Content
The term “tinder”, depending on the context, can mean a bee colony, an individual bee, or even an unfertilized queen. But these concepts are closely related to each other. A family becomes a tinder if the role of the queen is played by a tinder bee. And a bee can appear in a family only if a full-fledged female is lost.
Who are tinders?
If the queen in the colony dies, after some time the bees begin to feed each other with royal jelly. Since milk contains hormones that stimulate egg laying, some of the bees that eat “inappropriate” food are degenerated.
An ordinary bee is an underdeveloped female, incapable of laying eggs. But a bee stimulated with royal jelly begins to develop ovipositors. The number of ovipositors can reach 12.
Such a female begins to lay eggs. But since she has neither a seminal receptacle nor sperm in it, she can only lay eggs with a haploid set of chromosomes. That is, to produce drones. From the point of view of collecting supplies and the further survival of the family, drones are useless.The existing population of working individuals will not be able to work for everyone and in the winter the colony will die of starvation.
A family in which there is no queen, but there is a degenerated worker, is also called a tinder for short. And the difference between concepts depends on the context.
But this means that the queen is too old and is not able to fully sow eggs. In any case, the presence of only drone seeding is a reason to be wary and take a closer look at the colony.
Polypore bees
Due to the long absence of a real queen, her role can be taken over by an ordinary bee, which for some time fed on royal jelly and began to lay unfertilized eggs. Although workers may begin to treat such a tinder bee as a real queen, only drones can emerge from unfertilized eggs.
Since drones require a lot of space in the cells, the bees cover the honeycombs with convex lids. A set of cells closed with similar lids is called “humpback seeding”. The appearance of a humpback seed in the hive is a signal that the family is turning into a tinder.
When such seeding appears, the beekeeper needs to carefully examine the swarm. If the real female is not found, urgent measures must be taken to save the colony.
If the tinder bees appeared in the presence of a real queen, this means that the queen needs to be changed: she is too old. Many beekeepers prefer to change females every year or two to prevent the appearance of drone colonies.
Since the polypore is a degenerated worker, it has no differences from other bees.Accordingly, it is impossible to distinguish a tinder bee from other members of the colony by eye. Polymers differ from worker bees only in their ability to lay eggs.
Can tinder bees fly?
There are no bees that are unable to fly. Even a fertilized queen, if necessary, can rise with the swarm and fly to another place. But this happens in some exceptional cases and usually with wild bees. The family is simply fleeing danger.
In a normal situation, the queen does not need to fly anywhere, and it may seem that she is not able to take to the air. Able. For the tinder bee, which is in fact a worker, flying does not present any difficulties at all. She begins to have problems with orientation in space. She doesn’t consider it necessary to fly; everything she needs is “brought home.”
Queen tinder
A queen tinder is an ordinary queen who, for some reason, cannot lay fertilized eggs. Sometimes the female is simply not capable of flight due to deformity. Some queens emerge from pupae with underdeveloped wings, while others may damage them accidentally. Contrary to what is sometimes believed, the “native” drones will not fertilize their queen. The queen needs flight to mate. She always copulates in the air. Or the female simply did not meet the male. The uterus may remain unfertilized if the weather has been unsuitable for flying for a long time.
Only drones emerge from the eggs of unfertilized females. It is impossible to correct such a queen. It is removed immediately when too many drones are detected in the colony and a normal queen is added to the colony or a one-day seeding from another hive is installed. With the latter option, the bees themselves will raise a new queen.
Tinder family
A tinder family is a colony that has been without a queen for a long time. These bees do not have a fresh seed of eggs from which to hatch a new queen. Due to the lack of larvae, which need to be supplied with milk, the bees begin to feed each other. As a result, some individuals develop reproductive functions and begin to lay eggs.
Tinder bees lay eggs in ordinary bee cells, but only drones hatch from such eggs. Males have little space in the honeycomb, and the bees seal the cells with convex lids.
You can still try to correct such a family, unlike the queen tinder. But it will be necessary to remove the tinder bee from the colony if there is one.
Reasons for appearance
The main reason for the appearance of polypores in most cases is the death of the uterus. The queen may die from illness. Often due to a mistake by beekeepers, when the fight against drones was carried out too zealously and the bees lost their protection against natural enemies.
Also, if there are a small number of drones in her own apiary and there are no other bee families nearby, the queen may return from her flight unfertilized. In this case, she begins to lay unfertilized eggs.
Two queens in the hive are also almost certain death of the colony in winter, since the bees do not have enough strength to retain heat when two balls are formed instead of one.
Tinder families also appear when the queen is too old and sows too few fertilized eggs. A family that begins to swarm can become a tinder. Moreover, such a colony passes into the tinder stage faster than any other. This is explained by the fact that the young bees still have nothing to do, and they begin to feed each other with milk.
What is the risk of their appearance?
When any type of polypore appears, the consequences are the same: the death of the colony. This is provided that the beekeeper does not take any measures. When caring for bees, this problem can always be solved. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes you have to tinker. And first you need to find a tinder bee in the colony.
If action is not taken as quickly as possible, changes in the colony will become irreversible. The bees will not accept another queen and will kill her. Such a family can no longer be united with another, since they will not be able to feed anyone other than drones. It is easier to prevent the emergence of a tinder family than to correct it later. But cases are different.
