Having acquired an apiary, you need to competently take care of it. A mandatory event is the formation of layering of bees. This procedure is performed twice a year: in autumn and spring. Thanks to the organization of layering, they develop and multiply, and the amount of honey increases. For everything to go smoothly, you need to know how to make layering, how to split a bee family, and much more. Read about it in the article.
What is layering?
These are bees and brood, they are selected from the main families. Bee layers have the ability to artificially breed in families. Before they are formed, the apiary must contain drones and young bees. This is a prerequisite. For a swarm in the early stages, the uterus is bought or hatched independently. The main thing is that she starts the egg laying long before the main collection of honey, about forty days before it begins.
If one lay is formed from one large family in compliance with ideal terms in organizing this event, the brood doubles. There is enough time for bee layers before collecting honey to get stronger, to get comfortable in a new place and to continue to work along with bees from the main families.
Why are bees being cut?
Experienced beekeepers know what this is for. But the knowledge of this will not hinder the beginning beekeeper. When bees are laid, their labor power is increased, and most importantly, a mature brood is formed before the main bribe is received and natural swarming is prevented, to which bees are prone.
Organization of layering is a profitable business, as in an apiary there are twice as many families without their purchase. Accordingly, there will be more honey, and its quantity will in no way affect the quality for the worse. Honey will be just as tasty.
A novice beekeeper should know what the bee layers do for another reason. Queens that have wintered during the cold season have little chance of getting a healthy replacement. But fresh bees, which were placed in the hive in the spring, are quite capable of leaving it.
Why are drones needed in the bee family?
These individuals are males. A drone bee is born thanks to unfertilized eggs. It differs from other insects in size: it is larger than a working bee, and smaller than a uterus.
The drone bee is endowed with a short proboscis, the absence of a sting and a device for collecting pollen. For this reason, the male does not collect nectar, does not feed the larvae and does not guard the nest. The main purpose of the drone is fertilization, uterine protection and self-feeding.
How to form layers of bees?
This procedure can be carried out individually or by a combined method. An individual bee layer is formed from one family, and a prefabricated one from two or three, in the absence of diseases that can infect all bees. Layers are made on the fetal, infertile uterus and on the mother liquor in the maturity stage.
In regions where honey is harvested in the early stages, excellent results are achieved by layering of the uterus or by the collection of insects that have successfully wintered. It is very important that bees from their own and from another uterus participate in the honey collection.
For each lay, an empty hive, material for its insulation, and honeycombs are prepared in advance. If lying hives are used in the apiary, then young bees are placed in the side pocket. It is isolated by a board from communication with the main family. Each branch has its own doors. So that the bees do not confuse them, the front walls of the hives are painted in different colors and separated by a perpendicular board.
In order to lay the bees, brood is selected from swarms, the weight of which exceeds one and a half to two kilograms. They must be strong. How to make layering? It can be done if the bee family occupies nine frames in the hive, and seven of them have brood. If you take one frame with a mature brood and bees that completely cover it, there will be no damage. This manipulation can be done twice every ten days.
This will not affect brood rearing. Bees selected from the family increase the number of larvae that have emerged from other queens. New layers with the presence of fetal uterus grow very quickly. If necessary, they can be divided again.
What time do you need to make layering?
The first thing to do in the apiary in the spring is to restore the strength of the family. Bees wake up when the outdoor temperature is ten degrees Celsius or more. How to make layering? To do this, you need to choose sunny weather, it is unacceptable to begin the formation of layering on frosty days. The exact date is determined depending on the region in which the apiary is located. But if the summers in the hive are directed to the south, bees can be expected to exit even in the middle of winter. Spring layering of bees can be done in two ways.
Bee layering in early spring
This is a required procedure. It is very important to conduct it when there is a need to increase the productivity of bees in the apiary. How to make layering? Early cuttings are carried out at the beginning or in the middle of April. If you start later, the bees will begin swarming, and control over the whole family will be lost. At the beginning of work, the air temperature must be at least 20 degrees Celsius.
Late bees in late spring
It is risky to make cuts during these periods, as the bees may not return from a flight that they carry out for informational purposes or in connection with the mating season. And if there is no fetal uterus, there will be no brood. In this case, the amount of honey collected will decrease significantly.
By the late period of layering, the family should grow stronger and have its uterus and drones. For late beekeeping, the ideal time is mid or late May.
Lay time and brood selection conditions
To make layering, it is better to select frames closer to the middle of the day. Bees have good years at this time, and most of the old insects are already in the field in search of nectar and pollen. In the apiary, you can meet young non-flying bees.
It is good if in the layering old bees will be in small numbers. Otherwise, they will take a new uterus badly or even kill them, and they will again return to their former hive. In this case, the layering will become weaker. If there are many young but non-flying bees in the lay, there will be no problems with the reception of the new queen.
For layering, you need to take a framework with a ripened brood, at the level of the appearance of young bees. Also, open brood on the framework should be present in a minimum amount. When examining the frame, you must make sure that the uterus is missing. If, due to an oversight, she still remains, she must be transplanted immediately. For this, another brood frame is used. First, it is placed in a container, and then transferred to the hive.
Division of families for half a year
This method is traditional. When a layering is formed, the bee family splits in half, or, as they say, for half a flight. This method consists in the fact that bees of different ages fall into the created layers, which immediately work, as in a natural swarm, they do not need to adapt in a new place, gain strength and so on. Insects collect nectar and pollen, deliver water, brood care and honeycomb construction. The routing procedure does not affect their routine.
Layering according to Tsvetkov’s method
It differs from the traditional method in that the bee layers are made when the family begins preparing for swarming. This happens when a drone brood appears and the insects begin to build bowls.
The family is divided in half and placed in separate hives. In the part where there is no uterus, the brood is open. This hive remains in place. In another place the uterus and brood sealed. Thanks to this division, it is not necessary to spend time moving the hives and control how the bees fly around them. This method guarantees the division of the family, eliminates the death of the brood. In addition, feed will not be stolen.
The formation of layering by division of the family occurs naturally. Flight bees, most of them, return to their hive, to its original place. But this bee family is without a uterus. A smaller part of the bees falls into a nearby hive with a uterus. Insects from a hive without a uterus will never fly to another bee house, since they predominate in open brood and many eggs are concentrated on the frame.
The main disadvantage of this method is the uneven division of bees during the formation of layering. Although the strength of the family with fewer insects will soon be restored, as in a few days the bees will leave the printed brood.
Bees in the apiary in spring
Insects spend the winter in a sleepy state, thereby saving energy and feed. For warming in winter cold, the family forms a ball. An apiary in the spring awakens: insects come out of a drowsy state. A sign of this is the ambient air temperature, it should be at least ten degrees of heat. This period begins in late February or early March.
In spring, the number of bees increases, since the uterus at the end of the season is able to lay 1,500 eggs in one day. The collection of honey and the production of its products depend on how families develop in the spring. Therefore, in winter, beekeepers devote all their free time to restoring order in the apiary.