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Caring for bees may seem simple to some - they are insects. The beekeeper doesn’t have to do anything at all, just pump out the honey at the end of summer. Someone will say that it is easier to deal with animals than with an incomprehensible colony with its own laws and biorhythms. But beekeeping, like any business, has its pitfalls and its secrets.
How to properly care for bees
For beginners, it may seem that caring for bees at home is not difficult: you need to insulate the hive for the winter, remove the insulation in the spring, sit relaxing on the porch with a cup of coffee in the summer, pump out the honey in the fall and insulate the hive for the winter. In fact, the beekeeper has enough to do to care for the apiary, even if he drinks tea on the veranda in the evening.
For both the beekeeper and the “green” beginner, each cycle of caring for the apiary and producing honey begins in early spring. For a beginner in the first year, it is better to purchase turnkey hives with ready-made families. Even if it costs more. Then you will have to make do on your own.
Experienced beekeepers say that such a policy is unprofitable for honey production. The purchased families will be smaller and weaker than the “old”, overgrown colonies. The amount of honey obtained directly depends on the size of the colonies.
Caring for bees in spring
For those who are just starting the first cycle and bought bee colonies already completely ready, care in new hives can begin closer to the summer, when the queen flies out. If the second year of beekeeping has begun, caring for the bees in the hives begins as soon as the outside temperature reaches + 8 °C.
Care in the spring begins with transplanting the bees into a clean hive. To do this, the occupied house is removed from its supports and set aside. A clean one is put in its place. The replacement hive does not need to be new, but it will need to be cleaned, scraped and disinfected.
After this, a printed honey frame, prepared in advance, is placed in the hive. After issuing the minimum ration, they open the old hive and check the condition of its frames. The bees are shaken off the dirty ones and such frames are placed in a portable box. Unworn and containing honey are transferred to a new hive. Filling a new hive begins from the middle.
Bees get indigestion in winter. At best it is not contagious, at worst it is a viral disease. nosematosis. Due to the possible presence of a virus, frames need to be removed during spring care. Beekeepers who are confident in the health of their bees sometimes leave such boundaries. Coming out of their stupor, the bees will clean them themselves. But it's better not to take risks.
Next to the honey frame they place a printed honey feather and then a frame with brood. All other frames in the old hive are checked in the same way.The worn and moldy ones are thrown away. After all usable frames have been transferred to the new home, the total amount of honey is checked. If less than 8 kg, add honey unopened frames. After this, the bees are transplanted into a clean hive. There is no need to worry about caring for transplanted families for a month.
Caring for bees in summer
In summer, bees work independently, and there is no need to disturb them again. At this time, they are able to feed themselves if there are enough flowering honey plants in the area. Summer maintenance and care of bees comes down to checking the hives 2 times a month to make sure that the colony has not become rotten and is collecting enough honey.
They try to choose a place for an apiary so that the bees do not have to fly far to get a bribe. The shorter the path to the honey plants, the more honey the bees will have time to collect per day. But sometimes flowering is delayed or there is little nectar in the flowers. Double checks during summer care will help determine whether everything is in order with honey collection. If it turns out that there are fewer bribes than in previous years, the hives are taken closer to the honey plants.
Monitoring colony formation is to check whether there is too much drone brood and whether there are enough cells for workers. More careful care is not required in most cases.
Swarming
The only case when active intervention of the beekeeper is required during summer care is swarming. Families need to be monitored so that the emergence of a queen with a new swarm does not go unnoticed. Swarming always occurs on a clear day, as a good queen is sensitive to the weather. Signs of the beginning of swarming:
- bees fly out of the hive and hover around;
- After the queen appears, the swarm adheres to her.
The beekeeper should not miss this moment, otherwise the swarm will fly away on its own to look for a new home.
What to do if bees start swarming:
- Using a ladle and roevni collect bees. It is advisable to immediately find and catch the queen, then the bees will enter the swarm without coercion.
- The bees who do not want to go to the swarm are driven in its direction with the help of smoke.
- The collected swarm is taken to a dark room and left for an hour, after which they listen to see if the swarm has calmed down. Continued restlessness of the bees means that either there is no queen in the swarm, or there are several queens.
- If there are several queens, the swarm is shaken out, the females are found, and only one queen is left for the new colony. The rest are placed in cages.
