Universal apiary device

During the active bee season at different times bees are given feeding, water, pollen, nucleuses are formed, the swarm is caught, varroa mites are killed, etc. For each operation, a separate device is usually used. For their manufacture, and then care take a lot of materials, time and labor. In addition, the use of most devices is often associated with a violation of the integrity of the bee nest, its cooling, which ultimately negatively affects the development and productivity of the apiary. With the aim of saving materials, reducing labor costs, mechanizing manual work, it is highly advisable to use a universal apiary device, the general form of which is shown in Fig. 47.

The device consists of: two sidewalls 1 with vertical grooves for the installation of three interchangeable partitions 2 (A, B, C) and horizontal cut-outs 3 for putting the device on the incoming board of a multi-hull and securing the tray 4 on it, made at the same time as the landing board 5 and forming together with sidewalls, a container containing 1-2 liters of liquid; a removable transparent cover 6 fixed to the sides by means of steps 7 and forming together with the landing board of the device; set of replacement plates and gratings.

Re-equipment of a device for performing any of the operations (feeding bees, providing them with water, selecting pollen, forming cores, catching a swarm, fighting varroatosis, collecting young bees for lapping, selecting drones, selecting the uterus, picking bees when processing crops with pesticides, etc. ) consists in replacing part of the plates or gratings directly at the installation site of the device, which takes only a few seconds.

The one shown in Fig. 49 set of plates and gratings with certain combinations of them allows you to carry out all the listed types of work. Let’s consider in more detail

Fig. 49. Technological set of plates and grilles to a universal apiary device: a – horizontal plate continuous; b – vertical plate with a tap; c – horizontal grating; r is the vertical lattice; d-horizontal plate with a grid; c – a vertical plate with a brush; g – horizontal plate with a corridor; 3 – L-shaped plate; and – a vertical dividing grid; k – vertical solid plate

At present, the majority of beekeepers resort to spring stimulating and therapeutic-preventive feeding of bees, replenishment of fodder stocks for the winter. Therefore, on apiaries there are a variety of feeders. They put them on the side of the nests, after removing a few frames, from above under the insulation, and in order to avoid bee larceny, the feeder is put in a beehive in the evening, and in the morning they are cleaned. Along with the negative effects on the bee family, this method of fertilization is difficult to mechanize, and, therefore, requires considerable labor and time. Do not cool the nest, do not disturb the bees, use means of minor mechanization, and in sunny weather and warm syrup allows a universal apiary device.

To fertilize the bees, open the hole in the partition between the halves of the tray, in one half lower the wooden raft (not shown in Figure 49), and cover the other with a horizontal solid plate. In the short vertical grooves A on the side of the device (see Figure 47) set up a vertical plate with a tap. The device is closed with a lid and placed horizontally in the sidewalls on the multi-hull landing board. A container with a syrup, equipped with a tap and a dispensing tube, is brought up on the lift truck, and the trays are filled up by lifting the lid. Evaluating the conditions of a particular apiary, choose the appropriate feeding time and take the necessary measures against bee theft.

Depending on the bee season, the amount of water consumed by the bees is different: the greatest falls on the period of active growth of the bee family. If at that time there is no reliable water supply, bees will spend a lot of time, energy, honey, and most importantly – in bad weather they will die in flight and directly at the source. In addition to the loss of flying bees, the growth of the family also slows down.

Of the known basic methods for providing bees with water, individual drinkers are preferable: they reduce the likelihood of disease being introduced into the apiary and, regardless of weather, allow bees to bring water to the beehive in sufficient quantities with minimal costs. Nevertheless, due to the lack of good individual drinkers and the significant costs of manual labor in filling them, common drinkers have become more common on apiaries. But the indisputable advantages of individual drinkers can be verified using a universal apiary device.

Water is poured into the devices, as with the distribution of liquid food, using a lift truck. Since the transparent cover is located at an angle to the horizon, close to 40 degrees, even with the brief appearance of the sun, the water in the device will quickly heat up. In addition to filling each device separately, they can be connected in groups to the valveless water supply system from the common reservoir with water, regardless of the height of the arrangement of the devices relative to each other.

