How to care for bees in winter. Spring bee inspection

In order for the apiary to bring only pleasure and income, it is necessary to properly care for the bees, first of all. Today there are many most different ways keeping bees, as well as recommendations and rules that will teach a novice beekeeper how to work competently and will be able to answer questions from a professional beekeeper. We will learn about them in more detail in the next article.

If you are just starting to keep bees or have just started to think about it, then the first step to beekeeping should be to make or buy bees and bees. For a beginner it will be a few families are enough. It is best to purchase those that live in your region; it will be easier to work with them and you will be able to avoid various problems as much as possible. After this, you need to pay attention to the following questions:

Caring for bees in spring

Spring is the main transition period of the year both for the bees and the beekeeper. In the spring, bees awaken after wintering and also prepare for the period. The beekeeper is also preparing for this together. What needs to be done to spring period Was keeping bees as comfortable as possible?

Caring for bees at the end of summer, in August

August is notable for the fact that on average during this period the honey collection period ends. Thus, it can be argued that by the standards of the apiary, August, especially its second half, is already autumn. What is recommended to pay attention to during this period?

In general, if we draw the line, we can say that the main ones are pumping out honey from the evidence, as well as preparing a sufficient amount of food for the winter.

Swarmless method of keeping bees

Bees is good at everything. He helps mine a large number of honey at low financial investments. Its features are as follows:

The biggest job for the beekeeper in this technology is serious work with the bodies, which requires lengthy investigations. Therefore, using this method is not suitable for beginners. When breeding bees from scratch, it is better to use classic method and be guided by basic veterinary sanitary rules keeping bees.

Spring for bees begins with an exhibition of omshanik, or more precisely, with a spring flight. After it, rapid development of families begins, even if the weather is not favorable for flights. Caring for bees in the spring is aimed at quickly increasing their strength, the queens begin to hatch and the formation of layering begins.

Exhibition and flyby

Spring migration of bees requires a temperature of at least 8˚ in the shade. The hives are removed from the omshanik the night before, guided by the prevailing weather and forecast. It happens that you have to set it in advance if it’s too warm in the winter hut, the bees get restless, hunch, and it’s not possible to reduce the temperature. They are usually carried out on a stretcher, together, backwards, trying not to disturb them.

Exhibition of beehives from omshanik

Before this, it is necessary to equip the points: straighten the fence, hammer in pegs or place stands for the hives, clear the passages of snow, sprinkle with dark powder (coal dust, ash, earth) for faster melting. It’s not bad if you cover the snow with improvised materials: straw, leaves, scraps of cardboard, felting felt. This will protect weakened insects that have settled on the surface from freezing. The hives are placed in old places so that there is no wandering, fraught with the spread of diseases.

The spring flight of bees occurs in different time, usually in March, and he will tell an attentive beekeeper about a lot. The main task of the beekeeper is to monitor him. You need to determine the condition of the colonies based on the flight, mark the unfavorable ones, but try not to get too close: the bees haven’t defecated for six months and can smear you during the flight.

Upon completion, the beekeeper will have a lot of work ahead of him. We inspect everything and help disadvantaged families. The spring inspection of bees (also called spring inspection) is carried out not in order, but starting with families that have wintered poorly, identified during observation of flights. The weather is cool, unstable, the days are short, and if the apiary is large, then the inspection will take more than one day. By not starting with critical bee colonies, you risk their lives.

Flying around bees in spring

Also, the inspection is combined with the replacement of the bottoms, if necessary - rough cleaning, for example, worn frames, and providing first aid. Done spring feeding bees, they give honey or bee bread, depending on what is missing. Families with a missing queen are added to the nucleus with spare ones saved for this case. In case of illness or suspicion of it, diagnosis and treatment are carried out.

Beekeepers also reduce nests by removing empty frames. They also take out the worn ones, if there is no brood in them, replacing them with clean ones. They evaluate the quality of the queen by the brood (it’s not worth looking, it’s a waste of time) - is it solid or lattice, how much is there, how is it placed, is there a humpback. If something goes wrong, the family is taken note and, perhaps, the uterus is soon replaced.

