CATDOLL : CATDOLL: What are the key knowledge and skills for raising Chinese honey bees?

1. Beekeeping knowledge and techniques?

1. The bees raised are mostly Italian honey bees and Chinese honey bees. Italian honey bees have strong colonies and are good at using large quantities of nectar sources. Chinese honey bees are highly adaptable and good at using sporadic nectar sources.

2. Beekeeping requires beehives, bee hats, bee brooms and other tools. Beehives are the most important and basic tools.

3. When raising bees, you should choose a site with abundant and relatively continuous nectar sources around it. The surrounding environment should not be noisy, full of enemies or seriously polluted.

2. Technical guide for breeding Chinese bees?

1. Nectar source: A bee farm must be built in a place with abundant nectar source. The reason is that bees cannot survive normally and make honey from collecting nectar. If there is a lack of nectar source nearby, the survival of the bee colony will be a problem, let alone expecting bees to collect nectar and make honey.

2. Environment: The apiary must be built in a quiet environment. The reason is that the microclimate near the apiary is more conducive to the reproduction of the bee colony. For example, when the temperature is high, the bees will fan or collect water to cool down, which will invisibly increase the burden on the bee colony.

3. Climate: The apiary must be established in a place with a suitable climate. The reason is that the bee colony can only develop stably in a quiet environment. Otherwise, the bee colony may not be able to collect and make honey quietly. If it is severely disturbed, the bee colony may even abandon the nest and flee.

4. Pests: Bee farms must be built in places where pests are rare. This is because there are many pests in nature that will invade and kill bees. For example, hornets will not only kill worker bees that go out to collect honey, but will also concentrate on attacking bee colonies in seasons when food is scarce.

3. How to raise Chinese bees well?

Chinese bees refer to the Chinese honey bees, and their breeding and management are as follows;

1. Selection of beekeeping site

The apiary for releasing Chinese honey bees should be located on secluded hillsides, half-hillsides, or at the edge of forests, away from factories, mines, roads, etc., and away from harassment or vibration interference from humans and animals. There should be sufficient and clean water sources near the apiary.

Chinese honey bees are not very strict about bulk nectar sources, but they have more requirements for the types of nectar and pollen plants. The nectar source flowering period is continuous, and there is not too long a honey-free period. Because Chinese honey bees are good at using scattered nectar sources, the scattered nectar and pollen from the outside world are constantly supplied, which avoids bee theft and facilitates management.

2. Placement of bee colonies

Because Chinese honey bees have been domesticated for a short time, are wild, have poor orientation, and are easily lost, they cannot be placed in rows, neatly and closely, and in the same direction as Western honey bees. When placing Chinese honey bee colonies, the distance between colonies should be farther, staggered front and back, and the direction of the nest gates should not be consistent.

Avoid bees from different colonies from being thrown into the wrong place, which may cause fighting and killing. Especially for mating colonies, the distance between large colonies should be increased to prevent the queen bee from being killed by the wrong place. Each box should be padded with wooden stakes to prevent ants from invading the Chinese honey bee colony and causing the bees to escape.

3. Prevent contact with odor

Chinese honey bees have a keen sense of smell and are very sensitive to odors. It is best to use a beehive used by Western honey bees to raise Chinese honey bees. Or choose a new beehive made of odorless wood. Before using the new beehive, apply a small amount of beeswax to eliminate the wood odor, which will help Chinese honey bees accept it and prevent it from flying away.

Do not use drugs with strong odors to prevent and treat bee diseases. After the beehives and beekeeping tools are disinfected, the odor must be completely eliminated before they can be used again. Try to disinfect the beehives by burning to prevent the odor from irritating the bees and causing them to escape.

4. Top-secret technology of Chinese beekeeping?

1. Collecting bee colonies

Chinese honey bees are distributed in most parts of my country, especially in the southern mountainous areas where there are extremely rich wild resources. If they can be captured and artificially bred, it will undoubtedly be the best source of bee species. Currently, there are two main ways to capture wild Chinese honey bees: luring bees and collecting bees. Luring bees is to use luring beehives to lure swarms or migratory bee swarms, while collecting bees is to find the hives of wild Chinese honey bees and then capture them.

