CATDOLL : CATDOLL: How to manage bee colonies over the winter?

1. How to manage bee colonies overwintering?

The management of bee colonies during winter is as follows: 1) Prevent empty flight. When bee colonies are wintering outdoors, shade the nest door to prevent worker bees from flying empty. You can cover the beehive or beehive with straw. When bee colonies are wintering indoors or digging trenches to release bees, they should always be kept in a dark environment. The temperature can be lowered by opening windows or lifting or covering straw curtains to prevent worker bees from making a commotion. 2) Keep quiet. During the wintering of bee colonies, do not open the boxes, check, shake, move or stimulate the bee colonies. Keep the bee colonies in a relatively closed environment to keep the bee clusters together. 3) Prevent bird feeding. When bee colonies are wintering outdoors in mountainous areas, use dummies and streamers to intimidate and drive away birds.

2. What is fixed-site bee colony management?

Fixed-site beekeeping refers to the bee colonies being kept in one place all year round. From the current situation, fixed-site beekeeping in mountainous areas is more common than fixed-site beekeeping in plains, and fixed-site raising of Chinese bees is more common than fixed-site raising of Italian bees. The primary condition for fixed-site beekeeping is that there are more than two main nectar source periods in a year, continuous auxiliary nectar and pollen sources in all four seasons, and the nectar and pollen sources can meet the needs of the local bee colonies. Beekeeping can achieve certain economic benefits.

3. What are the bee colony management measures?

The management measures for bee colonies are as follows: (1) During the period of reproduction and nectar secretion of nectar-collecting plants, make full use of strong colonies, new queens, and single-queen colonies for production, weak colonies, old queens, or double-queen colonies for reproduction, and provide honeycombs from the breeding colonies to the production colonies to maintain the colony strength. Appropriately control the number of eggs and larvae in the production colonies to resolve the contradiction between production and reproduction. At the same time, take measures to prevent swarming fever and ensure that the worker bees are in an active working state.

At the end of the flowering period, the capped combs of the production group are transferred to the breeding group, and the egg combs of the breeding group are transferred to the production group to balance the group strength and develop together. If the nectar source secretes nectar well, production is the main focus, while taking reproduction into consideration. If the nectar source secretes nectar poorly due to drought or long-term rain during the flowering period, reproduction is the main focus to maintain sufficient bee numbers and food. (2) Site selection: The honey-collecting colonies of small-scale bee farms should be placed under the shade of trees, but the shade should not be too much, and the bee path should be open.

Avoid direct sunlight at noon. In summer, the direction of the nest door can face north. In places without shade, place a sunshade net on the bee colony. The water quality of the water source should be good to prevent flooding and mountain torrents. For nectar sources without pesticides, the central area of ​​nectar sources, downwind of the monsoon, such as vitex, linden, sesame, litchi, etc., can be selected; for the main nectar sources that lack pollen during flowering, there should be auxiliary pollen source plants blooming around the site, such as melon flowers near the jujube flower site.

#(3) For Chinese honey bee production in stacked supers, the method of stacking supers to store honey is adopted to reduce the number of honey extractions. Each time honey is extracted, a capped honey comb needs to be left for the bee colony. If the plant secretes honey poorly or in the late flowering period, more should be left. When there is white honey on the frame beam of the first shallow super, a second shallow super can be added. The second shallow super is added between the first shallow super and the nest box. When the honey in the second shallow super is 60% filled and more than half of the honey cells in the first shallow super are capped, a third shallow super can be added between the second shallow super and the nest box, and the first shallow super can be removed to shake the honey.

If a deep super is used, that is, the nest box and the honeycomb in the super are compatible and the volume is large enough, the honey in the honeycomb in the super is more than 80% stored and 50% of the honey cells are capped, honey production can be carried out. In the live frame breeding of Chinese bees, sugar combs are extracted as raw materials for storage in the early stage of plant nectar secretion, and honey is stored in supers during the peak period of nectar secretion, or mature honey is taken out in time, and the honey is taken back to the honey storage supers for shaking in the late stage of nectar secretion, and appropriate honey combs are retained as raw materials.

