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Beekeepers who have just started working in an apiary are interested in what bees eat at different times of the year and day. This is important to know, since these insects are suppliers of a useful and beloved product - honey.
What do bees like?
The diet of buzzing insects is quite varied. They can eat pollen, nectar, beebread and their own honey. The main food supply for insects from spring to autumn is honey plants.
Bees collect pollen and nectar:
- from acacia, linden, buckwheat, alder and hazel;
- from apple, pear, cherry, bird cherry and other flowering trees and shrubs;
- from sunflower, dandelions, clover, lupine, rapeseed.
Many crops are planted specifically next to the apiary, taking into account the flowering time.
Having collected pollen, the bee moistens it with its own saliva. Then, having flown into the hive, she deposits the collected product in a certain cell of the honeycomb. The fermentation process begins in it, as a result of which beebread is formed, consisting mainly of proteins.
Do bees eat their honey?
The question of whether the bee family feeds on its own food can be answered unequivocally - yes. To overcome the enormous distances that worker bees travel in search of honey plants, they need increased nutrition.This is why insects eat for several days at a time. Hungry bees simply die during the flight.
What serves as protein food for a bee colony?
Thanks to protein food, bees develop successfully, resulting in successful brood in the spring. Protein is contained in bee bread, pollen and substitutes that feed the bee family in late autumn and winter.
But sometimes there is not enough bee bread until the end of wintering, which means protein starvation may occur. To compensate for the lack of this substance, insects are given cow's milk. The protein of this natural product is easily digested by bees.
In early spring, while there are no flowering plants yet, worker bees feed the larvae with beebread. If this substance is not enough, the development of the bee colony is suspended and the queen does not lay eggs.
Before transferring hives to winter maintenance, beekeepers always leave a frame with beebread. If the bees do not have enough of this food, they have to use protein substitutes. This is especially important when there are still few flowering plants and the weather is rainy.
There are many options for preparing protein substitutes for feeding bees, each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Honey, water, pollen
It is best to use natural substitutes, which include:
- honey;
- water;
- last year's pollen.
The composition of the substitute is as follows:
- Mix 200 g of bee product, 1 kg of dry pollen, 150 ml of water.
- This mixture is laid out on a frame and covered with canvas.
- From time to time the amount of food is replenished.
Powdered milk
If there is no bee bread, then a substitute is prepared from milk powder. Although this composition is not as effective in quality as bee bread, it can be used to prevent the bee colony from dying from protein starvation. Feeding is prepared from:
- 800 ml water;
- 1 kg granulated sugar;
- 200 g milk powder.
Preparing food for buzzing insects is easy:
- Boil water, add granulated sugar, stir until it is completely dissolved.
- Add dry milk, stir so that there are no lumps.
What do bees eat in winter?
The main food of bees in winter is honey. In the fall, be sure to leave sealed frames in the hive. This honey, suitable for winter nutrition, should be dark. One frame must contain at least 2.5 kg of quality product.
In addition to honey, bees need water. But in winter, drinking bowls cannot be installed; insects will use condensation, which settles on the walls of the hive. It is under no circumstances recommended to close the entrance tightly during the winter. If there is a lack of moisture, worker bees will obtain it outside the house.
If the summer was dry and the autumn was rainy, then the insects do not have time to prepare enough food for the winter or it will turn out to be of poor quality (it quickly crystallizes).
In such a situation, you need to think about timely feeding of the bee colony. In this case, food can be:
- old honey;
- sugar syrup;
- sweet fudge;
- other nutritional supplements.
Syrup is given as food for a week, for each hive - up to 1.5 tbsp. every evening.
What does the queen bee eat?
Throughout her life, the queen bee feeds on royal jelly, and consumes honey and pollen very rarely. Milk contains all the necessary nutrients to maintain tone and fertilization. Other food will not allow the queen to lay the required number of eggs.
What do bees feed their babies?
Larval worms, just hatched from eggs, are very small, but voracious.In the first 6 days of life, one individual is able to eat 200 mg of food. The diet of the larvae depends on the status.
Future drones and worker bees feed on bee jelly for only a few days. In the future, their food will be honey, water and beebread. “Nannies” look after the little bees. They fly up to each larva up to 1300 times per day. The larva itself increases in size 10,000 times. On day 6, the cells are sealed with wax and pollen, where the future bee will grow until February.
What happens when bees don't have enough food and water?
If there is enough food and water in the hive, then the bees behave calmly. It's easy to check: just hit the house and then put your ear to it. If the bees become silent, then everything is fine with them.
With unfriendly noise, as well as with sounds reminiscent of a groan, it can be determined that there is no uterus in the family. In such a hive, it is possible for bees to die; only a few bees will remain in it until spring.
Strong bee noise is a signal to feed. In order not to miss the right moment, the hives need to be checked 2-3 times a month after the New Year. By this moment, brood begins to brood in the hives, the temperature inside the house rises to +34 degrees.
In addition to the generally accepted fertilizers, you can prepare a cake from powdered sugar and pollen. Bee colonies love sweet dough. To do this, take honey (1 kg), heat it in a water bath to 40-45 degrees and mix with powdered sugar (4 kg). Bees really like this food. But before laying out in the hives, the dough is mixed with water: 5 liters of liquid are added per 5 kg.
The food is laid out in bags, small punctures are made in them and put away in the upper part of the hive.
What do beekeepers do?
Bees need food and water in any season. In spring, summer and autumn, drinkers are made at each apiary, into which clean water is poured.Otherwise, insects will start drinking from questionable puddles and may bring diseases into the hive. Or they will start looking for moisture far from the hives, at a time when they need to fly for nectar and pollen.
As a rule, drinking bowls with fresh and salt water are installed (1 g of salt is required for 1 liter of water). The insects themselves will figure out which drinking bowl to fly to.
The number of drinking bowls will depend on the installed hives, so that the bees can drink at any time. The water needs to be changed regularly; the container should be thoroughly rinsed before changing.
Bees need to be fed not only in winter and autumn, but at any time. In autumn, winter and early spring, while there are no flowering plants and the families are weakened after wintering.
The prepared mixtures are poured into feeders. Food is given to insects in the evening. It is necessary to feed the inhabitants of the hives in the summer when, due to extreme heat, there are not enough flowering plants.
The main food for bees is natural honey, since it contains enough vitamins and nutrients, micro- and macroelements necessary for the life of bees and the production of young brood.
In winter, you need to monitor the condition of the bees, feed them, so that by spring the colony remains strong and efficient. Check the frames with honey. If it has crystallized, it needs to be changed urgently. If there is old honey, then it is melted or various supplements are prepared based on it.
Conclusion
You need to find out what bees eat at different times of the year if you want to start an apiary.Only with the correct organization of the life of beneficial insects can one hope to receive a good bribe. Natural honey is a healthy and tasty product that is in demand.
Sweet fudge recipe for feeding bees in winter:
