The content of bees in hives-loungers
Only strong bee colonies are biologically full and most productive in honey and wax. They are always ready to use any, even short-term bribes.
Therefore, the methods of taking care of bees and their contents should be directed primarily at ensuring that all families of the apiary are strong.
Among the conditions that contribute to the maintenance of strong families, and consequently, to increase their productivity, the volume of the hive is of great importance. Under good conditions, a family can develop and become strong only when it is in a large beehive with at least 20-24 standard frames. Therefore, at the present time instead of breeding bees in close 12-frame hives, bees are widely introduced into practice in spacious beehive-beds for 20-24 frames or in double-hulls. Beehive loungers are common in many apiaries of our country, especially widely used in apiaries of Ukraine, where this system of hives is the main one.
The simplicity of the construction of this hive, its sufficient volume for the maintenance of a strong family, and the convenience of carrying out all the work for the care of bees, contribute to the fact that the spread of hives-sunbeds increases every year.
In practice, hives-loungers are built on a different number of frames: 16, 18, 20, 24 and even 27. The most common are sunbeds on a 20-24 frame. Hive-lounges on a smaller number of frames are less likely to occur because their volume is too small for them to keep strong families and foraging bees when using a bribe for such hives sometimes have to put a store, and this complicates the work. Hive-loungers on 27 frames were not distributed because of their cumbersomeness.
Attention is drawn to the following circumstance. On a large part of apiaries, with a shortage of hives, hives are often used to keep two families in them all year round. In this case the nest of each such family can not occupy
The right use should be made of the use of a hive-lodge, in which in summer there is one strong family in it, completely occupying all the 20-24 frames. At other times (in spring and autumn in winter), when there is a free space in a hive-lounger that is not used by one family, the nucleus, the brood or the “helper family” can be placed in the latter. In the first month after the exhibition of bees, this place can sometimes be temporarily occupied by another family; but with the development of both families and the expansion of their nests, when they both fill together the entire hive, one of them must be deposited in a timely manner in another hive. If this is not done, the most important advantage of the hive-lodge, as a fairly spacious hive, will remain unused.
With the content of bees in hive-lounges, as in the hives of other systems, depending on local conditions, various methods of bee-keeping are used, which can be divided into two main groups:
Methods in which the build-up of bees to a major bribe is made by using one uterus in each family; methods in which the extension of bees to bribes are used, in addition to the queens of the main families, also auxiliary uterus, the so-called “uterus-assistants”. In this case, families with uterus-assistants are called “family-helper”; “Family helper” is usually placed in the same hive as the main family, but separated by a partition.
If the families used in hive-lounges, when increasing bees to bribes use one uterus, that is, the uterus-assistants are not applied, then the spring care for such families is carried out as usual and differs only in the simplicity and convenience of performing the work. So, in the hive-lounger it is very convenient to insulate the nest, placing it on one side or the other side of the hive or even in the middle.
In the latter case, the nest of the family on both sides is limited to platen boards, behind which the free space is filled with a thermal insulation material. Small families are advantageous to temporarily place two in one hive-lodge: when heated together in the spring they develop faster. In a hive-lounger, as more spacious, it is more convenient than a 12-hive beehive, to expand the nest and apply building frames. It is easier to prepare families for transportation and to do other work to prepare the family for a bribe.
The experience of many advanced beekeepers shows that in the conditions of most regions of Ukraine the families that have strong and medium-strong families who have full-fledged queens, fully provided with honeycombs, overwintered well, with sufficient stock of feed and at least small but uninterrupted spring bribes, and with proper care the beekeeper’s side very quickly develops and without the use of auxiliary queens can occupy about 20 frames of the hive-lounger, and the best families – and more. Such families are quite prepared to use even early bribes, for example, with sainfoin and white acacia, and can give a lot of production.