2. Bee colony transfer

There are two main ways of breeding Chinese honeybees in our country: traditional soil breeding and live-frame beehive breeding. In order to facilitate the management of bee colonies in the future, it is recommended that you try to use live-frame beehive breeding. However, whether it is a newly collected bee colony or a soil breeding to live-frame breeding, the hive transfer technology is required. When transferring the hive, the Chinese honeybees' habit of loving honeycombs is mainly utilized. In short, some honeycombs should be placed in the beehive first and then the transfer operation should be performed.

3. Artificial feeding

Chinese honey bees generally do not need to be fed artificially, but they need "reward feeding" during the spring and autumn breeding season to stimulate the queen bee to lay eggs and encourage worker bees to raise larvae. In addition, "supplementary feeding" is also needed in winter or early spring to provide the necessary food for the bee colony. The feed can be honey water, syrup or pollen. The most commonly used syrup by beekeepers is syrup made by melting white sugar with an appropriate amount of boiling water.

4. Swarming treatment

The biggest disadvantage of the Chinese honey bee is its strong swarming tendency. There are two main ways to deal with swarming: natural swarming and artificial swarming. Natural swarming is to wait for the bee colony to swarm and then capture the swarms, while artificial swarming is to artificially split the bee colony into two groups when the queen cells are mature. One group contains the old queen bee and old worker bees, and the other group contains queen cells and new worker bees (worker bees that have not recognized the nest or conducted test flights).

5. Intervention of the Queen Bee

Chinese honey bees are relatively easy to lose their queen, so beekeepers must master certain queen removal techniques. There are two types of queen removal, direct and indirect, depending on the operation. Direct queen removal is to spray the queen bee with honey water and then put it into the bee colony, while indirect queen removal is to use a queen removal device. It is worth noting that when the queen bee is surrounded, do not use your hands to move the bee colony. Use methods such as spraying smoke or sprinkling water to rescue the queen bee.

6. Spring breeding management

Spring breeding is the key task of Chinese honey bee breeding. Doing a good job in spring breeding can significantly improve the beekeeping benefits throughout the year, but Chinese honey bees should pay attention to the following four points during spring breeding. First, the time of spring breeding should be determined according to the local climate. Second, there must be "more bees than combs" during the spring breeding period. Third, "reward feeding" should be continuous during the spring breeding period to promote rapid breeding of the bee colony. Fourth, the bee colony should be kept warm during the spring breeding period.

7. Autumn breeding management

The purpose of autumn breeding is to allow the bee colony to cultivate a large number of overwintering bees of appropriate age. Simply put, the more overwintering bees of appropriate age in the bee colony before wintering, the safer the wintering. The specific management is similar to spring breeding. First, the time of autumn breeding should be determined according to the local climate. Second, "reward feeding" should be carried out continuously during the autumn breeding period to promote rapid reproduction of the bee colony. Third, the "queen" should be closed in time in the late autumn breeding period to preserve the overwintering strength of the bee colony.

8. Overwintering of bee colonies

The wintering period is the key point for the success or failure of Chinese honey bee breeding. At this time, there are two key management aspects. The first is to supplement the bee colony with enough food before wintering. Because the worker bees gather in groups and rely on eating honey to produce heat during the wintering, the bee colony will starve to death or freeze to death if there is insufficient food. The second is to keep the beehives well insulated, but the principle of insulation is "better to be cold than warm", because excessive insulation will cause the bee colony to disperse and cause wintering failure.

IX. Disease prevention and control

Disease prevention and control is the highlight of Chinese honey bee breeding. In fact, it is also the culprit for most people's beekeeping failure. Therefore, we must "prevent early, detect early, and treat early" for diseases, especially the sac brood disease and nest insects that pose the greatest threat to Chinese honey bees. Once an outbreak occurs, it can be devastating to the entire apiary. In addition, when the harm caused by enemies (mainly hornets) is serious, we must assist the bee colony in fighting against natural enemies.

5. Chinese bee breeding technology and management?

Chinese bee breeding is generally divided into soil breeding technology and live frame breeding technology.

To grow the plants in the soil, you only need a few wooden barrels or hollowed-out logs, which can be turned upside down or placed in front of or behind farmers' houses.

