CATDOLL : CATDOLL: How to cultivate Chinese bees?

How to cultivate Chinese bees?

Anyone who has raised bees knows that swarming fever will occur in Chinese honey bees when they have 4-5 frames of bees. Once swarming occurs, the colony strength will immediately weaken, and nest insects will take the opportunity to invade. In the hot summer when there is a lack of honey, they often abandon the nest and flee. Chinese honey bees have strong swarming ability, weak colony strength, poor resistance to nest insects and cystic brood disease, love to bite the honeycomb, and low honey production. Therefore, many professional beekeepers do not like to raise them. Although Chinese honey bees have these shortcomings, they can make full use of scattered nectar sources. In places where there are no large concentrated nectar sources, it is better to raise Chinese honey bees than Italian honey bees. How to maintain a large colony of Chinese honey bees is the key to breeding technology.

1. Queen Bee Breeding

The queen bee determines the production performance of the bee colony and is also one of the decisive factors for obtaining high and stable yields of bee products. After the autumnal equinox, the climate is warm, and the main and auxiliary nectar sources are also relatively abundant, especially the Asteraceae plants bloom and secrete nectar all over the mountains and fields, and the bee colonies reproduce quickly. This season is the most suitable season for breeding queen bees in Hainan. To breed queen bees, it is necessary to carry out compound transfer of insects from excellent bee colonies with strong adaptability, weak swarming, large group maintenance and strong collection ability, or select strong and upright naturally capped queen cells from the colony, wait for the virgin five to mate and lay eggs, and then select high-quality queen bees with large bodies, slender abdomens, slightly pointed tails, steady movements, and fast egg-laying movements. Replace the old queen with the cultivated high-quality new queen bee in late autumn and early winter. High-quality new queen bees can not only increase the egg-laying amount, but also lay eggs neatly without drones. It is the main way to obtain effective overwintering bees, and can also create conditions for the spring reproduction and high yield of the following year.

2. Two Kings in One Box

The new queens bred in autumn are used to form a double queen colony, that is, two colonies of bees are raised in a 12-frame nest box in late autumn and early winter, with a Chinese bee frame queen excluder in the middle to separate the two colonies of bees on both sides. The queens cannot communicate with each other, but the two colonies of worker bees can freely pass through the queen excluder and communicate with each other for cooperation. In this way, the weakness of the slow reproduction of Chinese bees is overcome, and the reproduction and cultivation of large honey-collecting colonies is accelerated, especially when the outside temperature is low in winter, and no additional insulation is required, and the temperature in the nest box is quite stable. Due to the stable temperature, the double queen bees lay more eggs, which accelerates the development of the bee colony and lays a good foundation for welcoming the spring flowers, especially the arrival of the large honey flow of litchi and longan.

3. Control swarming

During the rapid growth stage of the colony, it is necessary to control the growth of the number of drones, remove the drone pupae, destroy the queen cell base, increase the honeycombs, avoid the depression of the colony, the decline of the collection ability, etc., pay attention to give full play to the egg-laying ability of the queen bee and the feeding ability of the young bees, increase the feeding burden of the entire colony, and make the egg-laying ability of the queen bee and the feeding ability of the worker bees adapt to each other. In the hot summer, the nest door should be enlarged, attention should be paid to shading and ventilation for the colony, water should be sprinkled outside the beehive to increase the humidity and reduce the nest temperature. Salt should be properly supplemented to the colony. An appropriate amount of salt (0.5%) can be added to the water trough for the colony to take freely. If the colony shows signs of swarming fever during the honey flow period, the pupae of the colony can be extracted and exchanged with the empty honeycombs or egg and worm honeycombs of the weak colony (both must shake off the bees). After the exchange, the colony has no pupae, and the empty honeycombs and egg honeycombs increase, which increases the feeding burden of the worker bees, and the swarming fever will naturally be relieved.

4. Disease prevention and pest control

Cystic brood disease is caused by a virus and is a fatal disease of Chinese honey bees. It often threatens the entire colony and can even quickly spread to other bee colonies. Prevention is more important than treatment for this disease. Generally, heat-clearing and detoxifying drugs are used for prevention. In April and May, when this disease is prone to occur, use Hainan Jinbuhuan (Sophora japonica) to boil water, add syrup to feed or spray. Once cystic brood disease is found, add antiviral drugs to syrup and spray. Once cystic brood disease is found, add antiviral drugs to syrup and spray. The nest worm has strong vitality and amazing reproductive capacity, which is the most harmful to Chinese honey bees. It drills through the honeycomb in the hot season of late spring or early autumn, eats wax and honey, spins silk cocoons, destroys the honeycomb and kills the bee larvae. Prevention methods: First, repair the nest boxes with gaps; secondly, take out extra empty and old combs in time, and kill them with sulfur to make there are more bees than combs; in the nectar season, encourage the worker bees to make more new combs to replace the old ones. In addition, check and clean the bottom of the box regularly to leave no place for nest insects to hide.

