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TNAU’s research on honey and stingless bees

BUSY AT WORK: TNAU will be the lead centre for stingless bee research

COIMBATORE: The National Resource Development Board of the Department of Biotechnology has sanctioned a new network project titled “Morphometry and Phylogeography of Honeybees and Stingless bees” for three years to be partly implemented by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

According to Vice-Chancellor C. Ramasamy, the project will intensify research on honeybees and stingless bees in the States of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir. It will involve a total of eight institutions in these States.

“Api-biotechnology is a new frontier research area recently identified by the Department of Biotechnology for utilising biotechnological interventions for improving and exploiting the bee wealth of the country,” R. Samiyappan, Director of the Centre for Plant Protection Studies of the university, said.

According to him, there will be three sub-projects that will be carried out under the main project.

The first sub-project will involve documenting the biodiversity of honeybees and stingless bees in 30 different agro-climatic zones in the selected States. Molecular characterisation of native honeybee species will also be taken up for the first time through the project.

Another sub-project will involve determining genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship of honeybee population occurring in different agro-climatic regions. This will be done using micro-satellite markers and mitochondrial genes.

The university’s Director of Research B. Chandrasekaran added that the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, Karnataka, would be the main centre for co-ordinating the research pertaining to honeybees.

The third sub-project on bioecology of stingless bees and evolving improved meliponicultural techniques has been allotted to TNAU.

TNAU will be the lead centre for stingless bee research. This research will bring out the life secrets of the bees and document floral resources that provide nectar, pollen and resin for their sustenance.

Techniques for multiplying and managing bee colonies for obtaining twin benefits of medicinal honey and crop pollination will also be evolved to benefit the end users.

In addition, suitable hives that will permit good colony growth and allow efficient honey extraction will be designed and field-tested through this project.

M. Muthuraman, Professor of Entomology of TNAU, will be the principal investigator, while S. Mohan Kumar, Professor of Biotechnology, the co-principal investigator.

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