CATDOLL : CATDOLL: What are the techniques for bee breeding?

Beekeeping is a science, and the breeding techniques are quite particular. How to breed bees well? What technical methods should be learned? I will introduce them to you below, and I hope it will be helpful to you.

Prospects of beekeeping

1. Honey: It is a nutritious natural nourishing food and one of the most commonly used tonics. According to analysis, it contains a variety of inorganic salts and vitamins, iron, calcium, copper, manganese, potassium, phosphorus and other organic acids and trace elements beneficial to human health, which are close to the concentration of human serum. It is a commonly used tonic and is known as "milk for the elderly". Royal jelly is a high-level nutritional product that can not only enhance physical fitness and prolong life, but also treat chronic diseases such as neurasthenia, anemia, and gastric ulcers. Bee pollen is known as a "micro-nutrient bank". After drying, it has different shades of color and can be eaten directly or soaked in cold water as a drink.

2. Beeswax and propolis: Both are raw materials for light industry. Propolis is also known as "purple gold", and its production in the world is less than that of gold.

3. Bee venom: It is effective against bees and can kill bacteria and cause leukemia.

Strong herd management

1. Queen selection: It is advisable to select a queen of level 2 or above with a score of 70 or above. Change the queen in spring or winter, and change the queen once or twice a year to keep the colony strong.

2. Double queen colony and double box breeding: Double queen colony and double box breeding are recommended. Use Lang's ten-frame box or Lang's twelve-frame box, which is 80mm larger than the ten-frame box. Use frame-type queen excluder to divide the space in the box into two chambers, and raise one colony in each chamber. The nest door can be opened in the front of the box. Two frame-type queen excluders can be used to restrict the queen bee to lay eggs in 1 to 2 frames on the side wall, and the center of the box is used for honey storage; or use a queen cage to detain one queen bee, and use a frame-type queen excluder to restrict the other queen bee to lay eggs in 1 to 2 frames on the side, and the rest of the box is used for honey storage. Use a standard ten-frame box of Chinese bees or a FWF type Chinese bee hive, use a frame-type queen excluder to divide the space in the box into two chambers, and raise one colony in each chamber. The nest doors are all opened in the front of the box. Usually, double queen boxes are raised in flat boxes, and super boxes can be added to collect honey during the honey flow period. When adding supers, 3-4 frames of lid combs or large larval combs and 1 honey and pollen comb should be taken from the hive box and placed on one side of the super, with partitions added, and empty combs added to the combs. Queen excluders should be added between the hive box or supers to allow the queen to lay eggs in the hive box, or queen excluders should be left out to allow the queen to lay eggs in the entire hive. Queen excluders should be added between the hive box and super during the honey production period.

3. Keep the bee colony adequately fed: When there is a lack of honey and pollen outside and no storage in the colony, sterilized pollen should be used to feed the beehives, or pollen cakes made of pollen substitutes should be placed on the frame beams for feeding; when there is a lack of honey, use a feeder to hold honey and place it in the beehive for feeding. Feeding should be done at night and the amount of each feeding should be enough for the bee colony to eat for 2 to 3 days.

Management of bee colony during breeding period

1. Breeding period: It is generally divided into spring, summer and autumn. During the breeding period, attention should be paid to keeping warm, supplying sufficient feed, expanding the colony in time, artificially raising the queen, raising two queens in the same box, and preventing and controlling diseases and pests.

2. Artificial queen rearing: Select a bee colony with more than 5 frames, and use queen excluders to divide the bee colony into a queen rearing area and a breeding area. The queen bee stays in the breeding area; honey and pollen combs and larval combs are placed in the queen rearing area. The queen rearing area occupies 2/3 of the original combs, or the queen of the queen rearing colony is temporarily taken out and put back after the queen cell is accepted. Use a narrow queen rearing frame with an inner diameter of 200-250mm and a height of 200-220mm. Install an artificial queen cell with a diameter of 8mm and a depth of 11mm on the queen rearing frame. The distance between cells is 9mm-10mm. Move 15-20 larvae within 24 hours into each frame, and immediately put them into the queen rearing area after the larvae are moved; the next day, take out the queen rearing frame, take out the larvae in the cell base, and then move in 18h-24h larvae from the mother colony to cultivate queen bees.

3. Organize a mating group: Select good varieties that are not related to the mother group or introduced from other places, and cultivate drones 20 days before artificial queen rearing; 10 days after the queen rearing compound transfer, take out 1-2 frames of sealed honeycombs with a lot of pollen and honey from the strong group, and put in a high-quality queen cell with bees. Be careful not to squeeze or invert it to form a mating group. If the queen is lost during mating, put in a mature queen cell. If it is lost twice, the mating group should be merged.