During the season, bee colonies collect both honey and pollen much more than they consume during the year. However, quite often, due to a dysfunctional wintering or mistakes made by a beekeeper when the nest is completed for the winter, they remain without protein-vitamin food in the spring. Many beekeepers, especially amateurs, underestimate the importance of pollen as a food for bees and food for people, or, having no opportunity to acquire pollen catchers, are simply lost even at the thought of making this “tricky” device for pollen production and, Do not harvest it. A universal apiary device can easily be converted to a pollen catcher. To do this, put a horizontal grid on the trays, insert the vertical grid into the flanks B of the sidewalls (see Figure 47) in the direction of the board. Then the device is closed with a lid. When the bees pass through the grid to the hive, the selected pollen falls on the horizontal grid, and through it into the trays.

To combat varroa at the bottom of one of the halves of the tray, paper is placed, lubricated with vaseline on top. The tray with paper is closed with a horizontal plate, and the second is covered with a solid plate. In the groove B, install a vertical plate, and then put the lid on the tray. The brush attached to the plate partially sweeps the mites from the bees passing under it to the tray through the net on a plate with a mesh.

The device provides installation instead of a plate with a metal mesh and a plate with a brush of a special corridor on a plate formed by two side wooden bars, a metal mesh at the bottom and a rectangle of thin glass at the top. Thanks to this design, in hot sunny weather, a temperature of 46-48 њ C is created in the corridor. Ticks that are on bees, repeatedly passing through the corridor, are exposed to heat and crumble onto the paper in the tray. The use of the device does not guarantee the complete destruction of ticks, but the degree of rancidity of families significantly reduces without adversely affecting the products of beekeeping and the bees themselves.

To select young bees for the formation of cores without brood, it is possible with the aid of a device, if a vertical plate with a tap is installed in the groove A (see Fig. 47), and in the groove C – an L-shaped plate. During the first flight of young bees, the device is placed on the landing board close to the front wall of the hive. Returning from the fly through the leaflet of the vertical plate, the bees fall into the device and, not finding a passage to the hive, remain in the device. After B-10 minutes, the leaves in the plate are closed and the device with the bees is taken to a cool place.

Further on the well-known technology of bees in the evening of the same day they transplant the store top into the bottom of a multi-hive beehive, give a syrup, cover with a hive lid and leave it in a cool room. After two days, when the years of bees have ceased, the nucleus is taken out to the place assigned to it in the apiary and the non-fetal uterus is not planted. The device allows the formation of slack nuclei from young bees for mating the queens easily and without disturbing the bee nest.

If you put a horizontal grid on the trays, insert a vertical grid into the groove B, and a vertical dividing grid into the groove A, then you can select non-tribal drones and return the swarm with the help of the device. The bees from the hive pass through the holes in the vertical grid and the holes in the six truncated cones on this grid, then through the vertical dividing grid they fly out of the device, and the drones, having the opportunity to go through the size only through the cones, get into the device from which they can not exit. In practice, they can not get into the hive, since the holes in the cones are spaced from the walls of the device. Accumulated in the adaptation of drones are periodically selected.

Considering that not only drones but also the uterus can not pass through the vertical dividing grid , and the swarm that has departed without the uterus returns to the maternal family, the device with these grids is used to catch the uterus and catch the swarm. To catch a swarm, immediately after its departure, close the hive of the hive of the detached family and take it by the lift truck to the side where they are placed on the supports; on its place put on the base of the bottom of the hive, one body with a prepared nest and one empty, where the device with the uterus is placed. After the swarms of the swarm gather in the hive, which is in place of the maternal family, they are transported and placed on a permanent place in the apiary.

Otroivshuyusya family is returned to its place. After flying over the bees, the swarm of the uterus is released from the device, the empty body is removed, and the remaining nested body is covered with a lid.

Collecting bees can be done by placing a horizontal grid on the trays, and inserting a vertical grate into the groove B in a position where the cones point toward the hive, and close round holes in it. Returning, the bees pass through the holes in the cones and go into the hive. Back through the holes of the cones, which are beyond the lattice, they practically can not leave and remain in the hive.

The device can also be used as an ordinary lane veranda for bees, especially necessary in cold weather in early spring and during the spraying of agricultural crops with pesticides. For this, water or syrup is poured into the trays, a wooden raft is lowered into one of the trays, and the other is covered with a solid horizontal plate. A solid vertical plate is inserted into the groove A and the device is closed with a lid.

The body of the device, a set of plates and grids, with the exception of a wooden raft, can be made of plexiglass, plastic, thin metal sheets. Nets are used nylon and metal.