How to detect
The tinder family is identified by its “humpback seeding.” Next they figure out why this happened. The appearance of such a family may be a consequence of the presence of an unfertilized uterus. The queen stands out in appearance and is not difficult to find.
If there is no queen in a tinder family and her functions are performed by bees, you will have to tinker with the definition of “pests”. You need to watch the bees: several individuals are always with their heads towards the “queen”. There is an easier way to get rid of a tinder bee without finding out who it is. Moreover, there may be several such bees. The swarm is collected, carried away and poured onto the ground. The workers will return to the hive, and the tinder bees will get lost.
How to fix tinder: methods and tips
The easiest way is to prevent the appearance of tinder families than to correct them later. To prevent the appearance of polypores, families are monitored. If necessary, the queens are replaced with a “quiet shift.”
If the colony has lost its queen, but there is queen brood, you need to monitor the emergence of a new female on the 16th day after sowing the eggs.On the 10th day after the birth of the new queen, they check whether she is fertilized and whether she is even present in the hive.
In queenless colonies, frames from other hives are placed with one-day sowing. While the workers are busy with larvae, they will not feed each other, which means they will not create polypore bees and the family will remain healthy.
For a similar purpose, to prevent mutual feeding with milk, an old queen is placed in a cage or a dead one is placed in a queenless hive. The queen's scent also prevents the bees from feeding each other.
Most often, the appearance of polypores in an apiary is a consequence of the beekeeper’s inattention, inexperience or carelessness. But this happens and we have to correct the situation. The method of correction depends on the time of year, the presence of “spare” queens and the state of the bee swarm.
How to fix a dead bee colony in the spring
The easiest time to solve the problem is in the spring. There are no tinder bees in the spring. If the colony contains only drone brood, then the queen is to blame. Unlike bees, she sows eggs correctly: one at a time and in the center of the cell. Exception: crippled female. Such a queen can sow eggs from the edge. But only drones emerge from unfertilized eggs, and the situation must be corrected before the family is actually still normal and has not turned into a drone.
The defective uterus is removed and a new one is placed in its place. In the absence of a “spare” queen, the orphaned colony is united with another, weak, family and later layering is done.
Breeding new females in the spring is considered impractical, since it is still cold and there are not enough drones. But it all depends on the region. In the south, queens can be hatched in late spring.
How to fix tinder in the summer
In a similar way, a rotten colony is corrected in the summer.The old queen is destroyed and a full-fledged one is planted in its place. A weak family is united with another.
Such a colony is unprofitable. The average one works only for itself. The beekeeper benefits from a strong colony that can handle more than 10 frames.
In an orphaned family, you can breed a new queen in the summer:
- destroy the bad one;
- after some time, destroy all the queen cells in this colony;
- place a control frame from another family with one-day sowing;
- carry out standard care;
- control the emergence of the new queen and the first sowing.
After it becomes clear that the queen and her seeding are complete, frames from other hives with seeding almost ready to emerge are placed into the colony to strengthen the family.
How to fix a tinder family in the fall
In the fall, if possible, a new queen is also added to the tinder family. If there is none, the swarms are combined.
It makes sense to breed a new female only if she manages to emerge from the queen cell at the beginning of September and fly off to fly before September 15th. Otherwise, in the spring you will again end up with a tinder family.
Here we also need to take into account that the working individuals that appeared in August-September leave for the winter. But the tinder families do not have a good fertile queen, and the colony will go into winter weakened. To avoid this situation, the orphaned swarm is added to another family.
How to fix tinder if there are no spare queens
If there are no reserve queens in the fall, the polypores are combined with a layer from another hive. Working individuals from the layer will themselves kill the polypore bees, if there are any. In spring and summer, you can breed your own new queen for the polypores, but the process is quite complicated.
In the evening, an hour before the bees settle in for the night, all frames are removed from the hive.After all the inhabitants return home, the entrance is closed and the hive is brought into the basement. The ceiling canvas is removed to make it cooler. The hive must be well ventilated, otherwise the swarm will suffocate. In such conditions, the polypores are kept for 24 hours.
The next day, another one is placed in the place where the tinder hive was. In it, a layer is formed of 2 frames at the exit and 1 with one-day sowing. Frames that were previously taken away from the tinder fungi are placed there.
Late in the evening, a blanket is laid out in front of the new hive and bridges are made from sticks to the entrance so that the bees can climb along them.
The polypores are taken out of the basement, shaken out onto a blanket and driven into a new hive with a smoker. After spending the night in a new place and thinking carefully about their behavior, the next day the polypores become an ordinary bee colony.
A similar operation can be carried out with a new queen or if there is a layer with a female. When correcting polypores using layering, in the first days the queen will have to be protected using a special small cage, since at first the polypores may not accept it.
If there was only a spare female, then she is placed in the basement in a cage along with the polypores. In this case, by the time they are released from captivity, the tinder has already managed to accept a new queen.
There are many different ways to correct polypores, but, according to reviews from beekeepers, this one gives 100% results.
Conclusion
The tinder, unlike the drone, is an unconditional evil and does not depend on the context in which this term is used. Any polypores must be eliminated as quickly as possible. Individuals through physical destruction, swarms through re-education.