Spring inspection of hives

How to speed up the development of families

First, you need to check the availability and accessibility of the resources the bees need: honey, beebread, water. As well as the condition and size of the nest. Let's take it point by point.

Maintain a balance between nest size and family strength. In March-April, old bees leave, not always having time to grow new ones to replace them, so lack of growth at the beginning of the season is normal. In March, a cramped nest is preferable to an overly spacious one. In late spring and summer it’s the other way around.
Monitor supplies; there should always be at least 6 kg of honey in the nest. Feeding bees in the spring, if supplies are small, is advisable by placing honey frames saved from that year, preferably heated in a thermostat.
If there is not enough beebread, there is no pollen supply, or the weather does not allow flying, we put up spare frames with beebread or give protein feeding. Protein is needed for growing brood; there is little of it in flower honey (there are some pollen grains), but not at all in sugar honey.
There are usually no problems with water - we install a drinking bowl in the apiary so that the workers do not have to fly far and, possibly, bring infection with the water. If there is prolonged bad weather, which rarely happens, we give water to families. To do this, we place a container with water and a wick leading to the entrance next to the hive, or pour it into frames and place it inside the hive.
We check for diseases and pests, such as wax moths. If you are sick, we treat you immediately; this is work that cannot be put off!
We discard damaged frames. Often there is petrified beebread in the nest, the bees throw it away, but for them it is labor-intensive, they have to gnaw it off almost to the ground. It is much easier for the beekeeper to cut it down to the foundation. We also remove frames that are too dark: the remains of the cocoons have reduced the volume of the cell; only inferior, small bees can be placed in them. If there is no spare sushi, it is permissible to cut the honeycomb to the base of the cells. The bees will clean and rebuild.

Spring bee feeding serves two purposes and, accordingly, is done differently.

Lack of feed. We give a lot at once. We substitute a frame with honey (best) or feed it with a large dose of syrup, the honey is full.
To stimulate oviposition. We give it little by little, and only if there is no bribe in nature or if bad weather does not allow us to fly after it. You can partially print out a frame with honey and place it behind a non-solid partition, or pour the syrup into an empty frame and place it there. The transfer of food to the nest, as well as the presence of a bribe, stimulates egg laying.

When pouring water, syrup or protein fertilizer into the frames, we take into account that simply pouring does not work well: the liquid flows over the top and drains, staining everything and not penetrating into the cells. It should be filled from a height and in a thin stream, then the solution is “driven” into the honeycomb. It is convenient to do this from the spout of a kettle or through a colander.

They are not just preparing for spring, this is a period on which the amount of future honey directly depends and, as a result, the level of income of the beekeeper. In order for wintering to be successful, with a minimum of losses, you need to know how insects overwinter and how to organize care for bees in winter.

Bee raising

You need to prepare your apiary for winter from August. At this time, the queen is still laying eggs, but the bribes are already over. To prevent egg laying from stopping, it should be made clear that the bribe continues. For this purpose, fertilizing is carried out.

In September, feeding is stopped so that the emerging brood has time to fly around and does not overfill the intestines.

A prerequisite for successfully growing families there will be light brown fresh frames with winter food for the inhabitants of the hive. Their cells will hatch brood next year.

Therapeutic supplements

Aimed at preventing nosematosis, a dangerous disease for bees, characterized by digestive upset and often death of insects. Medicinal drugs are added to the feeding syrup.
No less dangerous for the hive are mites, the fight against which begins after pumping out the honey before the start of complementary feeding, using special means.

Bee behavior changes ahead of winter: there is a decrease in activity, the number and duration of flights is reduced, they consume less food, they begin to prepare the home for the winter period, coating the cracks with propolis, significantly reducing the entrance to the hive.

Where do bees spend the winter?

Bees overwinter in hives, which during this period can be placed in basements, semi-basements and left on open areas. Each method has its own characteristics, but ultimately their goal is to protect bee colonies from wind, moisture and temperature changes.

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Requirements for wintering conditions

Winter apiary care comes down to creating necessary conditions for a full winter:

Winter fertilizing can only be done in in case of emergency, if there is an assumption that there is not enough food, and at a temperature not lower than +2+4 degrees, otherwise the bees will not leave the club and will not take feeding.

