Accounting for the condition and timing of the honey
The state of honey collection in nature is taken into account by daily weighing the hive with bees (control family) standing on the scales. For weighing, take a hive with a strong bee family, which is put on a decimal scale, installed under a canopy, protecting the hive from atmospheric precipitation.
The beehive is weighed daily in the evening, after the end of the summer of the bees. If the mass of the hive has not changed over the past day, it means that the bees during the day contributed as much as they needed and brood for food at the same time. If the weight of the hive has decreased, it means that the bees partially or completely spend fodder stocks of the nest. If the mass of the beehive has increased, it means that the bees contributed over the past day the amount of food exceeding the daily need for food of the bee family, and part of the bee’s food was postponed as a stock.
For periodic weighings, one of the strongest families in the apiary is always allocated. A strong family will reflect even small changes in the level of honey collection; a weak family, because of the small number of flying bees, may not at all reflect the small amount of nectar that is available in nature by the honey plants.
According to the size of the honey-harvest, the spring-summer season can be divided into periods of complete absence of honey collecting, supporting honey collecting and the main honey collection. In the absence of honey, the beekeeper must monitor the fodder reserves in the hive and, if necessary, add food. Supportive honey cultivation raises brood rearing and wax release, promotes the strengthening of families. However, the decisive importance is the main honey collection, when a bee family gathers nectar, which provides the main stocks of honey. By weighing the control family during the main honey collection it is possible to determine how quickly honey accumulates in
Beekeeper is important to the main honey collector to increase in families the largest number of bees. Therefore, it is necessary for each locality to know the time of preparation of bees for the main honey collector, in order to intensively influence the bee family during this period by forages and other methods for the greatest brood rearing.
Employees of the Institute of Apiculture developed a method for calculating the period of preparation of bees for the main honey collector.
First, postpone the time of the beginning and the end of the main honey collector. Then find the time of the withdrawal of the earliest bees that can survive to the beginning of the main honey collection and participate in the collection of nectar at least 5 days of this honey. To do this, lay 30 days to the left from the start of the main honey-crop (the time of life of the bee to the honey) and then another 21 days (the time of development of the bee). Thus find the date (in our example on May 1), when the uterus begins to lay eggs, from which bees develop, directly using the main honey collection. Therefore, to calculate the first date, it is necessary to postpone 51 days from the beginning of the main honey crop to the left.
Now we will find the second date – the time of the withdrawal of the latest bees, which will be able to use at least the last 5 days of the main honey collection. To do this, from the end of the main honey crop we put 5 days left (working on honey), 3 more days (work of the bee in the hive after leaving the cell) and another 21 days (the development time of the bee). In total, therefore, put it to the left of the end of the main honey collector for 29 days.
Between the two calculated dates the uterus lays eggs, from which the bees develop, directly working on using the main honey collector. Consequently, between the calculated dates is the period of preparation of the bees for the main honey collector. Studies have shown that the honey collection of unburned bee colonies is directly proportional to the number of brood grown during the period of preparation of bees for the main honey collector.
Between the number of brood grown in families for the whole season, and the honey collection of bee families there is a definite dependence. A reliable and higher dependence is present between the honey crop and the number of brood grown for the whole period of spring (before the beginning of the main honey crop). However, between the honey collector and the number of bees grown for the period of honey bee preparation we calculated, there is a very high and biometrically reliable relationship (the closer the correlation coefficient to 1, the more accurate and stronger the dependence).
A particularly strong dependence was obtained for those families who had the same amount of brood during the honey harvest and who therefore had the same conditions for collecting nectar. The swarming of bee colonies before or during the harvest, as a rule, reduces their productivity. Therefore, when preparing bees for the main honey collector, measures should be taken to prevent swarming.
Having determined the period of preparation of honey bees for honey, it is easy to determine at what time it is most effective to use stimulating fertilizing, to form the layers and to use other measures for all-round strengthening of bee families to the main honey collector.
Determination of gross grain collection. The honey collection of the bee family (gross) consists of honey taken from the hive and left in the family for the winter. The account of the productivity of bee colonies is necessary for the identification of particularly prominent families in mass selection, for studying the most effective methods and methods of keeping bees for local conditions, for testing different breeds of bees and their hybrids, and so on.
To account for the number of selected honey and left in the hive are used in three ways, giving a different degree of accuracy:
– Weigh all honeycombs with honey, taken from the family, before and after pumping honey; the difference in weight will give the amount of honey taken from the family.
– At selection of each honeycomb from it shake or sweep bees and, having hooked for a lateral bar, weighed by the changeless. From the total weight of the honeycomb, the weight of the empty honeycomb along with the frame is subtracted. Tentatively, we can assume that a light honeycomb with a frame (435X300 mm) has a mass of 0.4 kg, a brown one – 0.6, a dark one – 0.8 kg.
– The amount of honey taken is determined by the area occupied in the honeycomb. The full frame (435X300 mm) of printed honey contains about 3.5 kg, half a honeycomb with printed honey – 1.5 kg, etc. Previously, the beekeeper should be trained in determining the amount of honey in the honeycombs, checking himself by weighing the honeycombs.
Honey on honeycombs with brood is determined only by the occupied area.
To determine the total honey harvest, the apiary weighs all the honey pumped out, determine the amount of honey left in the hives after the end of the honey collection and take into account the reserve honey fund in honeycombs harvested by the spring for distribution to bees. The total amount of honey counted is divided by the number of families that were in the apiary in the spring.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Accounting for the condition and timing of the honey