RU2106083C1 - Bee winter keeping method - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: apiculture, winter keeping of bees in open air. SUBSTANCE: method involves providing common enlarged bee club prior to forming winter club, with female bees of families adapted to be united being kept in isolated conditions for the whole wintering period. All bees have free access to any point of enlarged club. Upon coming of warm spring and bee flying, wintered enlarged club is divided into equal families, with female bee in each family. EFFECT: increased efficiency, simplified method and increased survival rate.

Description

 The invention relates to beekeeping and is used in organizing the production of honey at its lowest cost for feeding bees and reducing the weight loss of bee colonies for the period of winter keeping of the apiary.

 In beekeeping practice, it is known that most of the winter food by bees is spent on heating the bee club during the absence of honey collection, than on maintaining the physiological state of the nest. And in this regard, they often resort, for example, to heating the hives (see ed. Certificate of the USSR N 1690645 class A 01 K 47/00, 1991) when combining, for example, weak families in one hive.

 There is also known a method for winter keeping of bees by reducing bezotovnogo space in the hive, thereby increasing the preservation of bees in winter (AS USSR N 1475567 class. A 01 K 47/00, 1989).

 In addition, there are known methods for the combined maintenance of several families in multi-family hives, in which the weight loss of the bee club during wintering of bees is reduced (see prototype). A method is described for winter keeping bees in one hive by combining several families with their layers with young uteri, but isolated by partitions from each other, in order to strengthen families for honey collection and reduce weight loss in overwintered families.

 However, the above examples of methods for keeping bees in winter while improving the safety of bee colonies do not indicate a feed saving for wintering; they often entail an increase in other costs — material and human labor costs for maintenance.

 In order to somehow reduce these costs and increase the safety of both bees and bee colonies, as well as significantly save the honey consumed by bees during the winter outdoors, a simple and affordable way for any beekeeper offers winter keeping of bees, including the creation of several families of a single enlarged club of bees in conditions when each of the queen bees of the united families dwells in the same interframe space (street) during the whole winter and is isolated from contact with other dyaschimisya on adjacent streets and under the same conditions sows and all bee families initial combined into a single club, with any access to any point bees enlarged club during the winter period. With the onset of stable warm weather, immediately after the spring flight of bees, the overwintered enlarged club of bees is divided into families of equal size with the uterus in each of them. During the autumn family unification, to reduce the likelihood of manifestation of the hostile instinct of bees of different nests to each other at the time of unification, it is desirable to treat the bees with an aerosol of aromatic substances.

 The development of the main parameters of the method for winter keeping of bees was carried out in comparative experiments, in the conditions of the north of Ukraine in 1993-95 on a Central Russian bee breed. As feed, natural honey was used with a partial addition of sugar syrup fed in the early autumn.

Experience 1. Wintering 1993 - 94gg, the beginning of the experiment in October 1993. In the experiment, 10 families of bees with an average weight of 2.0 kg were selected on the basis of analogues, which were divided into two equivalent groups of 5 families each. One of them is a control one, where the bees were kept throughout the winter in the usual 10-frame hives in the open air with a feed supply of 25 kg per family and the club's location on 4 frames. The second is experienced with the creation of an enlarged club of bees according to the proposed method with enough honey and densely occupied all 10 frames of the hive used. On March 18, 1994, at a temperature of +15 ^o C, the bees of the entire apiary made a cleansing trip, and on the same day the experimental hive was divided into the initial nests with an average nest weight of 1.6 kg with a weight loss of about 400 g per family, while the consumption of honey for an enlarged family was 33 kg or 6.6 kg per source family. The control group at a feed consumption of 14 kg per family had a large weight loss of bees on average 600-700 g per family and the average weight of the remaining nests was 1.3 kg. At the same time, in two families there were signs of nosematic disease of bees and one control family died completely.

 Experience 2. Wintering 1994-95. In the experiment, in October 1994, 20 families were selected: 10 - control and 10 experimental with an average weight of 1.9 kg. Experienced bees were collected in a single club in a 24-frame sunbed according to the proposed method with the amount of feed left for the winter, 76 kg per 18.7 kg of collected bees, the control group, as in the previous experiment, was placed in 10 frame hives with the number feed per family an average of 24 kg and the location of the club of bees on 4 frames. Spring flyby occurred very early on March 8, 1995. When dividing the experimental hive into the original nests, one of the queens was lost, all the others had already sown a baby, honey consumption was 46 kg or 5.2 kg for each newly recreated family. The weight loss of bee colonies during the wintering period was 2.8 kg from the original 18.7 kg or 310 kg per newly formed family. Control families spent 15 kg of honey for the wintering period, while 2 families died completely, 3 weakened during the wintering. The average weight of the remaining bees per family was 1.2 kg, the average weight loss was 700 g per remaining family.

 Thus, the advantages of the proposed method are very convincing, of course, in the conditions of a longer and harsher winter, they can be somewhat different, but the fact of wintering club enlargement is irrefutable evidence of its positive effect on thermogenesis in the hive with a significant gain in saving winter stock of honey and the safety of wintering bees .

Claims (1)

 The method of winter keeping of bees, including the formation of a winter club of bees on fodder honeycombs in the space of one hive with a common temperature and humidity regime, characterized in that before the formation of a wintering club by bees from several families, a single enlarged club of bees is created with the contents of each uterus isolated from each other in the interframe space, with free access to any point of the club of all the bees of the original families during the entire wintering period, and with the onset of warm spring weather, after a flight of bees, MOV club is divided into equally strong family with the uterus in each of them.