The wooden barrel needs to be boiled in a large pot, and salt, a small amount of honey, and a small amount of beeswax can be added to the water. You can also use pure Chinese beeswax to brush the boiled wooden barrel around the barrel, and brush the bottom of the barrel thicker.

In general areas, under normal temperature and nectar conditions, when the spring equinox comes, it is the peak season for the natural swarming of Chinese honey bees. Natural swarms will come to build nests, and then, after the nectar of major nectar plants has flowed, honey can be collected. In the most common case, two seasons of local honey can be collected in a year. The yield is average, the honey concentration is extremely high, the taste is good, and the flavor is mellow. Compared with the price of ordinary honey, it is slightly more expensive.

This is the breeding and management technology of native Chinese honey bees. Although the output is average, the management and operation methods are extremely simple. It is very suitable for novice beekeepers, or individual investors who raise a small number of Chinese honey bees. It is also suitable for amateur beekeepers who raise a few groups of bees to enrich their spare time.

Based on this traditional soil breeding technology, many derivative breeding technologies have been developed, such as lattice boxes, Three Gorges barrels, etc. They have one thing in common, that is, the lazy beekeeping method, which is simple to operate and has a low technical threshold.

The movable frame breeding of Chinese honeybees is a scientific breeding technology that has begun to be scaled up and industrialized.

This breeding technology is very professional and it is best to learn it under the guidance of a local, professional beekeeper so that novice beekeepers can avoid unnecessary losses and make fewer mistakes.

First of all, you need to choose an open field with nectar source, water source, light, shade and slope. Moreover, the field should be in a peaceful location without strong winds. There should be no factory pollution, poultry farms, pollution and noise from various processing plants within a radius of at least five kilometers around the bee farm. This is because bees love cleanliness and quietness, and they also want to produce better and healthier wild native Chinese honey.

Carefully understand and record in detail the nectar flow time and periodicity of local pollen and nectar source plants. You must clearly know when your local pollen and nectar source plants bloom and when they flow nectar, and keep good records. The more detailed the better. In this way, you can know when the apiary can collect honey, when the apiary can breed queens, and when the apiary can replace queens, so that you can plan and formulate methods that are suitable for your own apiary.

To raise bees well, you must know the living habits and physiological characteristics of Chinese bees. To know these clearly, you can only rely on meticulous observation, continuous research and comprehension, and accumulation over time to develop a set of Chinese honeybee breeding and management techniques suitable for your local area.

For example, the queen bee likes to lay eggs in a new nest, so the old combs should be moved out during the breeding season. For example, the Chinese honey bee likes to be quiet, so when checking the bee colony, you should check the hive purposefully, make quick decisions, disturb as little as possible, open the hive less, and learn the management techniques of observing and judging the internal situation of the bee colony from outside the hive, etc.

6. What are the technical knowledge and methods of beekeeping?

Step/Method 1

Collecting bees: Collecting bees mainly includes trapping wild bee colonies and collecting wild bee colonies. Trapping wild bee colonies mainly includes luring beehives and digging luring holes due to different methods. To collect wild bee colonies, you must first find the wild bee nests or clustered bee colonies. In addition, after the bee colony naturally swarms, the beekeeper is also required to be able to collect the swarmed bees in time.

Step/Method 2

Transferring bees: Transferring bees refers to transferring new bee colonies or native bee colonies into live-frame beehives. When transferring native bee colonies, all the honeycombs in the original beehives must be cut off and tied to the frames of the live-frame beehives. New bee colonies can transfer to the hives with empty honeycombs or with honeycombs borrowed from other bee colonies. However, they must be fed in time after transfer to help the colonies quickly stabilize in the hive.

Step/Method 3

Swarming: Swarming can be divided into natural swarming and artificial swarming due to different methods. Natural swarming is to wait for the bee colony to swarm on its own and then capture the swarm in time, while artificial swarming means that a bee colony is split into multiple colonies in a certain way. In addition, artificial swarming can be divided into queenless swarming, queen cell swarming, queen swarming, etc. due to different methods.

Step/Method 4

Merging colonies: Merging colonies means merging two or more bee colonies into one. The principle is to merge queenless colonies into queeny colonies, weak colonies into strong colonies, and sick colonies into healthy colonies. Due to different operations, there are two ways of merging colonies: direct and indirect. Direct merging is simple to operate but the bees are prone to fighting, while indirect merging is more troublesome but relatively safe.

Step/Method 5

Queen replacement: Queen replacement refers to the introduction of a new queen bee into a bee colony after it loses its queen. There are two methods of queen replacement: direct and indirect. Direct queen replacement is simple but prone to worker bees surrounding the queen, while indirect queen replacement is more complicated but much safer. In particular, when introducing high-quality queen bees, it is recommended to use the relatively safe indirect queen replacement method.

Step/Method 6

Disease prevention: Bee disease and pest control is the highlight of beekeeping production. In fact, in order to achieve high beekeeping yields, disease and pest control must be done well. For example, during the peak period of disease and pests, it is necessary to treat diseases if there are any, and prevent diseases if there are none. In addition, beehives, nest frames and other beekeeping tools must be disinfected regularly and wax scraps, bee corpses and other debris accumulated at the bottom of the hive must be cleaned up in time.

Step/Method 7

Feeding: Feeding technology is a key technology that must be mastered in bee breeding. There are three types of feeding, namely, supplementary feeding, reward feeding and soothing feeding, depending on the purpose. Subsidized feeding is to provide the bee colony with food to sustain its survival, reward feeding is to stimulate the queen bee to lay eggs and encourage worker bees to raise larvae, and soothing feeding is to quickly stabilize the panicked bee colony.

Step/Method 8

Queen breeding: Queen breeding technology is a technique that must be mastered when breeding high-quality queen bees. Due to different operations, there are mainly two methods: artificial selection and artificial queen breeding. Artificial selection refers to the artificial selection of bee colonies with excellent genetic characteristics as the population, while artificial queen breeding is to artificially make queen cells with beeswax and then use worm transfer needles to move in larvae to breed queen bees on a large scale.

7. How to get started with Chinese bee breeding technology for beginners?

Soil culture

It is most common in ordinary farmers' homes. It only requires a few wooden barrels, which are turned upside down in front of and behind the farmers' houses.

The wooden barrel needs to be boiled in a large pot, and salt, a small amount of honey, and a small amount of beeswax can be added to the water. You can also use pure Chinese beeswax to brush the boiled wooden barrel inside the barrel, and brush the bottom of the barrel thicker.

Under normal circumstances, in general places, when the spring equinox comes, it is the peak season for the natural swarming of Chinese bees. Natural swarms of bees will come to build nests, and after the big nectar source has passed, honey can be collected. In general, two seasons of honey can be collected in a year, with average yield, extremely high concentration, good taste, and slightly expensive price.

This is the technology of raising Chinese bees in the traditional way. Although the output is average, the management and operation methods are extremely simple. It is very suitable for novice beekeepers, or individual investors who raise a small number of Chinese bees. It is also suitable for amateur beekeepers who raise a few groups of bees to enrich their spare time.

8. What are the tips and methods for raising bees?

1. Before we raise bees, we need to determine the number of bees we want to raise. Do not force raising too many bees. Honey production is actually closely related to the ability of the bees, and it is not completely proportional to the number of bees. We need to raise strong bees. Generally, strong bees are bred in the spring. It is necessary to control the growth of the bees at this time. This is the key.

2. When we raise bees, we need to add combs and expand the nests in a timely manner. This is also quite critical. Of course, we can also control the queen bee's egg-laying, which is also possible. Only in this way can we create bees with stronger abilities and collect more pollen.

3. When we raise bees, we need to provide them with certain amounts of feeding. Don’t think that we can rely on the bees to produce honey on their own. That is definitely not possible. We need to supplement the bees with protein, which can make the bees’ physique better and create more honey.

4. When we raise bees, we also need to control the number of septum combs and not cut them off in large numbers, as this will easily lead to a significant reduction in the subsequent bee output. It is best to choose an appropriate amount, which can increase the output of the bees and thus obtain high returns.

5. When we raise bees, we will definitely encounter some bad weather. In such weather, we must try our best to ensure the living environment of the bees. Never let the bees out on rainy days, as this will easily lead to the death of a large number of bees. This is what we need to know.

6. Careful care is required to ensure that bees can collect pollen normally during the flowering season. If there are too few flowers around, we can also choose to move them to an appropriate location. Don't sit and wait, as that will only make the bees go to far away places to collect pollen, which will not produce high yields.