CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Principles and methods of bee breeding (author Gong Fuqiang) (Principles and methods of bee breeding Gong Fuqiang)

1. What are the techniques and methods of beekeeping?

1. Choose beehives

A basic condition for raising bees is to choose suitable beehives. You should choose boxes made of solid materials and light texture. Since beehives are generally placed in the open air and bees spend most of their lives outdoors, a good environment must be provided.

2. Transfer bee colonies

First, prepare the live-frame beehive in advance, transfer the purchased bee colony or the wild trapped bees into the beehive, and generally put the honeycomb together, so that the bees can quickly adapt to the new environment and resume normal activities.

3. Subsidized feeding

During the period of honey-gathering, bees are fed supplementary food, usually starting with artificial feeding in the evening, such as pollen, sugar water, honey, etc. In winter, bees collect less honey, so the number of feedings needs to be increased. They can be fed once in the morning and once in the evening with diluted sugar water.

4. Planting plants

In the process of raising bees, a large number of flowers and plants, such as peonies, peonies, rape flowers, etc., can be planted around the site to provide sufficient nectar sources to prevent the bees from flying to distant places and reducing economic benefits.

2. What are the techniques for beekeeping in five-layered boxes?

Grid beehive beekeeping is to stack square or round hives of suitable size up and down according to the size of the bee colony, season, nectar source, etc., adjust the hive space, create a comfortable living environment for the bee colony, and facilitate the production of capped honey. It is one of the more advanced methods of frameless beekeeping.

The management of beekeeping in a lattice beehive is relatively extensive. It can be raised by amateurs in the city or professionals in the mountains. As long as the site is suitable and the nectar source is abundant, one person can manage hundreds of bee colonies. (1) Breeding principle The upper part of the natural bee colony honeycomb is used to store honey, the lower part is for spare bee food, the middle part is for cultivating offspring worker bees, the lower part is for drone cells, and the palace (queen breeding cell) is built on the bottom edge.

In addition, Chinese bee queens often lay eggs in new houses, bees build honeycombs, and the colony grows. As the honeycombs grow, the number of individual bees increases. From this perspective, new honeycombs and new houses are the growth points of the colony, and honeycombs are the carriers of the colony's life. Therefore, based on the living habits of Chinese bees, beehives with small cross-sections, low heights and multiple honeycombs are designed and manufactured. The upper part produces capped honey, and the lower part adds honeycombs to increase space. The upper and lower lattice honeycombs are connected to each other, so that the old honeycombs can store honey, the new honeycombs can reproduce, and diseases can be reduced.

In addition, in summer, adding a base under the lower hive can increase the hive space, facilitate bees to gather in groups, and adjust the temperature and humidity for hatching and breeding. (2) Manufacturing beehives The beehive consists of a hive ring, a lid, and a base. The thickness of the hive wall is 1.5~3.5 cm.

A set of beehives has 3 to 8 beehives. The square one is made of four wooden boards; the round one is made of multiple wooden boards or divided equally by hollow tree sections. The base is the same size as the beehive. One side of the beehive has a nest door for bees to enter and exit. The opposite beehive (i.e. the back) is made into a large observation door that can be opened and closed or removed.

The box cover is either flat or convex, which can achieve the purpose of shielding from wind and rain, protecting the hive, and taking into account the appearance and can be used for display; there is also a flat sub-cover on the hive under the box cover, which has the functions of heat preservation, moisture retention, blocking bees from entering and exiting, and blocking light. The diameter or side length of the box ring is generally not more than 25 cm and not less than 18 cm, and the height is not more than 12 cm and not less than 6 cm.

Before using a new hive, remove any odors. When collecting bees or transferring hives, spray the inner wall with honey water (or residue). (3) Checking the bee colony: Open the movable side panel of the base, light the wormwood rope, and slightly emit smoke. The bees will gather upwards, exposing the lower edge of the comb. Observe the comb from the bottom up to see if there are queen cells, how fast the comb is made, and the development of eggs and larvae, so that treatment measures can be taken.

Feed some sugar water every time you visit the bees, and the bees will behave more docilely. (4) Feeding bees When the external nectar source is abundant, the frameless bee colony reproduces faster; when the external pollen and honey are scarce, reward feeding every other day. Store enough capped honey before wintering, and feed syrup early. Feed honey or white sugar, add 20% water to the former and 70% water to the latter, mix well, place in a container, put straw on top for the bees to climb, place in the base of the beehive, and feed the bees with the edge touching the bee mass.

If the edge of the container is smooth, use waste honeycomb pieces to cover it. The amount of bee feeding should be based on the time when the transportation is completed by midnight that night. (5)

3. How to raise a large hive of bees?

1. Selection of queen bee. Since we want to raise a strong colony, the queen bee's egg-laying ability must keep up, and a double-queen colony should be cultivated at the same time. Once a poor-quality queen bee appears in the colony, it should be replaced immediately.

