> The main problem in modern beekeeping with Apis cerana is that after transferring the Apis cerana colonies from traditional hives into the modern hives they immediately absconded. Apis cerana stores little amount of surplus honey on an average 4.5 kilogram of honey per colony.

HIMALAYAN HONEYBEES AND BEEKEEPING IN NEPAL

* * *

> Keeping oriental honeybees in movable-frame hives appears to meet with varying degrees of success, most of the difficulty lying not so much in questions of hive design and size as in the bees' biological characteristics. Beekeepers in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical Asia agree in finding that absconding by colonies is their main problem, even more prevalent in the tropics than in the other regions. It is a form of the bees' genetic behaviour which enables them to evade attacking enemies and to migrate to other foraging areas during dearth periods. Although this trait is biologically favorable to the bees, it constantly threatens beekeepers with the loss of their colonies. Thus, the economic success of beekeeping with A. cerana depends essentially on minimizing the rate of absconding of the honeybees.

> The bee mite Varroa jacobsoni is a parasite of Apis cerana indigenous to the entire continent of Asia. Wherever colonies of the oriental honeybees are kept, there is therefore a possibility of mite infestation. Through millions of years of being parasitized by the mite, the bees appear to have developed some degree of resistance to its attacks. Absconding is one of the colony's manners of ridding itself of the mite, or at least of those infesting the brood, which in such cases is abandoned. Colonies heavily infested by Varroa produce little or no honey, but most often the beekeeper can lose the entire colony when it absconds.

Beekeeping with oriental honeybees (Apis cerana)
FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 68/4
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations
Rome, 1990

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