Can Chinese bees raise a double-queen colony?

It needs to be determined based on the actual situation. It cannot be decided arbitrarily.

No, this kind of breeding method will cause the death of many bees and will also lead to a decrease in bee production.

In the process of breeding Chinese bees, you can also breed double-queen colonies. The double-queen colonies can reproduce alternately, so that the strength of the bee colony can be strengthened.

A double-queen colony refers to a situation where there are two queens in a bee colony at the same time. Compared with a single-queen colony, it has certain advantages in wintering, cultivating strong colonies, and resisting diseases. However, due to the special habits of Chinese bees, many people do not know whether Chinese bees can raise double-queen colonies. Let's take a look at it together!

1. Can Chinese bees raise a double-queen colony?

First of all, it needs to be made clear that Chinese bees can raise double-queen colonies, especially during the winter and spring breeding, the advantages of double-queen colonies are particularly obvious, but the disadvantages of double-queen colonies are also obvious, such as the lopsided concentration of colonies, the confusion of colony smells, and the difficulty in treating diseases. Moreover, a large proportion of the Chinese bees raised in my country still adopt the traditional soil breeding method, which is very troublesome to implement. Therefore, most of the Chinese bees are still raised with a single queen, and only a few large-scale farms are researching and adopting the double-queen breeding method when breeding Chinese bees on a large scale.

2. Is it necessary to raise a double-queen colony of Chinese bees?

Whether it is necessary to raise double-queen colonies of Chinese bees depends on the actual situation. There is no need to raise double-queen colonies for traditional local breeding or small-scale family breeding, because raising double-queen colonies is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also requires very high technical skills from the beekeeper. However, if it is a large-scale apiary breeding based on beekeeping industry, it is necessary to do it. Double-queen colonies can be organized to overwinter in winter, and used for spring breeding in spring. During the nectar flow period, the double-queen colonies can be split into two colonies, one strong and one weak. The strong colony is used for production, and the weak colony is formed into a double-queen colony for reproduction.

3. What are the advantages of the double-queen colony of Chinese bees?

1. It is beneficial to overwintering: During the winter, the heat preservation of the bee colony is the most important. The double-king colony composed of two groups of bees is larger than any other group. The larger the colony, the stronger its heat preservation ability during the winter. Therefore, the double-king colony is beneficial to the safe overwintering of the bee colony.

2. Fast spring breeding: During spring breeding, a double-queen colony of Chinese bees can lay more eggs than a single queen bee in the same period of time, and even if a queen bee dies accidentally, the colony will not become queenless, which creates a favorable foundation for the development of the colony and the growth of a strong colony.

3. The bee colony has strong resistance: The resistance of the bee colony to the natural environment is related to the colony strength. The larger the colony strength, the stronger the resistance. Therefore, the double-queen colony of Chinese bees is beneficial to enhancing the bee colony's resistance to the external environment, especially in terms of disease resistance, resistance to bee thieves, and resistance to enemies.

4. What are the disadvantages of the double-queen colony of Chinese bees?

1. It is difficult to maintain a strong colony: The temperature inside the double-queen colony of Chinese bees will be relatively high during the hot summer weather, so it is more difficult to maintain a strong colony. When the nectar source is sufficient, the colony will increase its reproduction efforts, resulting in the colony being full of pupae. When the nectar source is insufficient, the double-queen reproduction cannot play a role.

2. Management is more troublesome: The double-queen colony of Chinese honey bees requires the beekeeper to always pay attention to the situation of the two queens. If one colony has swarming fever, both colonies will have swarming fever. When one colony swarms, both colonies will run out. At the same time, the virgin queen is prone to mismating when she goes out to mate, resulting in mating failure.

3. Diseases are difficult to prevent and control: The double-queen colony of Chinese bees has a disadvantage in preventing and controlling diseases. If one colony gets sick, the other colony will also suffer. Moreover, when there is an invasion by enemies such as hornets, the two colonies are prone to fights due to the confusion of their odors.