Using the honey
Collect a sufficient amount of honey and pollen can only strong, workable bee colonies.
In many places, the basic replenishment of feed stocks of beekeepers is expected to be obtained from lime trees. In the Moscow suburbs, the lime tree in sufficient quantity gives off nectar in 3-5 years. It is important to know whether there is hope in this season to get honey from a linden or you should use bees to get honey on a previously flowering honeycomb.
It is noticed that the summer-autumn rains of the last year contribute to the increase of honey collection from the linden of the next year and, conversely, after a dry year, there are no high honey collectors from it. To build up the bees to the main honey collector there must be a supporting bribe. In order to predict the time of the onset of the main bribe and the planning of works for the preparation of bees for it, it is necessary to know the basic medonosy of a specific locality, the terms and period of vegetation of cultural honey-plants, their honey production, the time and duration of flowering.
Plants bloom in strict sequence. Thus, acacia yellow in the middle zone of the country, according to long-term data, blossoms on will on the 25th day after the beginning of flowering, and clover creeping 4 days after gooseberry. The timing of the flowering of plants depends on the meteorological conditions and in each year can vary. Thus, the earliest blossoming of linden was on June 11, and most recently – on July 23, the difference in the timing of linden blossom was 42 days. When moving to the north, the flowering period of the plants becomes denser, plants seem to be in a hurry to make fuller use of the heat of a short summer. Thus, in the Transcaucasus the apple blossoms on the 13th day after the beginning of flowering gooseberries, in the Moscow region – on the 6th, and in the northern regions – on the third day.
Therefore, using the records of their observations or information from the relevant literature, making corrections for the deviations of flowering plants, you can set the flowering period of the supporting and main medonos. If at some period there are no flowering plants, the bees need to be taken out to the nomad. If there is no such possibility, then they resort to fertilizing bees with sugar syrup, in the worst case they will develop on previously prepared feeds.
With the onset of the main honey collection for bees for several days, a conditional relationship with the previously flowering weak honeycombs is preserved, but the bees will quickly switch to the plants of the main honey collection if they are “trained”.
By the time of the main honey crop, not all bee colonies in the wild and in the greenhouses occupy a complete nest. If you continue to expand nests with a wax in undeveloped families, these families will continue to develop during the main honey harvest and will not collect a significant amount of honey.
In our practice, bee families, standing in the greenhouses and on the will, occupying 8-9 frames, we add a honeycomb to the nest on the frame. Immediately put the store extension, and in the future, if the honey is good, from above add a second extension.
Otherwise, we have to deal with bee colonies in the wild, having old queens, which are subject to change. About 10 days before the onset of the main honey harvest, the queens are taken away, and the next day, a mature mother is given to one of the frames with brood. To prevent swarming, after 3 days in the nests rip off the fistula. As a result of a change in the uterus in the family for 10-12 days, the laying of eggs is interrupted. By the time of the onset of the main honey gathering in the nest there will be no open brood, which burdens the bees by growing it. All bees will actively participate in the collection and processing of nectar in honey. Young uterus by this time will be inseminated and begin to lay eggs. The abundant supply to the hive of nectar will temporarily limit its operation.
In the event of a delay in the replacement of the uterus or its loss, the efficiency of the bees will decrease, but their productivity will increase, since all the bees will be engaged only in the collection of feed.
It must always be remembered that bees bring into the hive nectar with high humidity. To quickly remove excess water from nectar, bees fold it and cells in small drops. Therefore, with a considerable amount of honey, a large area of free honeycombs is required. If there is not enough room for nectar ripening, bees are forced to lower the rate of collection and bring it less.
It is established that with honey collection up to 2 kg per day, it is enough to have a hive equipped with a single supermarket extension, honey from which is pumped out every week. With a daily intake of 3 kg of nectar in the beehive, there will be no room for accommodation on the 4th day. With daily honey collection of more than 4 kg, you should immediately put 2 store extensions or 1 body with the subsequent expansion of the nest. Summer in the second building should be closed. It is noticed that in the presence of the 2-year-old tap, bees often do not place honey there. In this case, the lower leaflet should be expanded. However, with a rapid bribe and heat to enhance the ventilation of the nest, the upper and lower flaps are fully opened.
The main honey collection in many places passes very quickly, in just 7-10 days. Often the control family gives a daily gain of 5 kg or more. A particularly large supply of nectar occurs during thunderstorms. This is probably due to the ionization of the air, which stimulates the release of nectar. And if at that time the hive is the only store, and we, before pumping honey, wait for his bees to start printing, then as a result we get a lot of honey. Therefore, in the summer, do not be afraid of “extra” store supplements.
During the main honey collection the bees build a wax well. However, during a rapid short-term honey picking, one should not get carried away by detaching a large number of honeycombs. Bees can not quickly rebuild them and will be distracted from collecting nectar and processing it. Therefore, in order to make fuller use of honey collection, stores are put up with built-up sushi and in the extreme case no more than 2 frames with a wax.
Often, good productive uterus penetrate the store extensions and lay eggs there. There is no big trouble in this. Worse, if the uterus lays eggs in the drones. To avoid this, the first superstructure should select honeycombs only with bee cells and instead of 12 frames set 10. In this case, the bees quickly lengthen the cells, depriving the uterus of the possibility to lay it in the egg cells.
Subsequent magazine extensions with good honey picking, many beekeepers put on top of the first, and not under the bottom, which complicates the work. Filling the honey of the first extension will prevent the penetration of the uterus into the newly delivered one.
In the central regions of the country, the hopes of beekeepers for the main honey harvest are not always justified. It often happens that a linden or buckwheat does not distinguish nectar and honey is absent. As a result, the bees accumulated in the hive turn out to be inactive. Until the spring they will not survive, and for their cultivation a lot of food was spent. Therefore, increasing bees to the main honey collector, you need to take all measures to get at least a small amount of honey from a supporting bribe. Thus, during the flowering of willows, orchards and yellow acacia, by the reinforcement of relatively strong families by flying bees of neighboring hives, their removal to a new place is formed by powerful bee colonies, which are put on store extensions.
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