This presentation has been supported by the Erasmus Plus
K2 Cooperation Partnerships Grant.
Innovation of the structure and content of study programs in the field of animal genetic and food
resources management with the use of digitalization innovation.
The European Commission support for the production of this presentation does not constitute
an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors
and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which
may be made of the information contained therein.
Modul no. 4: Precision Livestock Farming
My name is Dorota Kołodziejczyk
and I teach at Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities
in the Institute of Animal Science and Fisheries.
The topic of the presentation is honeybee
and its importance in human food economy.
The honeybee is the leader among insects.
It pollinates flowers, and thanks to its work,
the flora is reborn every year.
It is to them that we are not only honey, but also fruits and vegetables.
The share of the honeybee in pollination is 80 to 90%.
The features that predestinate it for this task are: the floral fidelity,
the ability to communicate and develop social instinct
as well as a large population.
When the bees disappear from the face of the earth,
men will only have four years to live
Have look at history beekeeping. The history of man is closely
related to the history of the Bee.
The oldest existing record of the existence of beekeeping
are Paleolithic wall paintings from the Arana Cave in the province of Valencia in Spain,
depicting honey pickers from the nest of wild bees.
They date back to 12,000 years.
Painting from Arana cave – Spain
The benefits of using the work of bees were known to all ancient civilizations.
The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians
and Chinese used honey as a healing agent
honey was also used for embalming
corpses
the Babylonians burying the dead,
smeared them with honey, a symbol of eternal happiness.
For the ancient Greeks, it was the elixir of life and the nectar of the gods. During feasts,
It was used along with water, oil and milk
The greatest
flourishing of beekeeping was observed in ancient Rome.
Numerous beehives made of straw and clay
dating back to 900 B.C., have been discovered in modern day Israel.
Historical data indicate their yield of 500
kilograms of honey and 70 kilograms of wax per year.
Initially, humans searched for the nests of wild bees and took honey from them,
which almost always meant the destruction of the bee colony.
However, humans quickly tried to gain permanent access to honey.
This predatory activity was replaced before 500 B.C.
keeping bees in wild conditions
Honey hunting
Working with bee hives requires a great deal of knowledge
as well as patience, delicacy, attention and finally experience.
So beekeepers were universally respected and admired.
This found expression in the old legislation.
Beekeepers were generally free people.
They had the right to bear arms, hunt and fish,
separate honey hunting courts and collections of honey.
Hunting laws were also created.
One of the areas of intensive beekeeping activity was the Bialowieza Forest,
where you can still find many hundreds of years old
Beekeeping trees and traces of beekeeping activity.
The development of industry and construction
caused a greater demand for wood, which contributed to the decline of beekeeping in favor
of creating apiaries and home hives,
along with moving bee colonies closer to home
modifications were made to the construction of bee rooms
and more time was devoted to caring for them and observing biology.
The monks who kept bees for the sake of the wax
needed for the production of candles, seals and honey.
A food and medicinal product contributed in particular
to the dissemination of beekeeping reality
in the world.
The 16th century brought a lot of information on the biology of bees.
It has been discovered that the Queen bee is raised from the eggs by the worker
bees and is the actual female. In the next century
research was carried out on the anatomy of bees, the sex of drones and workers.
The origin of nectar, Honeydew and propolis were determined.
The 19th century, apart from scientific research,
abounded in many inventions and practical conveniences.
A hose press, a smoker and a slicer were created.
Changes were introduced in the construction of the hive.
Queen bees were raised in natural and artificial cells.
According to Crane 1990,
at the beginning of the 20th century,
the Queen bee was artificially inseminated for the first time,
which enables faster progress in breeding and medicinal product
contributed in particular to the dissemination of beekeeping.
An outstanding personality who combined scientific research
with beekeeping practice was Father JAN DZIERŻON (1811- 1906)
a world famous Polish beekeeper
who announced and later proved the theory of parthenogenesis.
(The virgin birth) only drones are born from an unfertilized egg cell.
He dealt with the origin of royal jelly wax, fat body, construction of hives.
He proved the importance of bees as pollinators.
The honeybee is one of the many species of the bees.
Superfamily, Apoidea.
It is the only one that brings so much benefit
to man and can be kept under controlled conditions.