- In the absence of a queen, the swarm is given a foreign one.
Another female is placed in the evening. Dry food and honeycombs with brood are placed in the hive. Usually the swarm remains to live in a new place, forming a regular colony. The beekeeper usually has no other care concerns in the summer if the air temperature is within acceptable values.
Sometimes summer is not cold, but very hot. In this case, bribes also decrease, since the flowers fade early. The bees themselves may be too hot in the hive at such a time.
What to do if bees are hot
A sign that the hive is overheated is clusters of bees near the entrance. This situation usually occurs when the air temperature outside is higher than it should be in the hive, and the fan bees cannot cope with their functions.
The heat inside the house is dangerous, first of all, for the brood. He may die from overheating. Apiaries are often located in the middle of an open space under the sun's rays. This situation is good in the morning, when the bees warm up and fly away for a bribe earlier than usual.It’s also good to quickly warm up the hive in early spring, when the queens come out to fly around. The rest of the time it is more harmful than useful.
If the colony is large enough, the bees themselves can raise the temperature in their home to the temperature they need. In this case, they do not require care. But in hot summers, a large family suffers, and here it is necessary to take protective measures:
- move the hive to the shade;
- if it is impossible to move, build a canopy over them;
- lay thermal insulation outside the hives.
A canopy is often made from a construction protective mesh, which creates a small shade and allows air to pass freely. When installing thermal insulation, you must remember that no material by itself heats or cools anything. It only maintains the existing temperature.
This property of thermal insulators can be used to combine the need for early warming up in the spring and protection from the heat in the summer. A hive painted white will heat up less, but this is bad in the spring. A hive painted dark will heat up quickly in the spring, but will overheat in the summer.
To combine opposing requirements, the hive can be painted in a dark color. But in summer it is necessary to insulate it from the outside with foam plastic, slate or other material that does not conduct heat well.
The blank walls of the hive and the roof are closed with a clear conscience. Shading and insulation are all that can be done to care for bees during abnormally hot summers.
What to do with bees after pumping out honey
In August, bees begin to prepare for winter. The timing of honey pumping depends on the activity of the colony and the degree of maturity of the product. The frames that the bees have begun to clog with wax are taken for pumping. From mid-August, families begin to be audited.At the same time, you can do the last pumping of honey, although many beekeepers prefer to carry out this procedure in early August.
Caring for bees after pumping out honey involves preparing the colonies for winter. On August 15-20, an autumn inspection of the hives is carried out.
Caring for bees in autumn
Autumn care is the most troublesome. At the end of August, the hive is completely dismantled. They carefully inspect all the frames, including the brood frames, which could not be touched all summer. The amount of honey, bee bread, brood and bees is recorded. If there is fresh open brood, do not look for the queen. If there is only a closed one, the uterus needs to be found.
The discovered queen is carefully examined. In the absence of any defects, the family is considered normal, and the female is left for the next year.
It must be taken into account that the queen can abruptly stop laying eggs if the reserves of honey in the hive suddenly decrease (pumping was done). This situation is not related to the physical condition of the female and there is no need to replace her.
If there is no queen or she has physical defects, the colony is marked and its fate is later determined. During the autumn inspection, all low-quality and old honeycombs are discarded and the hive is pre-assembled for wintering: in the remaining honeycombs, holes with a diameter of 8-10 mm are made in the center so that in winter the bees have the opportunity to move freely around the nest.
After this, using the compiled records, they analyze the apiary, the condition of the colonies, and decide how many colonies need to be left for the winter. If necessary, weak and strong families are united. They also decide to which families and in what quantity frames with honey, beebread and brood should be distributed.
This is due to the fact that bees do not fall into suspended animation, but continue their life activities in winter. Although less than in warm weather, in winter the bees feed in the same way, feed the brood, and the queen lays new eggs. Because of the brood, the colony needs “extra” food supplies.
How much honey to leave for the family depends on the owner's preferences. Some take natural honey and offer the bees sugar syrup to quickly replenish their reserves. There is an opinion that bees get sick from such honey. It is definitely not recommended to take away “sugar” honey for pumping next summer. Even if the bees still have it.
With proper preparation for winter, bees do not need to be cared for until spring. If not properly cared for and insulated, the colony will not survive the winter.