2. Raising double queen colonies is a common method for Italian bees, but it does not mean that it cannot be raised for Chinese bees. It is just that once swarming fever occurs, it is more troublesome to manage.

3. Ensure sufficient feed. For bees, as long as the number is large and there are many larvae, the amount of feed consumed will naturally be large, so the strong colonies we raise must provide sufficient feed for the bees.

4. Bee breeding management and methods?

1. Cultivate into a production group as soon as possible

For newly purchased bee colonies, timely prevent and treat bee mites and other bee diseases, keep the number of bees greater than the number of combs (very important, beginners like to add combs), and keep the colony strong and disease-free. When there is a lack of nectar and pollen sources in the outside world, supplement the feed, and then reward feeding every day or every other day to stimulate the queen bee to lay more eggs. Healthy worker bees are in high spirits and can raise more strong young bees. Frequent watering in the nest not only saves "labor", but also avoids freezing to death of water-collecting bees or causing illness to the colony due to sewage collected, and can quickly develop the colony into a production colony with supers. At the same time, without breaking up the strong colony, rear the queen, organize the supers for mating, and implement the combination of production, rearing the queen, and mating.

2. Strong colony super box transfer insects to raise queens

When the bee colony develops into a super colony, natural queen cells will often appear. At this time, just let nature take its course, slightly enlarge the opening of the queen cell, take out the larvae in the cell without stirring the royal jelly, and select one-day-old larvae to move into the cell. Beginners need to practice moving larvae several times to ensure that the larvae are not harmed. If they cannot be moved, they can temporarily use a natural cell and select the best queen to keep later.

Multiple natural queen cells (preferably artificially transplanted queen cells) can be used on one comb, and all queen cells on other combs should be destroyed. Put the queen-rearing comb into the super, and place larval combs and honey-pollen combs on both sides. It is best to add a double-layer queen excluder between the nest and the super, and add a gauze cover frame (without gauze) between the two boards, so that there is a certain space between the two queen excluders to reduce the impact of the old queen on the super.

3. Stack the third box to make a crossover box

The day before the new queen comes out, add another super, open the side door or the back door, add a queen excluder between the two supers, lift the honeycomb with queen cells into the new super (i.e. the third box), and then lift two honeycombs and place them on both sides of the honeycomb with the queen cells. When the young queen comes out three days later, remove the queen excluder between the mating box and the original box, replace it with a gauze cover and add a cloth, shake off the worker bees from the two queenless honeycombs, return them to the original group, and leave one honeycomb in the mating box as an independent mating group. Observe the egg-laying situation of the new king after 10 days. If it is normal, the new king has successfully mated.

4. Swarming to increase the colony

There are two methods to isolate the proliferating population:

1. Take the new queen colony out of the original box and move it to a new location. Then add a capped comb that is about to be released from the room. After 3 days, add a second capped comb to form a production colony as soon as possible.

2. Take out the old queen with two sealed honeycombs as a new colony, and shake in two worker honeycombs, and supplement and develop them as soon as possible to become a production colony. At the same time, remove the cloth covering the mating box and the original box, leaving the gauze. After 8-12 hours, spray the whole colony with white wine syrup (500g syrup added to two small cups of white wine), put the honeycomb with the new queen in the super, spray some white wine syrup, sprinkle the mating box, and cover the beehive. Observe the queen on the next day. If she is normal, swap the supers (or the queen enters the hive), and the colony will be successfully multiplied.

5. What are the principles of beekeeping?

1. Bee feeding principle

Bee feed is necessary to maintain the normal life activities and development of the bee colony. Due to the interruption of external honey and pollen sources, or excessive honey extraction by humans, insufficient feed storage in the hive will affect the survival and development of the bee colony. In this case, the bee colony needs to be fed.

Feeding the bee colony is a very important means of bee colony management. The bee colony must also be fed when certain special management measures need to be imposed on the bee colony.

The main purpose of beekeeping is pollination, honey collection, nectar production and other bee products. To achieve the above goals, the bee colony must be strong, and bee colony feeding is an important measure taken to maintain and develop the strength of the bee colony.

2. Principle of supplementary feeding

Subsidized feeding is to artificially feed bee colonies with insufficient honey storage in the season of lack of nectar sources. High-quality mature honey combs are the most ideal for supplementary feeding. If there is no honey comb, honey or sucrose syrup can be used to supplement the bee colonies so that the bee colonies can maintain a normal life. In early spring, after the combs are tightened (reducing the bee paths and hives), heat preservation and the beginning of reproduction, in autumn and winter before the bees hibernate, in the honey-free period, before moving to other places, and when the honey storage in the nest is insufficient due to other reasons such as bee theft, supplementary feeding must be carried out on the bee colonies.

