Discussions were held on managing various diseases of Italian honey bees and development of quality queen bees of Apis mellifera

The National Bee Board (NBB), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India (GOI), has sanctioned two new projects in Apiculture to the Department of Entomology, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, under the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM) scheme of the GOI. This information was shared Dr DK Sharma, Head of the department.

According to Dr Pardeep Kumar Chhuneja, Incharge of the Apiculture Unit, the new projects included ‘Facilitating honey bee health through diagnosing and managing various diseases of Italian honey bees’ and ‘Development of quality queen bees of Apis mellifera.’

Dr Sharma disclosed that earlier also, PAU was sanctioned two projects in succession by NBB, the previous being on Queen bee rearing and supplies, followed by a mega project of Integrated Beekeeping Development Centre/Centre of Excellence in the year 2016-17 which had bee disease diagnosis and bee breeding as the components.

Dr Jaspal Singh, Principle Entomologist, “PAU is the lead institute in India in breeding of Italian honey bees and supply of quality queen bees to beekeepers.”

Dr Amit Choudhary and Dr (Mrs) Bharathi Mohindru are the Principal Investigators of the projects, respectively, according to whom, these projects will facilitate in building necessary infrastructure and developing technologies in the areas of bee pathology and bee breeding.

DK Tiwari, Vice-Chancellor, PAU and Additional Chief Secretary, Punjab; and Dr Ajmer Singh Dhatt, Director of Research, congratulated the apiculture team and wished them for the successful conduct of the projects.