect propolis
• they are resistant to pests and diseases
• 2-5 kg of honey per colony per year
Tetragonula spp (Stingless bee)
• Libog, lukot, tigtig, kiwot
• Indigenous stingless bee species that can
be domesticated
• Lives in permanent hives, no swarming
• Stores honey in combs
• Production: 1 to 2 kg of honey per year
 Honey bees live in colonies and
has a caste
 Honey bee colonies consist of a
single queen, hundreds of male
drones and 20,000 to 80,000
female worker bees. Each honey
bee colony also consists of
developing eggs, larvae and
pupae.
 The most important caste in the
colony
 Only function is to lay eggs
 Mother of all members of the
colony
 Queen’s presence carries the
morale of the colony (produces
pheromones that maintains
cohesion of the colony)
 The males
 They are haploids
 Not productive to the survival of the
colony
 Depends on worker bees for feeding
 Important only for mating purposes
 Has broader, thicker and shorter
abdomen than the size of the queen.
 All females
 Females produced from
fertilized eggs
 The working caste
 Non-reproductive
 Worker bees gather pollen in
the pollen baskets on their back
legs and carry it back to the
hive where it is used as food for
the developing brood.
 Apiary: Bee yard,
an area of a
collection of hives
or colonies of bees
kept for their
products or
pollination
services
 Bee pollen
The pollen dislodged
from the pollen
basket of foraging
bees and collected in
a pollen trap or
removed from the
comb
 Bee smoker
A device designed to
generate smoke from
smoldering various
fuels blown to the
hive to calm the bees
 Beehive
A structure in where
bees are kept; house
of bees
 Bees Wax
Wax secreted from
glands on underside
of bee abdomen,
molded to form
honey combs
 Brood
Refers to the
immature stages of
bees such as egg,
larva, and pupa that
will develop into
adult bees
 Cappings
The thin layer of new
wax that bees build
over the ripened
honey
 Cerumen
A mixture of wax
and resin and is used
by stingless bees to
make pots for
storage of honey
 Comb
A structure manufactured
by bees out of beeswax and
consisting of hexagon-
shaped cells fitted side by
side and used by bees to
raise brood and store honey
and pollen: also called
honeycomb
 Commercial apiary
An apiary consisting of a
minimum of 500 colonies
for stingless bees and 200
colonies for honey bees
 Forage zone
Land or bodies of water within
three (3) km and 500 m radius of
the edge of honey bee and
stingless bees, respectively, which
provides bees with water, nectar,
honey dew, pollen and propolis
 Honey
The natural sweet substance produced by bees from the
nectar of plants or from secretions of living plants or
excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of
plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with
specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store
and leave in the honey comb or in the cerumen pot to ripen
and mature
 Honey flow
Period when flowers are
producing enough nectar to
allow significant honey storage

 Honey Super
A hive box or hive bodies with
frames where honey is stored
and ripened
 Meliponiary
A location where stingless bees
colonies are kept
 Nucleus colony
A smaller hive, sometimes in a smaller box, consisting of
bees in all stages of development, their food, a laying
queen, and enough workers to cover three (3) to five (5)
combs; also called nuc or starter colony
 Propolis
Resinous substances collected by
bees from plant buds, sap flows,
or other botanical sources used
by them as sealant for unwanted
open spaces in the hive
 Ripe Honey
Honey from which bees have
evaporated sufficient moisture so
that it contains the acceptable
moisture content
 Royal Jelly
A glandular secretion of worker
bee and placed in queen cells for
larval food
 Solar wax melter
A glass covered box that uses the
heat of the sun to melt beeswax
and to separate it from honey
and other material
 Swarm
An aggregate of bee colony that
leaves the hive to establish a new
colony; it is a natural means of
reproduction of the bee colonies
 Wild honey
Honey harvested from wild bee
colonies
 Terminologies  Beekeeping Basics:
 Bee Products  Housing
 World Situationer  Management
 Philippine Situationer  Harvesting
 Production of Honey  Pests and Diseases, Control
 Bee Forage Profiles and Treatment
 Genetics and Breeding  Research, biotech,
advancements, and future
prospects