The amount of supplementary feeding is limited by the acceptance capacity of the bee colony each time, that is, the bee colony is fed as much as it can accept at one time, generally 0.7 kg to 1 kg, and feeding should be continued until it is replenished.

Supplementary feeding is feeding to meet the normal life needs of bees and solve their survival problems.

3. Reward feeding principle

Reward feeding is used to stimulate the queen bee to lay eggs, the worker bees to secrete honey and raise larvae, speed up the process of making honeycombs, promote the enthusiasm of the bee colony to collect nectar, and stabilize the temperament of the bee colony before merging the bee colony and inducing the queen bee. Regardless of whether there is enough honey stored in the hive, the bee colony is fed a certain amount of sugar feed.

The amount of reward feed is based on the honey stored in the nest without compressing the queen bee's egg-laying circle. Generally speaking, Italian bees are fed 0.2 kg to 0.5 kg per day, and Chinese bees are fed 0.1 kg to 0.3 kg per day.

Reward feeding is feeding that is done to induce bees to meet certain needs in production.

4. Principle of clearing the field after feeding

Whether it is supplementary feeding or reward feeding, you should pay attention to preventing bee theft. When feeding, sugar feed should not drip outside the hive, especially when filling the spleen, syrup or honey should not fall too much into the hive to prevent it from flowing out of the nest door. In case of careless operation, too much sugar feed drips into the hive and there is a possibility of flowing out of the hive, you can temporarily raise the front of the beehive. After feeding, check carefully and rinse with clean water or bury the syrup or honey dripping around the apiary with soil.

5. Principles of feeding pollen

Feeding protein feed Pollen is the only protein source in the natural food of bee colonies. Although adult worker bees can survive without pollen and only honey, the development of young bees and the growth of larvae cannot be separated from pollen. The pollen collected by bee colonies is mainly used to prepare bee food for breeding larvae. According to measurements, a bee colony needs to consume 1.2 kg to 1.5 kg of bee food to breed 10,000 larvae.

Insufficient external pollen sources will result in a decrease in the queen bee's egg laying and poor larval development, seriously affecting the development of the bee colony. In addition, it will also cause premature aging of the bees and a reduction in their ability to secrete royal jelly and beeswax. Therefore, during the breeding period of the bee colony, if there is a lack of external pollen sources, the bee colony must be supplemented with pollen or other protein feed.

6. Principles of feeding pollen substitutes

The best protein feed for feeding bee colonies is the stored pollen combs, followed by dry pollen balls. If there are no stored pollen combs and dry pollen balls, you have to feed pollen substitutes. There are many pollen substitutes currently in use, such as yeast powder, defatted soybean powder, pea powder, etc., which are all high-protein, low-fat foods.

The substitute is mainly formulated according to the nutritional composition of natural pollen. If it is to supplement the pollen comb, it is added directly to the outside of the bee colony near the brood comb.

7. Water feeding principle

Water is an indispensable substance for bees to maintain their life activities. All kinds of metabolic functions of the bee body cannot be separated from water. The nutrients in the bee food are decomposed, absorbed, transported and the waste left after utilization is excreted from the body. The bee's mouthparts can only stick the new wax secreted by the abdominal wax glands to the nest foundation to build the honeycomb if there is enough water. The completion of these tasks depends on the role of water.

Bees also use water to regulate the temperature and humidity inside the hive. Once the bee colony reaches the breeding season, especially in midsummer, the water demand is quite astonishing. A medium-sized bee colony in the breeding stage consumes about 250 ml of water every day. When the bee colony cannot collect nectar from the outside world, many bees will fly to the pool or moist soil surface to collect water.

If bees fly out to collect water in strong winds or low temperatures, they will die in large numbers. If they collect water from unclean water sources, they are more likely to develop bee diseases. Therefore, bee colonies should be fed with clean water continuously from early spring to autumn.

8. Salt feeding principle

Inorganic salts are essential substances for forming and renewing body tissues, promoting physiological functions, and helping digestion. If the bee colony fed with syrup lacks the necessary amount of inorganic salts, the bees will collect urine and sweat stains from toilet urinals and human skin.

Feeding salt to the bee colony can be combined with feeding water. Add 5% coarse sea salt to clean water, or place salt bags on the water flow plate of the feeder. You can also combine feeding salt with feeding syrup. That is, add 500 mg of dipotassium phosphate or 725 mg of magnesium sulfate, or 500 mg of coarse sea salt per liter of 60% concentration syrup.