Bee forage and district wise floral calender of west bengal introduction

BEE FORAGE AND DISTRICT WISE FLORAL CALENDER OF WEST BENGAL

Introduction

West Bengal as the name implies, is the western part of a larger regional entity named Bengal. Lying entirely in the northern hemisphere, the state lies between 21^◦ 38’ N and 27^◦ 10’ N latitudes and 85^◦ 50’ E and 89^◦ 50’ E longitudes. West Bengal covers an area of 87,616 square kilometers. It is bounded along the northern frontiers by the great Himalayas, stretches southwards beyond the tropic of cancer, broad down to the Bay of Bengal in the east. The West Bengal is pre-eminently a land of rivers. The Ganges river basin constitutes about 50 per cent of the state. Brahmaputra has the greatest volume of water of all the rivers. Mahanandi is an important river in Malda. West Bengal has 3 main land regions:

1. 
   The Himalayas in the north zone: The mountain area in the north, though small, is a part of the world’s loftiest mountains, the Himalayas, which rise to eternal snows in north or Darjeeling, dominated by Kanchanjanga and her five satellite peaks. The lofty range of Singalila rising along the Nepal Boarder to the west of the town is covered by Rhododendron forests, which provides good forage for honey bees during April and May
   
2. 
   The Plateau Fringe: This is a rolling upland, with small isolated standing here and there contains green forests of Sal, Mahua, Palash etc. provide good forage for honeybees during spring.
   
3. 
   The plains: The vast alluvial plains of the state spread from Jalpaiguri and Siliguri in the north to the Sunderban creeks and the Kanthi littoral in the south. The plains are Mahananda Corridor and Malda plains in the north; South western plains in Ganga banks; South western plains; Sunderbans and kanthi coastal strip.
   

Seasons and Climate

The climate of West Bengal is generally tropical, hot and humid, monsoon type, except the northern mountains , where the altitutde high. There are four well-defined seasons in West Bengal: the winter (December to February), the summer (March-May) advance of monsoon (June to August)Retreat of the monsoon (September to November).

Natural Vegetation

Cultivated Vegetation

Efficiency of the bee-keeping Industry in any country primarily depends on proper utilization of the flora and its improvement so as to augment the component species providing bee-forage. This necessarily requires critical studies of the flora with emphasis on relative evaluation of the individual plant species as nectar or pollen sources. The breeding season of honeybees and honey flow season synchronizes with abundance of food sources in the form of nectar and pollen from profusion of flowering in the locality The field observations on the vegetation are important fore formulation of floral calendar to standardize management patterns of bee colonies. Of these observations most important are

1. 
   Flowering time and duration of bee forage plants.
   
2. 
   Relative importance and abundance of pollen and nectar
   
3. 
   Relative densities or area coverage.