Strong bee families with enough honey to feed on the street can endure winter frosts down to -40 degrees. But in colder areas with a long (up to 5-7 months) winter period, wintering of bees in Omshanik is the best alternative.
Why the bee does not hibernate
The family prepares for winter the entire active spring-summer season, with the exception of the breeding season. Bees stock up on honey, grow a large generation of working individuals. They do not hibernate like other insects, because they are not adapted to the accumulation of nutrients in their bodies. Individually, individuals cannot tolerate the cold. Bees before wintering are grouped in the club in the form of an ellipsoid. Inside it, they sit more freely and can move around. Due to movement in the center of the club, heat is generated up to 25-30 degrees Celsius. In the outer layer, the bees, clinging to each other, form a dense shell with a thickness of 3 to 7 cm with a temperature of about +15 degrees. Gradually they change places - from the center they fall into the shell and vice versa. Being in a relatively active movement and eating honey from a sealed frame, gathered in a club for warmth, they save their lives. Wintering of bees in Omshanik makes this difficult period easier for them.
Features winter behavior
The bee feed reserves are located at the top of the hive, closer to the back wall of the nest. Downstairs against the letch they grow brood. Here they are formed into a club, which they form even at a plus temperature: in weak families - at +13 degrees, in strong families - at +8. The upper half of the club is always located on a large area of sealed frames.
With their heat, the bees warm the honeycombs, the wax on their caps melts, and some of the cells are printed. Water vapor from the air penetrates into them and thin the honey that the bees feed on. The club gradually moves up the honeycomb, heading towards the back of the hive. If there is enough honey in the frame, the bees calmly move through the interframe spaces.
At the beginning of wintering, the desired temperature in the club is maintained by the heat from the bees in the process of their life. When cooling, the club shrinks. Bees occupy interframe spaces and free cells. To keep warm in the club, they begin to eat more food.
When fully eaten, the bees are forced to move to adjacent frames. But they can make such a transition only at a sufficiently high temperature in the hive. If the outside temperature is less than zero, then the club is not able to move. Bees are anxious. The club can split, which leads to the death of one or both of its halves.
Feed supply
Wintering of bees in Omshanik reduces honey consumption. The individuals united in the club slow down the rhythm of life. Metabolic processes in their organisms are less intense. The bees in the feed club need 20 times less than those disconnected at the same time. In the first month or two of wintering, they eat up to 700 g of honey in 30 days. By the end of the period, the monthly consumption is at least 1.2 kg. If the wintering of bees in the omshannik took place without problems, and by spring the brood appears in the hive, then the amount of feed doubles.
Leave a framework where honey is at least 2 kg and there are free cells in which bees of the wintering club will be placed. Then it will remain dense, and it will be easier for bees to maintain temperature with less food intake. In addition to honey (carbohydrates, microelements), at least 2 frames with bee bread (protein feed) are stored for each family. It is necessary for feeding brood in spring. The cells with the bee bread must be preserved - filled with honey, sealed with a wax cap, otherwise the loaf of bread will grow moldy and deteriorate.
Harvesting feed honeycombs
For a safe wintering, take care of the preparation of feed honeycombs. Beekeeping for beginners is sometimes quite difficult, so take everything as seriously as possible. Honeycombs are harvested in the first half of the season, and the procedure for installing frames under the feed depends on the hive system (design). Immediately make a reservation that the honeycombs are not new and not old, but "second-hand" - light brown.
In double-hulls, before honey collection, honeycombs with printed brood are placed in the center of the 2nd building. Of the multi-body, such cells are exposed in the center of the upper one. The removed frames are not pumped out - they have food for the winter. In the loungers in front of the main honey collection, honeycombs with printed and open brood are placed nearby in the center, pushing the light and black to the edge of the nest. 4-6 nesting frames are placed in the extension hives in the center of the two extensions, and half-frames are placed on the edges. First, the bees work out those honeycombs that are in the center. As soon as the nests are half sealed, they are taken from the hive, but honey is not pumped out - this is winter food.
For reference: the honeycomb 43.5 x 30 cm holds honey 4 kg, 43.5 x 23 cm - 3 kg, provided that the cells are filled on both sides.
Right honey
The manual "Beekeeping for beginners" pays special attention to the fact that not every honey is suitable for winter food. In order to avoid mortal toxicosis for wintering bee colonies, it is necessary to leave frames with honey without paddy collected in the first half of the honey collection. If a family hibernates on honeydew honey, then part of its members does not survive until spring - they begin to have diarrhea. Survivors stain the nest with feces, which threatens with a dangerous parasitic disease - nosematosis.