Bee diseases, signs and methods of treatment, prevention

What do bees do in the hive in winter?

Insects can fight the cold on their own, without human intervention. Excess heat leads To negative consequences: the collapse of the club and early appearance brood, activity, agitation, consuming more food than necessary, and bowel movements. As a result, the family dies or becomes too weak. There is no need to create “greenhouse” conditions; the winter hardiness of bees has been developed in the process of evolution.

The inhabitants of the hive gather in a club for the winter, this is a formation of bees in which heat is carefully maintained. Those individuals that are on the surface of the club, moving inside it, displace those who have warmed up and stocked up on food. The activity of bees in the club depends on the external temperature; the colder it is, the more active they will be. In such a club, the bees move to the top of the nest, then to its back wall in search of food. Therefore, when assembling a nest, it is important for the beekeeper to take into account the order of food consumption accepted by the bees and set the correct framework. The heat distribution is uneven, in the center of the club the temperature can reach +30 degrees, from its edge 10-15 degrees above zero with a general negative temperature in the hive.

Inspecting bees in winter

If your bee colonies are well prepared for winter, then you can visit them only 1-2 times a month without worrying about anything. We will tell you in this article how to prepare your pets for winter and protect the hive from rodents.

Preparing bees for winter

Incentive and preventive therapeutic feedings begin to be given immediately after pumping out the last honey. Feed the toilers well-fed, and along with the feeding, give them medicine.

It is not difficult to grow a colony, which means the strength of the bee colony: in the fall, place in each nest towards the end of the main bribe - this is the bees' prey, collected in a hive of 2-3 frames, partially occupied by honey with the best cells for bees. In them, the queens will be able to lay eggs uninterruptedly. By resorting to such a trick, the beekeeper helps the queen think not about the offspring, but about food.

Caring for bees in winter

IN winter period It is important for the beekeeper to control and regularly check the humidity and ventilation in the hives, as well as to remove dead bodies in a timely manner (for those who are just starting a difficult business - beekeeping, dead bodies are the bodies of drones and bees that have naturally ended their lives).

November-December are relatively calm months when bees are quiet. Under normal conditions weather conditions, without sudden changes, you can check the winter hut only once a month. In January, it is better to visit the families twice; in February, the hive should be checked every 10 days. In March, the awakening begins, so you should visit the bees every 4-5 days. During this period, brood may begin to breed, which means that twice as much food will be required, and accordingly, the temperature of the nest will increase. The beginning of spring is the most important period in the wintering of bees.

How to check winter shelter

Noise. Upon entering the winter hut, do not rush to visit your families. To begin with, listen to the hum, pay attention to the places where an even and calm noise is coming from - in these hives the bees are happy with their winter, and everything is fine with them. If you hear a general increased noise, check the temperature of the winter hut - most likely it is increased. The quiet rustling of bees indicates that families are hungry.
The cause of noise when normal conditions maybe honeydew honey, which they simply forgot to replace in the fall. In this case, it is urgent to give the bees a kandi cake - made from powdered sugar or sugar syrup prepared with snow water.
Humidity. Damp dead will indicate high level humidity in the hives and poor ventilation. Due to dampness, honey oxidizes, the walls of the hive can become moldy, and the bees begin to get sick. Poplar charcoal helps improve the microclimate of the hive.
Mice. If you find droppings in the sea and headless corpses of bees, be sure to place poisoned bait for rodents in the winter hut.

Beehives whose wood rots - the best place for mice to live in. Make sure that bees do not live in such hives at all. Otherwise, the mouse will build its nest in them and disturb the bee colonies.

Watering bees

In winter, bees need additional water. To do this, hang a bottle of water near the upper entrance. The linen wick is moistened, and then one end is inserted into the bottle, the other into the tap hole.

Help for a motherless family

A family that has been left without a queen for the winter behaves restlessly and noisily. If you do not have spare queens, it is better to take such a colony out of the winter hut so that it does not disturb other bee colonies. If you can give the family another queen, do it quickly: without dismantling the nest, take it out into the vestibule and place the nucleus with the queen and bees inside. Wait until the family calms down, and only then bring it back to the winter hut.