The honeybee is a farm animal closely related to
and dependent on the natural environment.
It is difficult to say that it is a domesticated animal like some mammals or birds.
Although man has been using it for over 10,000 years.
But it is safe to say that the bee is a social insect.
Polymorphism * Queen
The individual that gathers and unites the whole family is the queen bee.
She lives the longest in the whole family.
4 to 5 years.
The drone bee does not do any work in the family because it has no wax glands,
no baskets on the legs, tissue proboscis, and a small goiter.
They have adapted specifically for successful fertilization.
The worker bee collects nectar, pollen,
honeydew water and balsamic substances.
It exchanges food, transmits information and maternal substance.
It also cleans cells from exudate, feces,
remnants of the cap. Feeds the larvae,
processes food, patrols and defends the nest
built slices and cleans.
In addition to the honeybee called Apis mellifera
the genus apis l includes six species. Bush bee
Apis andreniformis,
red bee (Apis koschevnikowi), dwarf bee (Apis florea),
giant bee (Apis dorsata),
rock bee (Apis laboriosa),
eastern bee (Apis cerana).
All species of the bee genus formed well-organized communities
build wax combs for raising offspring and storing food
They feed on pollen, nectar and honeydew.
They form families consisting of 20 to 80 thousands individuals
that can adapt to changing environmental conditions.
They differ in anatomy and morphology
range of occurrence, different ways of nesting (places
number and size of combs).
Ways of coping with lack of food and environmental conditions.
(Winter, seasonal migrations.)
All species except the honeybee are of little economic importance as they cannot be kept under controlled
The honey bee (Apis mellifera L)
is native to Europe and Africa.
It is also found in the Americas, Australia, South and East Asia,
where it was introduced by man. In the honeybee species
25 populations were distinguished, which due to their behavior
and geographical spread, were divided into four groups.
In Poland, four geographical breeds are allowed for breeding.
Central European,
from the Group of European and North African Bees.
Carniolan
from the Group of Balkan Bees.
Italian
From the group of Balkan bees.
Caucasian
from the Group of Oriental Bees.
An important place in bee breeding work
is occupied by research on the biological characteristics and behavior of bees.
The role of breeding work
is genetic improvement
of the bee population, which leads to an increase
in their utility value.
The evaluation of the value in use comes down
to the measurement of the basic functional characteristics.
Honey and wax yield
Additional functional features
are gentleness,
low tendency to robbery
sticking to combs
non swarming
Breeding work
Breeding work is carried out in two main ways.
Bees are perfected in small regional closed populations
for a specific environment and in one direction
additive volatility is used.
The population is closed to the flow of genes from the outside,
although such a possibility is allowed.
The breeder must fight inbreeding and maintain variability within sex values.
It is necessary to use artificial insemination.
The second way is to introduce a program based on hybridization.
The use of heterosis and the compensatory effects of different races.
There is a need to maintain different lines and thus large populations.
This requires large expenditures.
Programs of this type are implemented in the USA
and Australia greatly.
Insemination of bees
On the following pictures we can see the process of insemination of bees
The everted copulatory organ of a drone
Retrieving sperm from a drone
Dormant mother placed in a cage
Opening the abdomen of a queen bee
Artificial insemination of the queen bee
Economic importance of bees
Proper nutrition and leading a proper lifestyle
are the basic conditions for maintaining health and longevity.
It is important to ensure that our daily diet contains a complete set of
ingredients necessary for the proper functioning of the body. In highly developed countries,
there is no problem with food shortage, but there are difficulties in choosing valuable foodstuffs. More and more consumers realize that they eat inadequately and look for healthy food products.
Honey is a natural food product with high nutritional medicinal
and caloric value with health promoting properties.
Other products of bee origin used in the agrifood,
pharmaceutical or cosmetic industries are also valuable, namely
propolis, royal jelly, pollen, bee bread, wax and bee venom.
The basic components of honey are carbohydrates and water.
The monosaccharides present in honey in the greatest amount
are glucose and fructose, which are reducing sugars.
In the case of disaccharides, it is mainly maltose.
Sucrose, on the other hand, is a non reducing disaccharides.
Other sugars occurring in smaller amounts
are tri and polysaccharide oats.
