Transportation of bees
The work begins with the development of a calendar plan for the use of bees for pollination of crops. Then they get acquainted with the basic methods of using bees on pollination of plants, taking direct part:
1) in the transportation of bee colonies to the corresponding crops according to plan),
2) in organizing the training of bees and assessing its effectiveness in one of the cultures,
3) in carrying out preparatory measures for the protection of bees from chemical poisoning.
Transportation of bees in summer, as a rule; spend at night. In order not to attract additional labor for these purposes, the academic group is divided into two subgroups. One of them prepares families for transportation and pays families for cars, and the other in the afternoon are brought to the place of the proposed nomad. There, before dark, prepare a temporary point, and then unload the arriving machines and install hives with bees in places.
Preparation of families for transportation is carried out in the afternoon. To quickly carry out this laborious work, part of the first subgroup, under the guidance of a laboratory assistant, prepares materials for the packing of families. They cut wooden bars – dividers of frames, prepare nomadic nets, wedges, flying inserts and so on. The other part, together with the teacher and the beekeeper, is inspecting the families and preparing them for transportation. After a while students change places. Improper preparation of families can lead to a significant loss of bees during transportation. Therefore, the beekeeper checks the correctness of the packing of each bee family’s students.
When you become acquainted with the technique of training bees of a large group in a time-limited time there are certain difficulties. Preparation of flavored syrup is usually made in the evening, and distributed to its bees at night or early in the
In order to take into account the attendance of the pollinated culture by bees, it is necessary to pick up and mark the registration plots with the area of 100 … 200 m2, located at different distances from the parking place of the hives. The width of these plots should be 1 2 m (depending on the crop). To avoid trampling of crops, plots are marked along the field so that observers can walk along a boundary or road crossing an array of a given crop. Plots are placed at a certain distance from each other and from a point (for example, at a distance of 50, 500, 1000 and 2000 m from the apiary).
After taking into account and observing it is necessary to generalize them by filling out the approximate forms given in the relevant sections of the work. At the end of the lesson, the teacher analyzes the received digital materials and analyzes the errors
However, when you become acquainted with the technique and efficiency of bee training, you should not limit yourself to obtaining figures indicating activation of the general flying activity of bees and increased attendance of the pollinated culture. To show the final result of the work – a significant increase in the yield with the use of bee training, in autumn the department organizes cleaning and accurate accounting of the harvest of seeds in the registration plots, and also receives from the training farm accurate information about the yield obtained from the sites where the drone was conducted and not performed bee-focusing.
In any modern large-scale farm, plants are treated with various chemical preparations to control pests, diseases of crops and weeds. The most reliable way to protect bees from poisoning in this case is to remove them to a safe area, i. e., at a distance no closer than 5 km from the site of work. The disadvantage of this method is its laboriousness, the need for special transport and manpower for loading, disruption of the normal operation of bees to collect honey, and the removal of pollinators from the entomophilous crops available in the farm. Therefore, it is often more appropriate to temporarily isolate the bees in the hives on site.
However, due to the fact that the isolation of bees is not carried out on the farm very often, it is better to get acquainted with this event during a short excursion. If necessary, one of the groups directly participates in the preparation of bees for isolation.
Transportation of bees to pollinated crops.
This very important measure consists of individual operations for the acquisition of nests, strengthening of the framework, ensuring reliable ventilation, etc.
Picking the nests. In case of incorrect assembling of the nests during summer transportation, a breakage of the honeycombs is possible. Abandoned honeycomb presses bees, many bees perish at the same time in honey, spread out on the bottom of the hive. The breakage of the honeycombs is promoted by an excessively high temperature in the nest of bees, insufficiently strong light honeycombs, and the presence of a large amount of honey in honeycombs. To avoid this, from the hive before transportation remove all the heavy frames, taken by more than half honey or freshly brought nectar. From the hive, all the unfinished frames in which the bees have not been removed are removed. Instead of the framed frames, empty light-brown honeycombs are put in the nest. For families that do not yet occupy a full nest, a complete set of nesting frames is also put up for transportation.
Strengthening the framework. To ensure that the frames do not swing and do not move during the transportation, wooden dividing bars 12 x 15 mm in thickness and 100-130 mm in length are inserted between them on the sides of the nest.
From above, a thin nail (diameter 1-1.5 mm and length 40 … 45 mm) is driven into the side face of each bar so that its ends protrude from both sides. When setting the separator between the frames, the ends of the nail will lie on the upper slats of the neighboring frames, and the bar will not fail. It is even better to nail a special plate of tin to the upper end of the separator, which with its ends will support the bar on the slats of the neighboring frames. Between the extreme frame and the wall of the body at the edges with some effort inserted wooden wedges, which compress the frame in the nest and ensure their immobility.