If at the beginning of the summer there are one strong family in the hives-lounges, then to prevent such families from entering the “swarm state” before the bribe or at the beginning of it, they are subject to certain general antithero methods, of which the most important are: timely expansion nests, shading of beehives, increased ventilation in them and the loading of bees by work, especially for the detuning of honeycombs and building frames. In addition, in hives-sun loungers special anti-war techniques are used.
One of them is the method used by the well-known Russian beekeeper AA Chaykin and entered into practice under the name “Chaykin’s method”. This method is applied starting from the end of May or from the first half of June, when the families contained in the hives-loungers will reach a considerable strength, so, if other favorable conditions exist, they could soon go into a swarm state. This method consists in the following.
In the nest of each such family a separation grid is inserted, with the help of which it is divided into two unequal parts: the smaller one, located near the tap, and the big one, farther from it. In the greater part of the nest the frames are arranged so that the separation grid has a frame with larvae of the youngest age, then a frame with an open brood of the older age, then a frame with a predominantly sealed brood, and finally a frame with food. In the smaller part of the nest, at the dividing grid, a frame is placed, most of which is occupied by eggs, then one or two frames with an artificial wax are placed and several frames are placed in the wilderness.
Approximate number of frames in the hive: in the larger compartment 12 in the smaller – 8. The uterus should be in a smaller compartment. It is believed that the uterus passes through the lattice and the major part of the beehive bees is collected, not loaded with the rearing of the brood located in the other part of the nest; Here most of the flying bees will also be. In these conditions, an artificial wax is quickly rebuilt, the cells of ready-made honeycombs are prepared in a timely manner by bees and the uterus begins to lay eggs very intensively here. Later, every 12 days, the nest is re-made in the same order; such a rearrangement takes place 2-3 times, until the main bribe occurs. The family, being strong, is always in working condition and uses honey well.
Sometimes, when the bees are kept in hives-loungers, a technique similar to the Chaikin method described above is used, but without a separation grid, which greatly simplifies the work of the beekeeper. Experiments conducted by our research institutions showed that if the uterus has good honeycombs prepared by bees for laying eggs and located in the best place of the nest – near the tap, then, without the use of a separation grid, the uterus will in most cases be located right here, against tapping. She will intensively lay eggs, and bees – vigorously grow brood and rebuild an artificial wax.
Many beekeepers, who have families in hives-lounges, prefer to resort to the use of “assisted queen-girls” (“semes-assistants”) for increasing bees to bribes. Depending on local conditions, “assisted families” can be formed both with hibernating fetal uteri, and with the uterus of the year-end. The application of “seed-assistants” with hibernating fetuses is particularly beneficial in the presence of significant spring bribes. The more powerful such families come from wintering, the more they are more profitable in these conditions.
Fig. Separation grid.
In areas where the main bribe is relatively late (with buckwheat, sunflower, heather), the family-assistants, formed with the same uterus, are formed in the same year.
A significant part of beekeepers who use “helper-assisted families” with wintering queens do so.
Since the fall, a significant number of cores have been left with spare uterus (25-50% of the total number of apiaries, and sometimes more), formed in the second half of July from the most highly productive families. These nucleuses usually hibernate next to their maternal families, separated from them by plywood septa.
After wintering, some (small) number of queens from such cores are used to repair bezmatovochnyh families or replace unsatisfactory queens in the main families.
The second part of the cores is somewhat strengthened (at the expense of the mother families) and is subsequently left as an increase in the apiary.
The main part of cores with spare mats is used as “helper families”. To this end, such nucleuses are strengthened 2-3 times from the spring by transferring from the main family first one frame with a mature printed brood, and then, after about a week or one and a half, one or two such frames. Developing with the help of the main family and partly using its warmth, the family with a spare uterus grows rapidly. If they both fill a hive-lounger together, and a significant bribe has not yet come, then one of these families (the main one or “helper”, indifferently) is transplanted into a separate beehive, which is put near by, with a flap in the same direction. It is advisable to take measures so that a part of flying bees, and not only young ones, remains from the landed family.
Later, at the beginning of a significant bribe, the help family can be fully attached to the main family, and the best uterus is left in the family after the joint. When connecting families it is necessary to take measures so that the bees do not begin to “fight”.