4. Rearing after artificial swarming: Take out a frame of sealed honeycombs, a frame of honey and pollen honeycombs, and a frame of larvae honeycombs from the original group and place them on the side of the next board. Open the side nest door and place the mature queen cell. After the new queen successfully mates, a new group is formed. The new group is reared in the same box with the old group. It is better to rear mother and daughter in the same box or sisters in the same box. If the worker bees gather in one group, the group should be adjusted and the direction of the nest door should be changed. Add foundation and build honeycombs in time, expand the hive, and replace the old honeycombs with new ones. When the group develops to 5 honeycombs, it should be reared in a single box; during the honey flow period or when the temperature is above 25℃, it should be reared in a single box.

Management of bee colonies during summer

1. Summer preparation: From the end of July to the end of August, there is a lack of wild nectar and pollen sources and the temperature continues to rise. This period is the summer period. Before summer, weak colonies with less than 2 frames should be merged, and each colony should be adjusted to 4-5 frames. The nest insects in the box or on the honeycomb should be removed, and there should be 1-2 capped honeycombs in the colony.

2. Cooling management: The beehives should be moved to the shade of trees or eaves, or a pergola should be built for shade. When the temperature is high at noon, water can be sprayed around the beehives to cool them down. The ventilation windows can be opened and the nest doors can be enlarged to help the bee colony cool down. When the temperature exceeds 35℃, water should be fed to the bee colony and water should be sprayed outside the hive to cool the bee colony.

3. Inspection: In hot weather, observation should be mainly conducted from outside the hive to prevent the bee colony from developing the "emotion" of fleeing. If it is found that the worker bees are less present, the hive should be opened for inspection in the evening to improve the conditions inside the hive in a timely manner.

4. Prevention and control of natural enemies: During high temperatures in summer, the beehives should be raised to prevent toads and ants from harming the bee colonies, and natural enemies such as hornets should be caught and killed frequently.

5. Inspection after summering: In early September, sporadic nectar sources appear in the wild and bee colonies begin to reproduce. A comprehensive inspection should be carried out in a timely manner, the colony strength should be adjusted, nest insects should be removed, weak colonies should be merged and reward feeding should be carried out.

Management of bee colonies during wintering

1. During the last nectar flow period, reserve capped honey combs for the bee colony. Merge bee colonies and replace aging queens with poor egg-laying ability.

2. When the last nectar source is about to end, use strong bees and capped honeycombs to supplement small and medium-sized colonies. At the same time, withdraw excess honeycombs in the colony to keep the bees and honeycombs proportional or slightly more bees than honeycombs.

3. Maintain sufficient egg-laying space and honey and pollen feed in the nest, and provide reward feeding.

4. For wintering, choose a high, dry, windproof, quiet, half-shaded and half-sun deciduous tree to place the bee colony. After the leaves fall in the middle and late stages of the forest, the bee colony will have sufficient light. In the early stage of wintering, you only need to add insulation to the sub-cover. In the middle and late stages of wintering, keep the nest warm. When the temperature drops below 0℃ in winter, the bee colony stops feeding the larvae, the bee colony forms a group, and stops collecting activities. In addition, take insulation measures such as wrapping the beehive and leaving the nest entrance open.

5. Management of overwintering bee colonies. Frequent observation outside the box to promptly discover and deal with abnormal conditions of the bee colony overwintering. Listen to the bee colony at the nest door and hear a slight "buzzing" sound or tap the box wall to hear a "buzzing" sound. If the bee colony immediately quiets down, it is normal. Inspection outside the box found that the worker bees were shaking their wings in and out of the nest door, and the sound inside the box was chaotic, indicating that the queen may be lost. The box should be opened for inspection at noon on a sunny and warm day. If the queen is lost, the reserve queen should be lured in or merged into another group. Inspection outside the box found that the bee colony was noisy and restless. Dead bees with broken heads and missing wings were smashed out of the nest, and there were fragments of honeycombs. There may be pests, which should be killed in time to check and plug the learning loopholes. Inspection outside the box found that the bee colony was restless and restless for a long time, which may be due to lack of water or honey. If the bee group is scattered, it indicates a lack of honey, and honeycombs should be added; if honey crystals are taken out from the nest door, 0.2% salt water can be fed at the nest door.

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