CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Can Italian bee queen breeding sticks be used to breed Chinese bee queen cells?

1. Can Italian bee queen breeding sticks be used to breed Chinese bee queen cells?

No, the Italian queen cell is larger than the Chinese queen cell, so it is not suitable. You can melt the beeswax and use a wooden stick to make a Chinese queen cell.

There are two ends of the queen raising stick, the smaller end is for Chinese bees.

Bring a capped Italian honeycomb to the Chinese bee colony. After the Italian bees leave the hive, raise the queen together with the Chinese and Italian bees. Use a large-headed queen raising stick for the queen cup and Chinese bees for the larvae. You will have a pleasant surprise [yeah][ok][hehe]

2. When an Italian bee colony is breeding queen cells, how does the “priming” operation help?

The method commonly known as the method of cultivating queen cells with the help of Italian bee colonies is actually the process of "inducing royal jelly" with the help of Italian bee colonies. What is "inducing royal jelly"? Here I would like to share with you an important skill of artificial queen breeding. After the queen cell base on the queen breeding frame is cleaned by worker bees, the artificial larvae transfer operation will begin. In order to increase the acceptance rate of the bee colony to the larvae, the beekeeper uses a jelly pen and royal jelly to introduce a small amount of royal jelly at the bottom of the queen cell base, which can increase the acceptance rate of the larvae.

So, can we cultivate Chinese bee queen cells in Italian bee colonies? Of course, this is a feasible method. The specific steps are as follows: beekeepers organize Italian bee queen breeding colonies and adopt the method of "retest insect transfer". After the queen cell base on the queen breeding frame is cleaned by Italian bees, the first artificial insect transfer operation begins. Don't think that Chinese bee larvae are transferred in. However, Italian bee larvae are transferred in the queen cell base. After 8 to 24 hours of artificial insect transfer, the beekeeper takes out the queen breeding frame and performs the retest insect transfer operation. At this time, the royal jelly in the queen cell base is sufficient, and then the Chinese bee larvae are transferred in. After the insect transfer work is completed, don't rush to put the queen breeding frame into the Italian bee colony. You need to put the queen breeding frame into the Chinese bee queen breeding colony.

After doing this, you will find that the cultivation of queen bee cells in Italian bee colonies is actually a "priming" operation with the help of Italian bee colonies to increase the royal jelly reserves in the queen cells and avoid the lack of royal jelly in the queen cells. Is it difficult to improve the royal jelly excretion ability of the worker bees in the queen breeding colony? Here is a simple and time-saving and labor-saving method for everyone.

Solve the problem of insufficient queen bees in the royal cell base, and be better than the method of "inducing royal jelly" in the Italian bee colony. Royal jelly is the secretion of the pharyngeal glands of young worker bees that cultivate larvae in the honeycomb. It is the food for the larvae that will become queen bees, and it is also the lifelong food of the queen bee. The royal jelly glands of worker bees aged 7 to 15 days are vigorous. Worker bees in this period consume pollen and then spit out royal jelly to feed larvae under 3 days old, including worker bee larvae on the honeycomb.

Whether it is a Chinese bee colony or an Italian bee colony, the management skills of artificial queen rearing can improve the amount of honey produced by worker bees. First of all, the advantage of reward feeding. During the two periods of emergency queen cell construction and artificial queen rearing, the bee colony should be given continuous reward feeding. When the pollen in the colony meets the worker bees' consumption, the amount of honey produced by the worker bees in feeding the queen cells can be increased.

3. How do bees breed queen bees?

In the process of bee breeding, it is very important to cultivate high-quality queen bees. The quality of the queen bee directly affects the reproductive capacity and the future development of the bee colony. A good queen bee has strong reproductive capacity and is easy to maintain a strong colony. The bees bred by it also have strong collecting ability, which is directly related to the honey production. However, there have always been more or less difficulties in breeding queen bees, which has also made artificial queen breeding a major problem in everyone's mind. So how do bees cultivate queen bees?

Selection of bee species source

1. Bee farm selection: You can import bees from other bee farms to improve the bee genes and make the population better. Of course, if you cannot buy queen bees, you can choose high-quality queen bees from your own bee farm. In this way, beekeepers will understand the bees they raise and know which group of bees is the best and has the most potential, so they can breed with confidence.

2. Population selection: You can select bee colonies with strong reproductive ability as the population for breeding queen bees. After the old queen bee lays new larvae, you can selectively transfer the larvae, and then deliberately retain the drones of a part of the population so that they can mate with the new virgin queen bee. At the same time, when selecting bee colonies, pay attention to selecting bee colonies with slightly larger individual bees, and make the best selection based on your local climate, breeding conditions, breeding requirements, etc.

Queen bee breeding time

The time for breeding queen bees varies due to different climatic conditions and the distribution of nectar plants across the country. The time for breeding queen bees should be determined according to the local climate and the nectar flow of nectar plants. Generally, queen bees are bred in spring and autumn because there are abundant nectar sources and suitable climate in these two seasons, and the quality of bred queen bees and the success rate of mating are also high.

Breeding of drone bees for breeding

In order to ensure that the male queen bee can produce a large number of high-quality unfertilized eggs so that the future breeding drones can develop well, breeding drones should generally be cultivated about 20 days before the transfer of insects to raise queens, and timely artificial intervention should be carried out to adjust the colony strength of the parent colony, strengthen the colony members, replace the empty combs, put in a drone comb, and conduct incentive feeding in time. Before the drone room is capped, reward feeding should be carried out with diluted sugar water every evening. If the storage honey is insufficient, supplementary feeding should be carried out to ensure that there is sufficient food supply for the nurse bees and larvae. At the same time, the beehive should be checked regularly, and the drone pupae of non-paternal colonies should be removed in time, and non-breeding drones should be abandoned. Generally speaking, a virgin queen bee should mate with 7-15 drones, but breeding drones cannot be cultivated according to this ratio during artificial breeding. According to the optimal principle, when cultivating a high-quality queen bee, about 100 breeding drones should be cultivated to help the virgin queen bee get fully fertilized and ensure the continuation of the best quality genes.

Controlling natural mating

The mating between the virgin queen bee and the drone is completed in the air, also known as the "nuptial flight". The nuptial flight distance is about 2-5 kilometers, while the drone can reach about 5-6 kilometers. In order to ensure that the virgin queen bee only mates with the breeding drones cultivated in this farm, it is necessary to take effective measures to control it. The methods are as follows:

1. Spatial isolation: It is suitable for production bee farms. If conditions permit, you can choose to build a mating site on an island or lake island. If conditions are not favorable, you can choose places with different bee species for isolated mating. The isolation radius is about 8-10 kilometers. There are no other bee farms or bee colonies raising the same bee species within this range. Different bee species cannot mate, and if mating occurs, they cannot lay eggs.

2. Time isolation: In order to encourage the drones to emerge in large numbers from the hive, they should start mating with the virgin queen bee 10 days before they leave the hive. Mating can usually be completed within 7-15 days. Because of the early emergence, the drones in other apiaries have also emerged but have not yet reached sexual maturity, thus avoiding the drones from other apiaries from participating in mating, thus achieving the purpose of naturally controlling mating.

Summary: Queen bees can be bred in most areas except in winter, but generally speaking, the best season for queen breeding is when the bee colony undergoes natural swarming, which increases the chances of successful breeding.