It is not uncommon to attach to the main family a whole family of helpers, but only a large part of its bees and printed brood. Her uterus with 2-3 frames of brood “openly opened”), two covering frames of the nest with food and 4-5 alleys of uneven-aged bees continue to develop independently, in the form of a branch with a fetal uterus. In the future this family will again grow and at the right time again may be This is used as an assisting family or as an increment of an apiary. This application of overwintered cores with spare mats as seed-assistants increases honey harvest by 40-50%.
The disadvantage of this method is that a significant proportion of bees in spring are fed in a small family, where the conditions are much worse than in a stronger, basic family, and this, as is known, worsens the quality of bees and the bee family as a whole.
To avoid this, beekeepers often, even in the autumn, before the bees start the winter club, call the nucleus with a replacement uterus and his maternal family. In both parts of the hive after the equalization is approximately the same number of frames and bees. Wintering of the equalized families, in general, is better than in the case when the families were dramatically different in strength.
In the spring such families also develop much faster. Conditions for growing bees in both parts of such an equalized family are good enough. In addition, this method is less laborious compared to the previous one, since there is no need to rearrange frames with brood in the spring, only the timely expansion of the nests of both equal families is made.
After the entire hive is filled with frames, one family is transplanted to another hive, and then, if necessary, it joins in the same way as it was said before, when describing the previous method of keeping and using “help seeds”.
Sometimes spring care for bee colonies in hives and sun loungers with small nucleuses with spare uterus as “help seeds” makes it much more difficult to use brood exchange between the main family and its “helper”. This is done as follows.
Soon after the exhibition, the bee family is assisted by a mature brood taken from the main family, and about a month later they begin to systematically transfer the frames with the youngest brood (mostly with seeding) from the assisting family to the main family, where this brood is fed in the best conditions. Instead of each frame taken, a frame with a sushi suitable for laying eggs by the uterus is placed in the assisting family.
In addition, in the families-assistants need to return from time to time mature brood, otherwise they will come to naught. A significant part of beekeepers, using “help families”, forms the latter in hives-loungers (next to the main families), on the uterus of the year-end. Such methods are most advantageous in areas where the main bribe is relatively late, in June, and sometimes in August. The uterus, which was bred in May, has time to take part in building up bees for the main bribe in these conditions. At the same time, the addition of semen-assistants to the main families is combined with the replacement of queens: in the connected families, young uterus of the year-end are left. Families with such uterus are less prone to swarming and are better at using honey.
The old methods of bee production, developed by PP Korzhenevsky and VF Vashchenko, described in the previous chapter, are also based on the use of the output queens for more intensive beekeeping to bribes and better use of honey collection.
In many cases, beekeepers, in order to obtain a gain from the best families, produce the division of the latter in the second half of a bribe with buckwheat (mainly from the middle of July). This method is also most convenient and easy to conduct in hives-loungers. For this purpose, it is necessary to teach the bees in advance (during the bribe) to fly for two flights, and then, at the right time, divide the hive into two parts with a solid partition, one of which should be given a uterus or a mother fruit from a highly productive family.
In practice, it is often the case that experienced beekeepers use not one method on apiaries, but several. So, AE Shulga, applying the method of keeping bees with one uterus to the majority of apiary families in the remaining families uses the “queen-assistants” of the conclusion of this year; P. M. Osaulenko leading the main part of the apiary according to the method of one-milk content, at the same time the method of VF Vashchenko applies to some of the apiary families, etc. At the same time, each beekeeper’s methods of care and maintenance of bees are not disjointed, but are in mutual communication. These techniques in the process of work, are improved, with the aim of better use of bees and obtaining from them maximum production.
Work in hives during the bribe, during a bribe, after a bribe, when preparing bees for wintering and when taking care of families during the winter period, do not fundamentally differ from similar works produced when bees are kept in beehives of other systems; At the same time it is easier and more convenient to work in hives-lounges.
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