Rapidly crystallizing honey, collected from willow, sunflower, sainfoin, sow thistle, cruciferous plants (rapeseed), is not suitable for wintering. It is impossible to liquefy. Bees wintering with such honey become anxious from thirst. The family weakens or dies of starvation with a supply of crystallized honey.
When harvesting feed, light brown honeycombs are used, in which several generations are bred. They are less thermally conductive than light, they retain heat better in the nest, in them the uterus is more likely to lay eggs in the spring. In the old honeycombs of black color with the remaining embryos of honey crystals, fresh honey quickly hardens. Wintering will be dysfunctional, because bees need liquid honey. Light honeycombs, in which there were no broods of bees, are cold, the uterus starts to lay eggs in them late, and the development of brood in them is delayed in spring.
Feed storage
The stock of food in sealed honeycombs is stored in chests with a tight lid, in nesting housings, in extensions. The storage area should be dry and cool, inaccessible to mice. Before setting honeycombs, the bars of the frame are thoroughly cleaned of dirt: stains of diarrhea, wax growths, propolis.
Omshanik for bees
The place for construction is chosen on a dry site (the depth of groundwater is not closer than 1 m from the floor), on a small slope (for the drain of melt and rainwater), with protection from winds. Omshanik is made inaccessible to mice ruining the hives, impenetrable to the light and noises that disturb the bees.
Depending on the terrain, buildings can be above ground, underground and semi-underground. The most common are underground, buried to the height of the walls in the ground. In winter, they will have an even temperature, in the spring it remains low, which is important for the successful completion of wintering. The walls of Omshanik are brick or rubble, the tree is quickly affected by a fungus.
The disadvantage of ground-level winteries: the walls are excessively cooled in winter, and overheat under the spring sun when it is too early for a bee to stop wintering. In a ground-based room, a thermostat is needed for Omshanik - he will maintain a given temperature.
Half-underground walls are buried at half height in the ground. Such Omshaniks are usually built on the side of a mountain.
Omshanik for bees consists of walls, floor, ceiling, roof, supply and exhaust ventilation. Inside make racks under the hives. The door opens inside, it is insulated with felt, they are upholstered with roofing iron from the street .
The dimensions of the winter hut determine the type and number of hives. The height from floor to ceiling is 2.5-3 m. The hive is placed on shelves or one on top of the other. Single-walled takes 0.6 square meters. m square. Double-walled and hive-lounger - 0.7-0.9 square meters. m. The distance from the walls to the hives is 10 cm, between the rows - 90 cm.
Omshanik ventilation and temperature
Humidity and wintering temperature of bees should be maintained at a constant level. Permissible fluctuations of the latter are from -2 to +4 degrees, but the optimum is from 0 to +2. In cold weather, the bees eat a larger amount of feed, and their intestines are full of feces, diarrhea begins. Excessive heat causes them great concern.
Relative humidity of 75-85% will be favorable. Higher will cause the dampening of Omshanik and hives, excessive - will thin the honey, which makes it sour. When the sour honey is eaten, the bees have diarrhea, they weaken and die. Low humidity is not enough to thin the honey, it crystallizes, the bees die from thirst and hunger.
Supply and exhaust ventilation is needed to control humidity and temperature in Omshanik. Fresh air enters through the pipes under the floor, warm with water vapor is drawn out by the pipe on the ceiling and out under the roof. The adjustment of the supply and exhaust is carried out by valves. A family needs a hole with a cross section of 8 square meters. see From this data and calculate the cross-sectional area of the pipes. If necessary, they are satisfied with several.
Moving to the "winter apartment"
In summer, Omshanik is well-dried, the floor is covered with dry sand, the walls, the ceiling is bleached. Do not rush to carry hives. In the fall, warm days for flying around bees occur. When to bring bees to winter? Usually in mid-November in the northern and central regions, in early December in the southern.
Wintering of bees in a barn is permissible if you insulate its walls, cover the walls of the hives with mats from reeds, and ensure silence and darkness. Building a real Omshanik is an expensive and time-consuming business. Wintering of bees in the barn is more reliable than in the open space under the winds and snowfall. A bee is not afraid of cold, but of hunger, dampness and drafts, and a beekeeper - thieves, if Omshanik is away from home. Features of successful wintering of apiaries in a barn are different than wintering of bees in Omshanik.