Working with bees is surprisingly interesting and challenging. To successfully deal with it, you need to have great experience, to understand hundreds of diverse nuances. One of the first questions many beginner beekeepers ask is: "How are bees breeding?" This is a really important question - knowing the answer to it, in one season you can turn a single family into 4-6 healthy swarms, each of which will easily survive the winter, and in the spring can work productively, giving out hundreds of kilograms of natural honey.
Bee breeding species
To begin with, two methods of reproduction should be distinguished. The first of them is brood. It is aimed only at increasing the number of bees within the same family. Thanks to this, the family becomes stronger, collects more nectar, is able to survive the coldest winter with minimal loss. The second is swarming. Thanks to him, the number of bees in one family is significantly reduced, but the number of families is increasing. Over time, thanks to brood, the strength of the family is restored.
You should also highlight several artificial methods of reproduction - layering, division and plaque on the uterus. They are similar to swarming, but they do not happen at the request of the bees, but when the beekeeper needs it. Of course, to learn more about each of them will be very useful for a novice beekeeper who is interested in how bees breed.
Brood
Everything is quite simple here - the mechanism of the process resembles reproduction quite strongly in most animals, as well as humans. At least outwardly.
The uterus (she is the queen of bees) spends most of her life in the hive. Nanny bees carefully take care of her, feed them with royal jelly, take eggs, thoroughly massage their sides and so on. As a result of such care and increased nutrition, the uterus becomes fat, loses its ability to fly. But it lays eggs in huge numbers - several thousand a day. And for this, she does not even need to mate - at this stage, the bees breed by parthenogenesis, that is, without the participation of males (drones).
Nanny bees take eggs, take them to special honeycombs, where the egg turns into a larva, then into a chrysalis, from which a new working bee emerges. Thanks to this, the reproduction of workers is quick and smooth.
However, parthenogenesis in bees (asexual reproduction) is only suitable for cases where asexual working bees are needed. But in some cases, the uterus leaves the familiar world of the hive - this is preceded by serious preparation, and in general this process is very interesting. Therefore, we will tell you more about it.
Uterus
Under certain conditions (we will talk about them later), the uterus leaves the hive to fertilize with drones. This is necessary to lay eggs, from which other uterus and drones hatch. Parthenogenesis cannot be dispensed with here. What is the reproduction of bees in this case? Everything is pretty interesting.
A few days before departure, the uterus does not lay eggs, stops eating royal jelly, switching to honey. As a result, she is very thin, gets the opportunity to fly. This is what she does - flying out of the hive, the uterus rises to a great height, where it meets with drones. And it can be both drones from its hive, and from strangers. This ensures blood renewal, minor mutations in the offspring, aimed at improving the quality of bees, adaptation to certain environmental conditions.
In flight, the uterus is fertilized by drones and, after returning to the hive, is ready to lay eggs, from which not asexual working bees come out, but new drones and the queen.
What is a swarm?
Immediately after returning to the hive, the uterus lays eggs in the queen cells - not working bees, but new uterus, will come out of here. Their number can reach 8 or even 10 at a time.
After 7-10 days, the first fully formed uterus hatches from the queen cell. Around it gathers a large number of working bees, as well as drones. Together, they fly out of the hive - a swarm is created that is well known to experienced beekeepers.
Taking pictures of how bees reproduce is almost impossible. But to capture the moment of swarming is a very interesting, although rather dangerous experience. At this time, the bees are quite aggressive, they can attack anyone who approaches them at a dangerous distance.
For several hours, the swarm is in close proximity to the hive. It can hang on a nearby tree or on the outside of the hive. This moment is the best opportunity for the beekeeper to catch a swarm, not to allow him to leave and disappear somewhere in the forest or other suitable place. For fishing, special traps are used.
All this time, scout bees are looking for a suitable place to move in. When it is found, the swarm is removed and flies there. It is almost impossible to catch them at this time - the flight takes place at an altitude of about three meters.
Since there are several mothers in the hive, several swarms may emerge, and each subsequent one will be weaker than the previous one, because the bees remaining in the hive are divided approximately equally. When the indigenous family weakens greatly, the uterus destroys the unhacked queens to stop dividing - otherwise the hive will die, and a very weak swarm will not have a chance of survival.
Many beekeepers are interested in whether young, mature bees breed or not. The answer here is unequivocal: of course, yes. The uterus lays eggs, and when the new family becomes strong enough, division will repeat.
Reasons for the exit of the swarm
Swarming usually occurs when the family becomes too big. The number of working bees increases to such a limit that loafing bees appear. They sit all day in suitable places, not taking part in the social life of the hive - there simply are no suitable places for them.
In addition, insufficiently comfortable conditions of existence can provoke this process - poor-quality hive, draft, overheating or crowding.
Usually, half the hive comes out during swarming, with 2/3 of the swarm consisting of young, strong bees. But the old family has all the brood and accumulated honey. True, before departure, the bees carefully eat honey from old stocks so that they can easily survive a long flight and bad weather.
We use layering
Alas, the natural division of the family, or swarming, is a rather complicated, unpredictable process. It is very difficult to guess in advance exactly when this will happen, although an experienced beekeeper can always determine in a few days that a swarm will soon come out - the tone of the hive's buzz changes. You can also guess about the imminent exit of the swarm, noticing several ripening queen cells.
But still, artificial fission methods are gaining great popularity. Using layering is one of them.
The process is as simple as possible and even a novice beekeeper can do it.
Two or three frames with printed brood are transferred to a new hive from an old, strong enough, large one. Moreover, they are carried along with the nanny bees sitting on it.
You also need to transfer two honey frames. Then one of the mother liquors is transferred to the hive - preferably the largest, matured. The uterus will come out of it and immediately begin to lay eggs. In this case, the swarm will certainly not die, will not be lost, will not weaken. After all, he will immediately move to a new place. Yes, and in the old family there will be work - to restore stocks of honey and honeycombs.
How division works
Quite similar to the use of layering is another way of breeding bees - division. At the same time, as close as possible to the hive is placed the second, as similar as possible - in shape, size, color. About half of all working bees are transported here, as well as 50% of the frames with honey and brood. The free space is complemented by frames with wax.
Due to the fact that both hives are similar, stand nearby and local bees have the same smell, they are distributed as evenly as possible. After a few days, at night, closing the door, you can move the new hive to a more convenient place - the bees have settled in it and will not leave the house.
What is a uterine raid?
The last artificial way to reproduce bees is by plaque on the uterus. It is not very different from those listed above and is also very simple.
At the same time, 4 frames with brood, as well as nanny bees watching him, are set in the new hive. It is desirable that the brood has a different age. Honeycombs and wax are installed on each side.
The old uterus also moves here (provided that mature queen cells created 6-7 days ago remain in the old hive).
The old hive is moved to another place, and the new one is put on the old. Then part of the bees will return to the old uterus, while the rest will take care of the new one.
Of course, there will be no flying bees in the new hive at first. But there is enough honey, new bees come out of the brood, and the uterus, with the support of the nannies, works hard, laying a maximum of eggs to restore the strength of the hive. Yes, and a certain number of arriving bees will provide good support.
The operation should be performed only in good weather and with a favorable prognosis. There will be few young flying bees, therefore large losses cannot be allowed during the first departures from the hive. This will greatly weaken the family and may even destroy it. You also need to make sure that the young family has enough honey, and the source of water is located as close as possible.
Conclusion
On this our article comes to an end. In it, we tried to tell how the bees breed - briefly, but with all the important features. We hope you find this information useful when working in a new apiary.