CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Is it necessary to buy honeycombs to keep bees? Can’t you make them yourself?

1. Is it necessary to buy honeycombs when raising bees? Can’t I make them myself?

The quality of honeycombs is an important factor in determining the success or failure of beekeeping. Honeycombs built by bees themselves are not of the same size, and contain many drone cells. They also consume the bees' physical strength and honey, and are not economical in terms of time. Scientific beekeeping uses artificial honeycomb foundations to be embedded in standard nest frames, allowing bees to build high-quality honeycombs. There are several types of honeycomb foundations available on the market, including ordinary honeycomb foundations, deep honeycomb foundations, and Chinese honeycomb foundations. Deep honeycomb foundations with neat nest cells, high melting points, and deep cell walls should be used. 1. Use 25-26 fine lead wires to cross four straight lead wires on the nest frame. Too fine lead wires are not easy to bury in the bottom of the nest cell. Iron wire and steel wire are brittle and prone to rust, and copper wire is soft and is not suitable. Tighten the ends of the lead wire and fix them with small nails. 2. Use clips to thread the frame wires, and do not let them loose. Use a woodworking clip to mark the wood strips on the two sides of the nest frame, making them slightly bend inward. Use pliers to tighten the frame wire. After fixing the two ends, loosen the clip to make the frame wire tight. 3. Tools for installing nest foundations (1) Nest foundation wire embedding board 15 cm thick wooden board, 5 mm smaller than the inner size of the nest frame, with a 15 mm x 25 mm wooden strip nailed horizontally at both ends. (2) Wax melting pot is a double-layer pot made of galvanized iron sheet. The inner pot contains wax, and when heated, the wax is melted by the heat of the water. This can avoid directly heating the beeswax and keep the wax liquid in a molten state. (3) Gear wire embedding device A wooden stick with a movable gear is used to embed the frame wire into the nest foundation. It can be heated in hot water before use.

2. A nest of bees I raised flew away and made their home in a bush far away. How can I get them back to my beehive? Please help me.

Once you find the bees, it's easy. Use a straw hat to cover the bee colony, drive the bees into the hat, and then shake the bees into the hive. However, put the beehive in a cool place with no light at night and put in appropriate honeycombs or foundations.

How do wild bees build nests?

Wild bees, like domesticated bees, make nests by secreting beeswax.

Worker bees have four pairs of wax glands, located on the ventral plates of the last four abdominal segments. There is a transparent tin wax plate in front of the wax glands.

But the difference between wild bees and domesticated bees is that wild bees build their own nest foundation (equivalent to the foundation of a house), but domesticated bees do not.

4. What is a nest foundation? How many types of nest foundations are there?

The foundation is the foundation for bees to build honeycombs. It is made of beeswax sheets or plastic sheets, which are pressed into concave and convex thin plates with the bottom and foundation of the nesting cells by a nesting foundation machine. Each nesting foundation is composed of thousands of neatly arranged and interconnected hexagons, which have a common bottom and common sides. After the foundation is built into a honeycomb by bees, the sides of each hexagon are raised to become a typical hexagonal prism (nest cell), and the bottom of the cell forms a closed hexagonal diamond cone, with the three plane acute angles of the bottom being 70°32′. With this structure, the largest capacity and strongest solid nesting cells can be built with the least amount of beeswax.

47 Nest Foundation

The types of nest foundations can be divided into the following categories according to their specifications, uses, manufacturing methods and applicable bee species:

(1) According to the specifications and uses, shallow cell foundations are divided into ordinary cell foundations. The cell foundation is not high, with 16 to 20 pieces per kilogram (the area is based on the standard frame size). It can be used for both insect breeding and honey storage. However, it takes a lot of time for bees to build honeycombs, and sometimes they are converted into drone cells. Extra shallow cell foundations are rolled by precision cell foundation machines. The cell bottom is very thin and is specially used for honey production. Deep cell foundations are very high, and worker bees can build them slightly to provide space for the queen bee to lay eggs. There is little chance of converting them into drone cells, and they are generally used for insect breeding. For every kilogram of beeswax, 10 to 12 pieces of cell foundations can be rolled.

(2) According to the manufacturing method, there are three layers of wax sheets: the foundation is made by rolling three layers of wax sheets. The outer two layers are pure wax; the inner layer is a mixture of plant wax and beeswax, with plant wax accounting for about 15% to 25%. This kind of foundation is relatively strong and not easy to stretch and deform, so it is also called "strengthened foundation". However, because the middle layer contains mixed wax, it is now rolled with three layers of pure wax sheets. Embedded wire foundation: The inner layer of this foundation is sandwiched with 9 wavy steel wires, which can save the process of threading the nest frame, but the nest frame needs to be specially prepared. Wax-coated durable foundation: In 1963, Dadan introduced a plastic-based foundation, which later became very popular. This foundation sandwiches a plastic sheet between layers of beeswax, and then rolls the honeycomb cells. It is easy for bees to accept it. It is commercially called "durable foundation" or "wax-coated durable foundation". Its two sides are wrapped with metal strips for easy installation and durability. Beeswax and plastic will not mix, so when not in use, you can boil or steam them to separate the pure wax. Of the above-mentioned nest foundations, except for the shallow nest foundation, which is state-owned and popular, the others have not yet been produced.

(3) According to the bee species, the honeycomb currently produced in China is divided into two types: Italian honeycomb and Chinese honeycomb. The cell width (i.e. the diameter of the inscribed circle) of Italian honeycomb is 5.13 mm, with 851 worker bee cells per 100 square centimeters, while the cell width of Chinese honeycomb is 4.61 mm, with 1,243 worker bee cells per 100 square centimeters.

This article is from: China Agricultural Press "China Biotechnology Development Report"

5. Answer from the beekeeper who changed his profession: the nest frame is placed in the box. How can the bees build the nest in the nest frame?

The master who sold me the bees fixed the nest frame to the beehive with nails, and the distance from the wall was also appropriate. However, he asked me to remove the nails. As a result, the embryo frame fell inside once, and all the bees were nesting in the corners of the box. The master also taught me to cover the entire beehive with cloth and then put a large cover on it. As a result, the bees hung embryos on the cloth in the past few days, and the cloth drooped. As the embryos grow larger, they may fall to the bottom of the box, which is more troublesome! The master really made trouble for me! Originally, I removed the gauze and fixed the original embryo frame nails for the time being, and added a nest foundation after a period of time.

If the nectar source is abundant, add nest foundation, and it will be finished in one day and one night. If the nest frame is smeared with sugar water, bees will also come to it. If the nectar source is insufficient, they will eat the nest frame.

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Rich in nectar source, add nest foundation, night o nest frame, smear sugar water, honey source, sufficient edible nest frame