Finally, it is worth noting that inspecting a bee colony in winter is an extreme measure, and your actions should pursue a specific goal. You shouldn’t bother your pets unnecessarily, and if you really need to inspect the hive, use only a flashlight with a red filter.

You can also learn about wintering bees from the video

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A beginner should remember that caring for bees requires strict adherence to the rules. In the fall, usually in September, the nest is assembled for the winter. This means that frames with brood and a small amount of honey are placed closer to the partition. Temporary layers are attached. The key indicator in beekeeping is honey yield. It is he who indicates the strength of the family and its potential. When planning to breed bees and care for them, the beekeeper needs to be fully prepared for the main bribe. This means that it is necessary to audit the existing individuals and increase the number of healthy and efficient insects. To reduce the time spent caring for bees, you can expand the nests in special beds.

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Hive structure

If you want to start a hive, the first thing you need to do is think about where to put it. Ideal location - near trees and high fence. The tree casts a shadow, which helps maintain the microclimate of the bees' home, preventing them from getting cooked from the heat and direct exposure to rays. A high fence will protect you from gusts of wind. However, you should not install the hive in a low area, as this can contribute to the development of fungal diseases and mold.

Insectivorous birds (buzzard, golden bee-eater, sand martin) should not be found near the beekeeper. They can catch the bees, and all their efforts will be in vain.

The hive design must meet the requirements:

The entire structure must be reliable and capable of protecting insects from temperature changes, precipitation and moisture.
The hive should be warm, but not overheated during extreme heat.
The thickness of the walls of a single-walled hive is 3 cm; in a double-walled hive, the space should be filled with moss.
The bees' home should be quite spacious and suitable for housing brood, honey and bee bread storage. This is the name of flower pollen.
Possibility of manually adjusting hive volumes.
Availability and comfort of working with structures.

All hives must have same sizes designs. In this case, it is comfortable to work, and a lot of time is not spent determining the ownership of a part of the structure.

The bottom of the hive must be removable and equipped with a mesh with a tray. Such measures will allow you to effectively combat ticks.

For wintering, excess frames are removed from the hive. This space must be filled with special insulated pillows.

Anyone who starts a bee colony must undergo official registration. This does not depend on the number of hives. You need to contact your local veterinary station for animal disease control.

Documents issued by SES:

Veterinary passport for the apiary (to be rented out, preferably in the spring).
Certificate for honey (the honey itself is submitted for analysis). Without a veterinary passport, a certificate will not be issued.

If a beekeeper has a health certificate, he can obtain permission to pack beekeeping products. Accordingly, permission to trade and participate in fairs.

Life of a bee family

For a beginner to understand how to work with a hive, it is necessary to have an understanding of the life and interaction of bees.

A bee family is a well-oiled mechanism in which everyone is in their place and performs specific tasks. The entire colony is divided into a queen bee, worker bees and drones. The moving part of the family is the swarm. Passive - a nest consisting of honeycombs with brood and food reserves. Despite its apparent insignificance, the nest is an important element of the hive. It is necessary for raising offspring, producing and storing bee reserves, and protecting the entire family.

An individual bee by itself is not able to survive without its family. The functions of each group are clearly defined:

Young bee (hive or nurse). When a bee has just left its cell, it is still weak and unable to work. Therefore, she prepares herself for future stress (cleans her wings, eyes and body). A week later, when she has already become stronger, she begins to clean the cells and feed the larvae with honey and beebread. And after another week they are trusted to feed very small larvae with milk. In one day, such a nurse can visit her ward up to 8,000 times. They also process nectar into honey. On the 14th day they make their first orientation flight, which lasts five minutes. The bee has enough time to look around and remember the way home. Now she can clean the inside of the hive and take out debris and even the dead bodies of other insects. On the 20th day, the bee becomes a worker or forager.
Uterus. Busy only with laying eggs. Experienced beekeepers try to replace the queen every two years to avoid the proliferation of drones.
Worker bee (flight or field). From the 20th day of life, the bee becomes a worker and flies out of the hive to collect nectar. Such a worker works from morning until sunset, occasionally flying into the home to drop nectar and pollen (pollen lumps from the hind legs). In rainy weather or when there is no bribe (nectar in flowers), bees are reluctant to leave their home and only a few fly out to bring water or pollen.
Drone. Performs the task of fertilizing the uterus. This happens when the queen leaves the hive. At such moments, she is surrounded by a whole cloud of drones, which fertilize her and immediately die. The drone eats a lot of supplies. Also, nurse bees spend too much energy on them. Therefore, beekeepers try to get rid of them. A drone hatches from unfertilized eggs. To avoid this, they try to put “dry” (ready-made honeycombs) into the hive. Then the uterus begins to lay only fertilized eggs.

Before wintering, bees expel all drones from their home and kill their brood. Without a family in the wild, they die.

Bee nutrition

On nice warm days, worker bees collect nectar from flowers, processing it into pollen, honey, and bee bread. If the weather situation is not favorable good collection nectar, then insects look for a replacement: juice of fruits and berries, honeydew (sweet liquid on the leaves from the activity of insects). Beekeepers feed insects with cane and beet syrups. But such a measure should not be long and frequent. Honeydew honey can cause damage to a family during wintering.

Feeding is necessary at a time when there are a lot of eggs and bees are working hard. In cold weather, the family uses honey from their own reserves. Therefore, it must always be available.

The larva is saturated with royal jelly, which is produced from the glands of nurse bees. On the 4th day, honey, pollen and water (in the form of a mixture) are added to the diet. The adult eats honey and pollen.

Honey is the bee's source of thermal energy. Once in the insect’s body, it breaks down into glucose, which helps generate heat and maintain the temperature of the home. Both for simple microelements and biologically active ingredients, helping to maintain the functions of the bee and its vital activity.

Bee bread is prepared by bees from pollen and contains amino acids, vitamins and enzymes. It is sterile and three times more nutritious than pollen, therefore it is an integral component of feeding the larvae. This is very important element nutrition for the whole family. With its deficiency, drones lose the ability to fertilize, the uterus becomes infertile, and the larvae cannot fully develop their physiological functions. Thus, beebread is vitamins and microelements that support the functioning of the entire hive. One bee colony can consume up to 35 kg of bee bread per year.

Pollen is a kind of ingredient for making honey. The pollen is moistened with saliva and mixed with nectar and honey. Due to the yeast and fungi contained in it, processes occur that bring it to the state of bee bread.

Royal (bee) jelly is produced by bee glands and contains B vitamins, hormones, proteins, and organic acids. Necessary for nurturing embryos. A colony that consumes a lot of food will produce a lot of honey. This is the law in action.

Reproductive functions

Adult bees can reproduce in two ways:

Swarming is natural life cycle families. The queen suddenly stops laying new eggs. Young bees left without work form a new swarm. It looks like this: the swarm is divided into two parts. Usually in proportions of 40 to 60%. The old queen and her swarm leave for a new habitat. In this case, both families can find their niche.
Recreation is when the queen begins to intensively lay eggs in each comb. Over the winter it is able to recreate an entire colony.

The queen needs to mate with males (drones). Then she will be able to lay fertilized eggs. This happens far from their home, in cloudless weather, approximately after lunch and until the evening. In one flight it can mate with 7-8 males.

Phases of bee development: egg, larva, prepupa, pupa, adult.

How to obtain and store honey?

Freshly pumped honey is quite clear and liquid. Over time it becomes more cloudy, crystallizes and thickens. To keep it liquid for a long time, it is necessary immediately after pumping out to place the honey in a room with a temperature of 0 degrees for up to 2 months. Then transfer to a room with a temperature of 14 degrees. This honey will maintain a liquid consistency for about two years.

It is rare that honey is not candied. Typically, such a product is made on the basis of white acacia and chestnut. In most situations, the main bribe occurs in July. This means that in a newly formed family the queen should lay eggs in May.