Creation of reliable ventilation of the hive. It is best for this purpose to have permanent nomadic nets. Nomadic grid is a frame made of wooden laths with a width of 30 … 40 mm, topped with a metal mesh with holes of no more than 3 mm in diameter. The frame should fit snugly against the inner walls of the hive and do not extend beyond the walls of the hull in height.
In the absence of special nomadic nets on the top, the nest is covered with burlap or other rare tissue and attached, with slats nailed to the walls of the hive on all four sides.
Then check to see if it is tightly closed with the gate valves. If the latches move too freely, they are replaced or, depending on the design of the hive on the board, the guide bar is beaten. It is necessary that the gate valves be closed with a known force and do not leave cracks for the exit of the bees. A good advance preparation of the valves eliminates their nailing by nails when loading in the evening, when any knocking leads the bees into agitation.
Checking the reliability of closing the tap hole, open it to the usual width. Then, over the net, temporarily, before loading the bee colonies, lay a canvas and pillow and cover the hive with a roof. After that, the students start preparing the next family.
Features of training of strong families. When preparing for the transportation of strong families, fully occupying two buildings, strengthen the framework in both buildings. Then on the second case put an empty store, which on top is pre-covered with a net or burlap. All parts of the hive are tightly fastened with special staples, and all crevices between the bottom, casings and the store are closed with a paste or wet clay.
Strong families are much easier to transport in hives-lounges, since in the presence of several empty honeycombs, additional attachments are not required and the fastening of individual parts of the hive is simplified.
Convenient for carrying hives with a flat roof, tightly, without cracks, put on the body. In such hives, the nest is not covered with a net. In the front and back walls of the overburden, large 4-hole ventilation holes are made, on which the wire mesh is nailed from the inside. From the outside of the hole before the transportation cover with wooden bushings. In the southern regions of the country, where bees have to be transported in hot weather, to improve ventilation, the two holes are connected inside a through corridor made of metal mesh.
This excludes the violation of ventilation by bees clinging to the mesh on the way. When transporting bees in cold weather (early spring or late autumn), when there is almost no liquid feed in the hives, additional ventilation is not suitable. Strong families at this time of year are transported under the usual canvas, and on weaker families over the canvas put a pillow.
Loading families. In the evening, before the beehive families are loaded, final preparations for transport are made. From the nests remove the cushions’ and canvases or open the ventilation holes in the overburden. After that, tighten the flaps with liners and check their reliability. If the bees sit on the board and prevent them from closing the tray, they are driven into the hive, sprayed with water from a spray gun.
Once again check the reliability of the fastening of individual parts of the hive (bottom, body, overhangs) and the absence of cracks through which the bees can come out. Detected holes are caulked or covered with clay. Then proceed to loading the hives into the car. On the platform of the car, the hives are loaded in 2 … 3 tiers, framed across the body. To prevent the hives from rubbing against the walls, straw strands are laid between them. If the roofs of the hives are not flat, they are removed and transported separately, together with the apiary equipment. In this case, for air access to each row of beehives of the lower tier, two racks of 5 … 6 cm in thickness are placed. On the racks, the second-row beehives are placed and are well connected. If the road is good, then the hives without roofs are loaded in three tiers. In this case, the sides of the machine are preliminarily built up with grids made of thin boards.
Transportation of families. The beehive accompanies the beekeeper. Having traveled no more than a kilometer of the road, he stops the car and detects malfunctions, pulls up the weakened ropes. When driving on an uneven road, the car should be driven carefully, avoiding sudden braking and jerking the machine forward, otherwise a break in the honeycombs may occur and some bees will die.
Installation of hives on the point. Upon arrival at the site, the hives are placed on pre-prepared pegs or supports. In this case, the hives are placed strictly according to the plan along the array of the pollinated culture in the same order as they stood on the point. It is desirable to place the hives between trees or bushes, and in their absence place felled branches, stakes with attached bundles of straw or hay and other landmarks on the apiary. The correct arrangement of families in the apiary and the availability of landmarks reduce the danger of the bee gathering from one hive to another.
Having arranged the hives, they give the bees to calm down and after 10 … 15 minutes they open the tapes. After that, the canvas and cushions are laid on the hives and covered with covers. After transportation, the bees have a great need for water. Therefore, along with the inventory, a drink is also brought in, which by the beginning of summer the bees are placed in place and filled with water.
