Increased Honey Yield of Apis cerana japonica Using Half-Sized Flow® Frames in a Traditional Japanese Beehive

Abstract

Traditional beekeeping in Japan with Japanese honey bees faces challenges. The introduction of Western honey bees in 1877 (Kojima et al., 2011) led to the marginalization of Japanese honey bees due to the Western honey bees’ higher honey production (Theisen-Jones & Bienefeld, 2016) and ease of transportation for pollination services. Wild colonies of Japanese honey bees must be captured for honey harvesting purposes since grafting queen bees is challenging and queen bees and colonies are not available for commercial purchase. Three major challenges are recognized throughout the industry: low honey yields, a tendency to abscond (Maeda & Sakamoto, 2016) and honey is typically only extracted once per year (Sakai & Matsuka, 1982) due to hive design and low honey production.