CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Key points of bee breeding and management

1. What are the key management points when raising bees?

First of all, you should buy books on beekeeping, at least you should understand the theoretical knowledge of beekeeping. Communicate with more beekeepers and ask them about the problems they often encounter in beekeeping. You should also understand the sales of honey, because it is difficult to sell honey without a market. You should consider whether to raise Chinese honey bees or Italian honey bees, and you should first understand these two types of bees. According to your own conditions. Consider whether to raise bees at a fixed point or to chase bees. Some people are very allergic to bee stings, so it also depends on whether your body can raise bees. People with severe allergies cannot raise bees. Because beekeepers are often stung by bees.

If you want to raise bees at a fixed location, you need to see if there are many flowers in your area and fully understand the local pollen and nectar sources. Good flowers have pollen and honey for bees to collect. For fixed-location bee breeding, you also need a place to keep bees. Bees like quiet places, so the place where they are kept needs to be quiet. The location for placing beehives should be under the shade of trees. Fixed-location bee breeding is suitable for raising Chinese honey bees. Chinese honey bees are also the bees in our country. They are suitable for collecting scattered nectar sources.

If you raise bees by chasing flowers, you need a car to transport the bees. This way of raising bees requires traveling all over the country. You take the bees wherever the flowers are blooming. Chasing flowers is hard work, and you have to consider whether you can bear it. It is better to raise Italian bees than chasing flowers to raise bees. Raising Italian bees requires a large source of nectar and pollen, so raising Italian bees is more suitable for chasing flowers.

If you are a beginner and want to start beekeeping, I think the best way is to buy a few boxes of bees and raise them. After you have acquired certain beekeeping skills, you can consider whether to expand the scale and continue breeding.

2. Bee breeding and management?

When raising bees, it is necessary to establish a breeding place in a place with abundant nectar sources, good water quality, and sheltered from the wind and facing the sun. In the spring, the bees must be kept warm by covering the beehives with windproof cloth. In the summer, it is necessary to take cooling measures for the bees and place sunshade nets on the beehives to prevent the bees from dying after being exposed to the sun.

How to raise bees

1. Breeding sites

When raising bees, it is necessary to establish a breeding place in a place with good water quality, sufficient water source, and sheltered from the wind and facing the sun. In addition, different plants should be selected in different seasons to provide nectar sources for the bees and facilitate their nectar collection. For example, in spring, plants such as rapeseed or peach trees should be planted near the place.

2. Spring maintenance

Spring is the breeding season for bees. When raising bees in spring, you need to keep them warm. You can place windshield cloth on the beehive and install a heating plate under the beehive to keep the temperature inside the beehive at around 34 degrees to facilitate the breeding and growth of bees. In addition, you should clean the bees when the weather is clear.

3. Summer maintenance

The temperature is higher in summer, which affects the number and quality of eggs laid by the queen bee. When raising bees in summer, it is necessary to take cooling measures. You can place shade nets on the beehives to prevent the bees from being exposed to direct sunlight, and you should also replace the old queen bee with a new one if her reproductive ability has deteriorated.

4. Winter management

The low temperature in winter can cause the death of bees. When raising bees in winter, you need to provide them with food. You can use sugar water made by mixing sugar and water, or honey water made by diluting honey with water. In addition, you should place a double layer of warm cloth on the beehive to allow the bees to survive the winter smoothly.

3. 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.