Fig. Common drinking bowl for bees
Inspection of nests. With a safe transportation, the bees come out of the newly opened tap, even at night. If the bees do not appear on the board, the wire is cleaned from the wire by wire hook. The abundant and wet scum indicates the steaming of bees during transport. The students immediately inform the beekeeper about this, in his presence they inspect such families and provide them with the necessary assistance.
The final unpacking of the hives after transport (except for dysfunctional families) is made after 1 to 2 days, when the bees finish the approximate overflights and begin working years for nectar and pollen. To do this, remove the nomadic nets and examine the nest in detail. From the hive remove the dividers and excess or damaged during transportation frame, put in the nest frames with artificial wax, check the size of the streets between the frames.
Development of conditioned reflexes in bees to a new place. When transporting bee colonies for a short distance (less than 2 km), a significant part of the flight bees returns to the former parking place of the hives. This is due to conditioned reflexes for objects and other landmarks leading to the apiary and surrounding the beehive. Meanwhile, for successful pollination of plants, it is necessary that bee colonies stand in close proximity to crops. The distance even 500 … 1000 m sharply reduces attendance by bees of cultivated plants, and with it the crop of pollinated crops. It is known, for example, that every 100 m from the apiary the number of bees on the seed plots of red clover is reduced by 3 … 4%. If the seed plots of the clover are at a distance of 1 … 1.5 km from the apiary, the number of bees that visit the flowers of the clover is reduced approximately 2-fold,
To reduce the gathering of bees to the old place, immediately after transporting the bees to a site located at a distance of less than 2 km from the previous site, it is necessary to take measures to develop a conditioned reflex in the bees to a new location, that is, to force an orientation survey. To do this, immediately after placing the hives in a new location, without opening the gates, an obstacle is created on the board that hinders the free exit of the bees from the hive. Such an obstacle can serve as an obliquely placed plank beforehand with a narrow slit for the passage of the bees; it is better to put a barrier out of twisted branches, a bundle of hay or straw before the tap. Having met an obstacle and in this connection having felt a new situation, the majority of bees will begin an approximate flight. “Forgetting” the old place, as studies have shown,
Therefore, feeding bees in combination with puffing will also reduce the number of bees returning to the old place. If these conditions are met, the minimum number of flying bees from among the oldest ones will return to the old place. To collect them, in the old place leave a few weak families or nucleuses, which will increase due to the returning bees.
In connection with some weakening of the main families, transportation for a short distance is carried out a week before the beginning of flowering of the polluted crop. In this case, a small loss of old bees will be quickly compensated for by young ones. In addition, young bees are easier to train.
Training bees on the pollinated culture.
Training is based on the development of conditioned reflexes in bees under the influence of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. As an unconditioned stimulus, food is used, most often sugar syrup; conditioned stimuli may be stimuli affecting the organs of smell (smell) and vision (color, shape of the flower). During training, the conditioned stimulus is supplemented daily by unconditional (food). If this is not done, then the reaction of the bees to the conditioned stimulus will gradually go out. This shows the temporal nature of the conditioned reflex.
With the help of training, it is possible to significantly increase the visit by bees of various crops that need pollination. Therefore, training is used primarily for pollination of cultures, usually poorly visited by bees (seed plots of red clover and alfalfa). However, with the help of this technique, it is possible to significantly improve the effectiveness of pollination by bees and well-attended crops: buckwheat, sunflower, mustard, apple, etc. Due to the increased flying activity of bees during training, fewer families can be dispensed with for pollination of these crops.
Preparation of syrup. The next portion of aromatic syrup is prepared on the eve of the day of lessons at the rate of 1 kg of sugar per 1 liter of water. In the enamel bucket or pelvis, dissolve the sugar in an appropriate volume of steep boiling water. After letting the syrup cool to the temperature of fresh milk, it is poured into a glass jar or a bottle. In the same dish, the flowers of the pollinated culture, deprived of green particles, are first laid. The number of flowers should be about one third of the volume occupied by the syrup. Thus, for the preparation of a syrup flavored with red clover nectar per 1 kg of dissolved sugar, it will be necessary to take flowers from about 200 … 300 blooming heads. Bay flowers with warm syrup, the can is tightly closed and left to insist until morning.