Honey also contains organic acids from various
aliphatic and aromatic groups that affect the overall acidity of honey.
Lactic malic formic, succinic, citric, butyric, gluconic
mineral compounds, potassium iron, calcium sodium,
manganese, phosphorus cobalt, copper vitamins
b c, e, h, p nitrogen compounds.
On this slide, you can see a table which notes three types of honey
a nectar honeydew as well as their varieties. Honey varieties: nectar, rapeseed, acacia, linden, buckwheat, heather, multiflorous honeydew fir, spruce, pine, larch, birch, maple nectar-honeydew
Many people use honey for its healing benefits.
Some of the specific reasons for using honey
are the facts that it lowers blood pressure and dilates blood
vessels, inhibits the atherosclerotic process, has antibiotic
anti-inflammatory, expectorant and regenerating effects,
acts on pathogenic microorganisms in the respiratory tract.
The contained Essential Oils Act on microbes in the epithelium of the mucous membrane.
Has anti allergic properties.
Works on the liver, bile ducts, kidneys urinary tract
prevents urolithiasis, helps in the treatment of diabetes
causes rapid healing of wounds, purulent wounds and burns,
prevents tooth decay, anti-inflammatory and regenerating, relieves muscle cramps
suitable for compresses for bruises and petechiae
Beeswax is secreted by the wax glands of worker bees
flows out of the tubules and solidifies in the form of thin
white scales upon contact with air.
The main raw material during its production is carbohydrates.
Bees use about four kilograms of honey to produce one kilogram of this product.
The amount of wax
produced during a bee's lifetime does not exceed half of its body weight.
Wax consists of hydrocarbon and fatty acids,
hydroxy acids, alcohols, esters.
It is a solid melts at 60.3 to
65.2 degrees Celsius, dissolves in organic solvents.
It has a pleasant smell and color from almost white through various shades of yellow and green to brown.
It is used for the production of hoses in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
(paste, varnish, polish)
machine industry (preservative pastes and lubricants), as well as for the production
of candles, souvenirs, etc.
Pollen is an excellent product, supplementing deficiencies in the human diet.
It contains essential amino acids, vitamins,
bio elements and phytohormones that regulate life processes
as well as bactericidal and fungicidal substances.
These pollen is used to alleviate many ailments such as anemia, hypertension,
atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, neurosis and many others.
Royal jelly is a secretion of the throat glands of worker bees.
It is used to feed the larvae, queen bees.
It can also be eaten by worker bees and drones.
It has a white or slightly yellow color
and a bitter sour, slightly sweet taste.
It contains many substances that have a beneficial effect
on human health, including carbohydrates,
exogenous amino acids, protein substances, natural dyes,
minerals, fatty acids,
enzymes, vitamins
and female hormones
It is used both internally and externally.
It has strong bactericidal properties, fights, viruses from group A
and B inhibits the growth of mold and yeast.
it protects the liver against poisoning
with toxic substances and supports it in states of failure.
It lowers cholesterol and dilates the coronary vessels.
It has high nutritional values, has a beneficial effect on metabolism
and in the treatment of anemia and diseases of old age.
A royal jelly also fights numerous skin
ailments and is used in cosmetics as an ingredient in many cosmetics.
Propolis is made of resinous substances collected and processed by bees.
It is used to disinfect all parts of the bees nest, including the combs,
to seal the openings, especially before winter, and to embalm
two large impurities that are impossible to remove.
Propolis contains
50% to 80% of resins,
4% to 15% of essential oils, 12% to 40% of waxes,
4% to 10% of tannins,
5% to 11% of pollen acids, alcohols,
flavonoids, terpenes, mechanical impurities,
Propolis extracts have a bactericidal
and bacteriostatic effect. Due to its properties
Propolis is used in diseases: cardiovascular
otolaryngology, dermatological, layout genitourinary,
layout respiratory, layout food,
All obtained bee products are used as a medicinal agent or medicinal food.
Originally, the products were used in natural medicine.
Now they are more and more often used in unconventional medicine or as a supplement
to traditional pharmacological treatments called apitherapy.
However, it should be emphasized that bees bring more benefits to humans
as pollinators of plants than as suppliers of honey
and other products.
Thank you for your attention.