To save useful properties product:

pour into a dry glass container with a tight-fitting lid;
You can’t put honey in the refrigerator, fermentation will begin;
Do not heat honey or expose it to direct sunlight.

A cabinet that contains no strong-smelling products is ideal for storage.

Diseases

An indicator of normal colony development is the absence of sick individuals near the entrance. Like any living creature, bees are also susceptible to diseases. Therefore, it is recommended to carry out preventive measures rather than treat diseases. The main symptom of the disease is inappropriate behavior of insects.

Diseases are divided into pathological - the most dangerous and severe (calcareous brood, paralysis, foulbrood, diarrhea) and seasonal - require drug treatment and are caused by pests and clinical diseases.

Diseases can also be divided into:

Preventive measures are carried out comprehensively in the spring, until the spread of the disease in the apiary occurs, and in autumn period before the start of winter. Since bees are social insects, and the income of the apiary depends on their condition, you should not neglect preventive measures.

Equipment needed by a beekeeper

Tools that will be used when handling bees must be safe and protect against insect bites.

Any beekeeper always has in stock:

1. Face net - designed to protect the beekeeper's face. It looks like a hat with a black mesh down. It should tighten to prevent insects from getting inside.
2. White cotton robe with elastic bands on the sleeves and a belt to prevent bees from getting inside.
3. Smoker - necessary for inspecting the hive. Due to the action of smoke, bees fill their crops with honey so much that they cannot bend over to sting.
4. Apiary chisel - used to expand the frames when inspecting the hive. It will also be needed to scrape off propolis and wax.
5. A portable box with a lid will help you move the frames.
6. Brush for removing debris from the hive.
7. Roevnya is useful when gathering a swarming family.
8. The caps are used for transplanting queens into families.
9. Feeder for feeding.
10. A drinking bowl is necessary so that the bees always have water.
11. The separating grid serves to isolate or catch the queens in the nest.
12. A drone trap is useful for catching heavily bred males in the hive.
13. A bee remover is necessary before you start pumping out honey.
14. A honey extractor will be required when pumping honey from honeycombs.
15. Awl for punctures in the frame.
16. Wire for attaching foundation.
17. Blanks for frames.

This list can grow over time and with increasing needs. When choosing clothes, you need to focus on what is spacious and comfortable. This choice will help you not restrict your movements while working in the apiary. When choosing a face mask, you should give preference to black mesh. This option will improve visibility.

To prevent bees from stinging between your shoes and your trouser leg, wear leg warmers. Thick gloves will protect your hands.

Caring for winged insects

Beginners tend to make mistakes. For example, they like to inspect hives several times a day. This leads to temperature changes inside the home and disturbs insects, disrupting their way of life.

When a new beekeeper has just set up his hives, he should not wait for honey. It will be there, but in small quantities and necessary for bees. The first priority is proper care for the family.

Periodic checks of the hive during the warmer months will help ensure that the queen is laying eggs, the bees are doing their jobs, and the hive has room for further expansion.

In cold weather, it is better to exclude such checks so as not to disturb the family again and not reduce their temperature inside.

All equipment must be removed and stored separately. There may be traces of insects on tools, which are allergens for some people.

Bee colony selection

Family choice – decisive question for the beginning beekeeper. In order to worry less about diseases and not lose further interest, it is better to choose a healthy and high-quality uterus. It is difficult for an inexperienced person to see her among the mass of bees. She is slightly larger than all other individuals, moves slowly, and her abdomen is slightly longer than the others. It is usually located in the center next to the brood and larvae. At the beginning of summer, it can be located on the edge of the frame.

After identifying the queen, it is necessary to carefully examine her. We need to pay attention to appearance: it must be in good condition, with intact wings, without injuries on the abdomen and legs. Good uterus will lay eggs in each cell. If there are missing cells, it is better to refuse such a purchase.

A good family has decent reserves and weight. For example, in April the weight of a family should be at least one and a half kg (for 6 frames), from May to August - up to three kg (12 frames). A good colony will have 6 kg of food, about five frames of brood and two frames of beebread. It is very important to buy healthy, disease resistant and productive bees. Such families quickly adapt and winter well.