Transportation of bees
Transportation of bees over long distances is carried out 2 times a year or not at all. Depends on the location of the apiary. They transport the apiary not for the purpose of care, but to obtain more honey. If the apiary is located well, it does not need transportation.
In spring, they try to transport the hives closer to flowering gardens. In summer, it is better to place the apiary next to a flowering meadow. If the hives are located on the territory of a large agro-industrial company with diversified activities, then it is only necessary to take the colonies closer to farmland in the spring, and take them away for the winter in the fall.
When transporting beehives, it is necessary to follow certain rules in order to safely transport the apiary:
- When preparing the hives for transportation, the frames are secured. If there are not enough frames, they are moved to one side and a diaphragm is inserted, which is secured with nails.
- The frames are covered with ceiling slats on top so that there are no gaps left.
- To ensure air circulation, a hole is made in one of the ceiling frames.
- Place the hives with the entrances backwards and securely fasten them.
- It is better to carry out transportation when the bees have already finished their day flight, but have not yet flown out in the morning. In fact, such transportation is carried out at night.
The last condition is not always feasible and it will be enough to drive slowly so that the flown bees can find their home.
Transferring bees to a new hive
Replanting is required during spring and sometimes autumn apiary care. Partial replanting of bees occurs with good frames. Insects are not shaken off, but carefully moved to a new place. The rest of the swarm will need to be moved manually. To transfer all the bees from one hive to another without damage, the queen is first transferred. The bees usually calmly follow her.
Since there may be flightless individuals in the hive, the old and new houses are placed opposite each other as entrances. The seats should touch each other so that those who cannot fly can crawl to a new place of residence. Or everyone who cannot move after the queen themselves is carried manually.
Proper transplantation of bees:
How do you fumigate bees?
When caring for bees, you cannot do without a device that helps avoid stings. It’s called “smoke” and has a fairly simple design:
- cylindrical body made of two layers of metal;
- lid with spout;
- bellows to supply air inside.
For simple maintenance, a material is placed in the smoker that will smolder but will not produce a flame. During treatment, appropriate medications are sprinkled onto the smoldering coals.
Fumigation does not “pacify” the bees because of the smoke itself. Sensing the burning, insects instinctively begin to eat honey.In the event of a forest fire, they will have to move to a new place and it is better to do this with at least some food supplies. Therefore, working individuals “eat up” until their bellies are full. But such an abdomen bends poorly and stinging becomes uncomfortable. It is on the inability to sting that the “pacification” mechanism is based.
There may always be a bee that is not “well-fed” enough or has just returned from the meadows.
What to fumigate with
The smoker is filled with material that can smolder for a long time without a flame. Store-bought charcoal cannot be used; it produces too high a temperature and very little smoke. The best materials for a smoker are:
- wood rot;
- dried tinder fungus;
- oak bark.
Wood rot can be collected from stumps in the forest and the rot can be dried. The tinder fungus often settles even in gardens; it must be destroyed. In this case, you can combine two goals at once. The tinder fungus is collected in the spring.
What you should absolutely not use:
- pieces of chipboard and fiberboard;
- fresh wood;
- fresh sawdust.
Particle boards are laced with toxic substances that will kill bees. Wood and sawdust burn, but do not smolder. The flame will anger the worker bees.
Proper fumigation
The smoker should not be abused. In order for the bees to calm down and begin to stock up on honey, it is enough to release 2-3 puffs of smoke. This is a signal for insects that there is a fire somewhere, but they can be avoided. Or it won’t get around and you need to stock up on food. If you smoke the bees in the hive too much, it will be a signal that a fire is nearby. We need to get up and fly to a new place. Too much smoke will only anger the bees.
Safety rules when working in an apiary
The instructions for caring for bees provide not only the use of a smoker, but also the wearing of special clothing that protects against stings:
- closed shoes;
- long pants;
- long-sleeve shirt;
- Sleeve cuffs should have elastic bands;
- gloves;
- hat with mosquito net.
When caring for bees, you can get 50 or more stings in a day. While 1-2 may even be beneficial, a large amount of bee venom will cause a severe allergic reaction, even death.
Conclusion
Caring for bees from the outside seems like a calm, unhurried activity, but this is due to the fact that insects do not like sudden movements. In fact, care requires attentiveness, accuracy and significant investment of labor from the beekeeper.