Use a honey separator to shake the honey out of the cells or produce honeycomb. During the production period, do not transfer honeycombs to the supers, open the nest door, widen the bee path, and accelerate the ripening of honey. (1) The main thing for the bees is to keep the food, and the feeding is supplementary. If the bee colony is short of food when the nectar source is about to end, feed more continuously and replenish it quickly. At the same time, provide drinking water for the bee colony. When the late breeding plants end flowering, or the honey secretion suddenly stops due to climate and other reasons, the colony should be adjusted in time, and empty and old honeycombs should be removed so that there are slightly more bees than honeycombs.

Reduce the size of the nest entrance, move the stored honey combs into the bee colony that is lacking, and reproduce according to the specific conditions of the next nectar source.

4. How to manage bee colonies in spring?

The spring breeding period of bee colonies is the most important and complex stage in bee colony management, especially in early spring when the temperature is low and unstable. If not managed properly, bee spore diseases, paralysis, European foulbrood, sac brood disease, bee pupa disease, etc. are prone to occur. The climate and nectar sources in different parts of my country are different. The bee colonies themselves are strong or weak, and the queen bees are good or bad. The time for the early spring bee colony to resume activities and the queen bee to lay eggs is also different. The bee colonies in the north have a long wintering period. After the queen bees have hibernated, they start to lay eggs in late February and early March. The weather in South China is warm in winter, and the bee colonies enter the breeding period from November to December. The queen bees in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River start to lay eggs around the beginning of spring.

5. How to manage bee colonies in summer?

Summer management refers to the management measures for bee colonies in tropical and subtropical areas during the summer and autumn when there is a lack of nectar and pollen sources. In these areas, there is no nectar and pollen source during this period, and the day and night temperature is as high as 30℃ or above. It is difficult for bees to maintain a suitable temperature and humidity in the nest, resulting in the queen bee stopping laying eggs, shortening the life of bees, increasing enemies, and rapidly weakening the bee colony. In northern my country, although there is a short high temperature season, the nectar source is sufficient, so this is a busy time for beekeeping production.

It can be said that the difficulty of oversummering is mainly caused by the lack of nectar sources, followed by high temperatures. Therefore, the task of summer management is to improve the microclimate environment around the bee colony, try to avoid interference with the bee colony, maintain sufficient pollen and nectar, and lay the foundation for the recovery and development of the bee colony in autumn. (1) Preparations before oversummering Before the arrival of summer, the old and inferior queen should be replaced with spring nectar sources, sufficient feed should be left, and the colony strength should be adjusted (3 to 5 frames for Chinese bees and 8 to 10 frames for Western bees), because the stronger the colony strength, the greater the consumption, which is not conducive to oversummering.

(2) Key points of management during the summer period 1) Shade and prevent sun exposure. In hot seasons, place the bee colonies under the shade of tall trees or use green beehives to prevent direct sunlight. 2) Sprinkle water to cool down. Around noon on sunny days, sprinkle water on the walls of the beehives or around the beehives to cool down. 3) Strengthen ventilation. Set up high beehive racks with a height of 50 to 100 cm and place the beehives on the racks to reduce the intrusion of enemies and rainwater into the nest.

, and avoid the heat from steaming up. At the same time, open the air window of the box cover, cover a corner of the cloth, open the nest door, and improve air circulation. 4) Prevent and eliminate enemies. Actively kill and trap wasps. In places where there are many toads, you can place a wire gauze cover in front of the nest door every night to prevent toads from catching and eating bees at night. If there is ant damage, you can spread fine sand around the box frame. Apply anticide to the legs of the frame. At the same time, prevent and control American foulbrood, sac larvae, wax moth, etc.

In late summer, there are few brood combs. Before the queen resumes laying eggs and the brood combs are capped, mites should be treated as soon as possible. 5) Reduce interference. Usually, observation outside the hive is the main method, and regular comprehensive inspections are carried out once every 10 to 15 days. This can reduce the activity of the bee colony, prolong its life, and prevent the occurrence of bee theft. 6) Produce royal jelly. In areas with a small amount of honey and pollen sources, a strong colony of less than 10 frames should be established, and artificial feeding and reward feeding should be implemented to persist in royal jelly production.