Distribution of syrup. Early in the morning before the departure of bees from the hives, families are distributed a flavored syrup. For this purpose, it is necessary to prepare the necessary number of feeders made of white tin with a capacity of at least 0.5 liters. It is desirable to cover the feeder with a lid, in which a small hole is made to fill the syrup. In this case, when distributing the syrup, it is enough to raise the pillow, remove the stopper from the hole in the lid and pour the syrup without disturbing the bees. The feeder is placed on the family across the frames so that the bees can be taken from the food in different nesting lanes. The daily norm of the syrup is 100 … 150 ml per family.
Training of bees with the use of an odor.
If the polling station conducts pollination of seed areas of crops poorly visited by bees (red clover, alfalfa), then normal training does not always give the desired effect.
Having received flavored syrup, the bees themselves search for the flowers of the corresponding plant species by smell, but they can visit flowers of wild clover or alfalfa, which nectar is usually more accessible than cultivated plants. Especially small will be the work of bees on that part of the site, which is the most remote from the parking place of the hive. To reduce the dispersal of bees around surrounding areas and increase the efficiency of pollination of cultivated plants by bees, they apply training to the territory. This technique is especially effective when an aromatic essential oil with a stronger odor, playing a temporary, auxiliary role, is added to the sugar syrup with a weak odor of red clover nectar.
To carry out the training of bees to the territory with the help of an odor around the hives, several boxes are attached to pegs not more than 1 m high. A food bowl with a dam is placed in each box, into which 150 … 200 ml of flavored sugar syrup is poured. To do this, take a syrup with the smell of red clover nectar or alfalfa, prepared earlier for normal training. Before bottling, one drop of some aromatic essential oil (anise, mint, lavender, etc.) in 1 liter of syrup is added to the syrup.
Soon after the feeders are installed, bees will fly into them. As soon as several hundred bees gather here (which is usually observed no more than 1 … 2 hours after the feeders are installed), the boxes are tightly closed with lids and placed at several points of the pollinated field farther from the point. Here, the boxes are opened, and the bees with the syrup filled with crab return to their hives. After the bees choose a syrup with an ancillary odor, a normal syrup flavored with the nectar of the pollinated culture is poured into the feeders.
Isolation of bees during chemical treatment of plants.
This method is used in cases when processing plants with poisons near the apiary is carried out in a short time and the detoxification period of plants will not exceed 5 … 6 days.
The timing of plant detoxification. Depend on the properties of the poison, the state of the weather, the species composition of plants, the method of application, etc. The flowers of plants treated with sevyne and basidin remain poisonous for bees for the longest (5 … 6 days); for 4 days it is necessary to isolate the bees when processing plants in the zone where they collect nectar with phosphamide and HCCH; for 2 … 3 days – chlorophos, saiphos, phtalofos, trichlorometaphos-3, antio, metaphos, carbofos, DDVP, gardona, neksionom, tsidialom and fosalon; on the first day – Bordeaux liquid, copper chloride, captan, karatan, kuprozan, polycarbacin, polychlorochalkene, phthalane, zineb, simazine, atrazine, 2,4-D, 2M-4X, butiphos. Bees do not need to be isolated if the plants are treated at the end of the summer (evening or night) with keltan, adionum, linuron, dalapone and pure (without addition of other pesticides) mineral-oil emulsions. Almost harmless for bees, calc-sulfur broth, ground sulfur and foliar top dressing of plants with mineral fertilizers.
The method of isolating bees in hives. When isolating bees in hives during the day, the main attention is paid to the creation of reliable ventilation, to reduce the temperature of the air in the hives and to provide bees with sufficient amount of food.
The ventilation of the nest is ensured, as in the case of the bees’ wandering, by means of a grid wire, which is put on the nest instead of the canvas. On the nests of strong families between the net and the nest put a store with empty honeycomb. After that, the taphole is tightly closed. It is especially important to ensure that no beam of light penetrates into the hive. Light strongly disturbs bees, resulting in a rapid increase in temperature inside the nest. Therefore, pre-check and carefully seal all the cracks through which light can penetrate into the hives. For the same purpose, close the ventilation holes in the overburden, and under the roof on one side a small strip of 1 … 1.5 cm thick is applied to access the air inside the hive. After that, the hive is covered with a roof.
To reduce the air temperature in the nest, the hives are shaded with branches or grass, and the bees are provided with sufficient water. So, for a strong family in hot weather, it takes up to 3 … 4 liters of water per day. To the bees do not need water, inside each family put a drinker.
When bees are kept in beehives for a few days, they are opened every evening in the evening, and in the morning before the beginning of summer they are closed again. Bored bees are driven into the beehive by spraying lightly with water from a spray gun. If the apiary was in close proximity and the poison hit the hives, then before the release of the bees, the landing board and the front wall are washed with soap or liquor water.
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