CATDOLL : CATDOLL: What kinds of bees do you know?

What kinds of bees do you know?

There are more than 100 species, such as bees, wasps, hornets, ground bee gastric bees, wasps, segmented gastric bees, sand gastric bees, big-headed gastric bees, yellow-spotted bees, leaf-cutter bees, etc. The bees that sting are all female bees (worker bees). Male bees do not hurt people because they have no poison glands or stingers; female bees have stingers connected to the poison glands at the tail, and the stingers have reverse hooks. The feeding and management of fixed-site and small-scale bee colonies in spring are to add honeycombs in time, keep two queens in the same nest, prevent and control diseases, organize production groups, replace old queens, and prevent bee theft.

Chinese native bees, this kind of bees are usually made to live in trees or underground rocks by beekeepers, and beekeepers check the development of the bees from time to time. Usually honey is collected once or twice a year. This kind of bees cannot be domesticated artificially, and usually this kind of bees make their homes in trees or grass. It is really a matter of luck to find this kind of honey. The probability of finding this kind of bees in some places with dense primeval forests such as Pu'er is higher. Due to the scarcity of resources, this kind of honey is often more expensive than Chinese native bees. The method of collecting honey is to collect honey from the branches, which is quite unique, so if you see this kind of honey in the picture above, just buy it, it is definitely not fake.

The Sabah bee is a medium-sized species in the genus Apis. It is distributed in Sabah, Malaysia. The Sabah bee is similar to the Oriental honey bee in morphology and living habits, but is slightly larger than the Indian honey bee in the Oriental honey bee. The wing veins of the Sabah bee are abnormal, and the elbow vein index is large and varies greatly, with an average of 7.45±3.04 and a range of 3.53 to 24.74. The third elbow cell is distorted by a significantly shortened M vein. The rear edge of the posterior tibia of the drone has a hairy marginal fringe, and the hair is dense and thick.

The giant honey bee is a large species in the genus Apis. It has a single comb in a row and is commonly known as a row bee. It is distributed in South Asia, Southeast Asia, southern Yunnan, southern Guangxi, and Hainan in China. The giant honey bee has flexible migration behavior depending on the abundance of nectar sources and the seasonal climate. In southern Yunnan, it usually builds a single comb under the horizontal trunk of tall broad-leaved trees or under hanging rocks from May to August to reproduce. After September, it migrates to river valleys and basins at low altitudes and builds nests in dense bushes to overwinter.

The black honey bee is a small black bee species. It is distributed in South Asia and Southeast Asia. In China, it has been found in Jinghong, Mengla in Xishuangbanna Prefecture in southern Yunnan Province, Cangyuan, Gengma in Lincang area and other northern tropical areas south of the Tropic of Cancer. The honeycomb is fixed on the branch, nearly round, with a thick nest top formed on the upper part, which wraps the branch inside, and a pointed lower part, with a total area of ​​nearly 177 to 334 cm2, similar to that of the honey bee.

How to raise black bees

The weather is hot in summer, there is a lack of external nectar sources, the queen bee lays fewer eggs, and the bee colony faces adverse environmental factors such as bee mites, poisoning, and summer decline. Therefore, to ensure that the bees spend the summer safely, the following three measures must be taken. 1. Solve the feed. Feed is an important condition for bees to survive the summer. Each beehive must leave enough 5-8 kg of summer honey. If honey is insufficient, mixed feed can be made artificially for feeding. Mixed feed preparation method: Wrap high-quality watermelon, tomatoes, etc. with 2-3 layers of clean gauze, squeeze them hard, and collect the juice for later use; use fried soybeans to process them into powder for later use. When preparing, use 200 grams of watermelon juice, 70 grams of tomato juice, 100 grams of white sugar, 20 grams of soybean powder, 15 grams of milk powder, 10 grams of salt, and 10 grams of yeast tablets to grind into powder, add 50 grams of cold boiled water and mix well, or use 50 grams of tomato juice and watermelon juice, 100 grams of white sugar, 20 grams of milk powder, 5 grams of salt, and add 30 grams of cold boiled water and mix well. Artificially prepared mixture is fed when the weather is dry and there is a lack of nectar. 2. Prevent and control bee mites. Bee mites are the enemy of bees' safe summering. If they are not prevented and controlled in time, the bee colony will be weakened at best and the whole colony will be wiped out at worst. Treatment method: Wrap sulfur powder in gauze and sprinkle it on the beams of the beehive. 3. Prevent summer decline. In the hot summer, the bees have high labor intensity and their life span is greatly shortened; the queen bee lays fewer eggs, the number of dead bees is greater than the number of born bees, and the colony strength generally shows a downward trend. If the management is not good, the number of bees will drop below 40%, making it impossible to produce royal jelly. Prevention and control methods: Use high-quality new queens to lay eggs, expand the egg circle, and accelerate the reproduction of new bees; choose a place with good air circulation and shade to place bees; or cover the beehive with straw curtains to prevent the sun from increasing the nest temperature and making the bee colony uneasy; enlarge the nest door to allow air circulation in the box; when the weather is too hot, sprinkle cold water outside the box and feed cold boiled water; for crowded bee colonies, add super boxes early, increase honeycombs and nest foundations, and expand the beehive; use young queens to produce royal jelly. Adhere to reward feeding to stimulate the enthusiasm of queen bees to lay eggs and worker bees to raise children. The method is: feed the bees with dilute syrup every evening when the temperature is low. To prevent the bees from being startled during feeding, you can make a rectangular shallow plate and put it in the box for feeding. If there is not enough feed in the nest, feed it with concentrated slurry once, and then reward feeding every day. In addition, prevent pesticide poisoning.

Body length: worker bee 7-8mm; queen bee 12-14mm; drone 10-11mm.

Worker bees have chestnut black bodies, with occasional reddish-brown edges of the dorsal plate of the first abdominal segment and bases of the dorsal plate of the second abdominal segment; queen bees have black bodies, with occasional reddish-brown edges of the dorsal plate of the first abdominal segment and bases of the second to third segments; drones have black bodies.

Black honey bees usually build a single honeycomb hive on small trees on secondary sparse grass slopes below 1,000m above sea level, usually 2.5 to 3.5m above the ground. The honeycomb is fixed on the branches and is nearly round. The upper part forms a thick nest top that wraps the branches inside, and the lower part is pointed. The total area is nearly 177 to 334cm2, similar to that of honey bees.

Black bees are very sensitive to temperature. When the temperature rises to 15℃, they start to move. When the temperature is above 20℃, they are very active. The peak time for daily activity is between 11:00 and 17:00.

The black honey bees have a strong ability to protect their honeycombs. Even when they are busy collecting honey, they never leave the honeycombs exposed. When there is a storm or the sun is shining, the worker bees climb on each other, overlapping in layers, to protect the honeycombs. They are alert and fierce. When people approach, the guard bees under the honeycombs are on alert. If their nests are disturbed, they will fly out and attack as far as 30 to 40 meters.

When collecting honey, smoke is used to drive away the bees, and the honeycombs are cut off. Each group produces about 0.5 kg of honey each time, and it can be harvested 2 to 3 times a year depending on the honey season. The black honey bee is small and flexible, and is an important pollinator for tropical cash crops.

Bees are social creatures, and they work together in groups, each with its own duties. Don't catch them to keep as pets.