The results of spring honey collection depend on how the bees winter. The stronger the bees in the spring, the more fruitful they will work, giving a good harvest. Therefore, it is very important to properly prepare families for wintering.
How to prepare bees for winter
Care for bees consists in constant monitoring of families and in creating comfortable conditions for their existence. So, the beekeeper must prepare nests for the winter period throughout the summer. The final check is carried out in the fall.
During such a revision, the beekeeper must establish and record the following data in a log:
- uterus age;
- number of brood;
- stocks of bee bread and honey, their approximate amount;
- the general condition of the bees and an assessment of the readiness of families for the wintering to be.
After the autumn check, the beekeeper corrects the identified deficiencies. From this stage begins the winter feeding of bees and preparation for frost.
Stages of preparation for the winter
- Harvesting quality feed.
- Strengthening the strength of the family.
- Assembly nests.
- Therapeutic treatment of bees.
- Sanitary cleaning of the nest.
- Creation of conditions for keeping bees in conditions of severe cold and frost.
A very important stage is top dressing.
Why feed the bees
Winter time is conditionally divided into two periods. The first period can be called deaf-earth. So, at the beginning of winter, the bees are completely at rest. They move a little and practically do not eat food. This period is the most economic and quiet for the whole year. In this mode, the family lives until a brood appears. From this moment begins the second period of wintering.
The appearance of brood completely changes the situation in the hive. Bees begin to activate and engage in brood feeding. This means that feed consumption is increasing. In addition, the bees spend their efforts on creating a certain temperature and humidity in the brood zone. And for this they spend more energy. An ideal situation is when the moment of growing bees comes closer to spring. The fact is that in the spring, bees have more opportunities and forces for feeding brood than in winter.
Typically, bees grow their brood in late February or March, although there are often exceptions. Therefore, feeding bees in February can be important for brood development.
When to feed
Since near the end of winter families consume more food, it is important for the beekeeper to determine the moment when it is necessary to feed.
Many experienced beekeepers argue on this topic. Some argue that the nests should not be touched until spring. And others advocate the need to give extra food, otherwise the bees will die. The fact is that bees at an instinctive level still harvest large quantities of honey in the fall. If it is not completely taken, the bees will calmly survive the whole winter. The chance that they will die only exists if all the honey is taken before the winter, without even leaving the feed. Winter honey consumption is about 1 kg per month. This means that in October, November, December and January, the family eat about 4 kg of honey. According to these estimates, the beekeeper can approximately calculate how much honey needs to be left so that families survive the winter.
Many beekeepers, fearing the death of insects, spend winter feeding. Experts say that it’s better not to do this. Top dressing in winter can play a trick and cause premature worming of the uterus. Therefore, feeding in the winter is not recommended. It is better to provide the bees with all the feed in the fall. In this case, you need to carefully calculate the amount of complementary foods, so that it is enough even for spring development.
Early feeding of bees is carried out after inspection of the hive. If there are no more reserves, you can give the bees honey, diluted with water, or prepare a feeder.
Feed or feed
The main difference between bees is that they are able to feed themselves and even share with people. Therefore, only beekeepers who choose all honey from the hive can feed their families. It is for this category of beekeepers that feeding bees with sugar syrup is the main way to support families during the winter. In this way, they stockpile sugar honey.
Such a carbohydrate feed will help bees to winter well and even survive several seasons. But due to the lack of minerals, vitamins and many other useful substances, insects will weaken and degenerate. Some beekeepers feed their families syrup even in the summer. In this case, honey will have other properties. There will be very little useful in it. Therefore, feeding bees with syrup should be used only if there is a shortage of winter supplies.
Thus, this type of feeding should be carried out only in two cases:
- When a family cannot provide itself with enough feed.
- If the collected honey crystallizes or contains paddy. Such honey is unsuitable as winter food.
How to conduct winter feeding
There are times when even proper care for bees and large stocks of feed do not save the family from winter starvation. The only way out is to feed the insects. As one of the options, you can use low-copper frames, in which sugar syrup with honey should be added. If it is good to fill all the honeycombs of one such framework, up to 2 kg of feed comes out, which the family should have enough for a month. The frame needs to be put, removing empty cells, cover with a diaphragm and another warming pillow. There are other ways of feeding. Let us dwell on them in more detail.
Candy Recipe
Kandy is a sugar-honey dough that is often used when feeding bees is needed. The recipes for this bee meal in different sources may vary. But the essence of this does not change. Usually it is prepared according to this scheme: 1.9 kg of liquid honey are heated in a water bath to 50 º, add 8 kg of icing sugar, 100 g of water. Knead like regular dough and make tortillas.
Honey-sugar cakes are placed on top of the frame.
Honey dressing
Bee feeding is widely used both in autumn and spring. To do this, remove the extra frames from the hive, print it out and substitute it for strong and medium families. A frame with honey should be placed in a hive from the edge, behind the diaphragm or the second from the edge.
If honey in the honeycombs has crystallized, such honeycombs are opened and some warm water is poured there. Very soon, honey will begin to liquefy, and the bees will be able to start feeding.
There are situations when honey soups. Then it should never be boiled and given to bees as food. The fact is that when boiling fruit sugar, its caramelization occurs. Such honey is very dangerous for bees.
Also, in a wintering bee family, liquefaction of unprinted honey can occur. Frames with such honey need to be transferred to strong families. If this is not done, then at temperatures above 10 º ideal conditions are created for the activation of various yeasts that are in the air and honey. As a result of this, fermentation or souring of honey can occur.
If the prepared food is not enough, it is recommended to give frames warmed up in a warm room with high-quality sealed honey. Alternatively, centrifugal honey can be used. To prepare it, you need to put honey in enameled or aluminum dishes , adding a glass of water for every kilogram. The pan is placed in a pot of water, heated to a boil and the honey is gradually stirred until all crystals are dissolved. Then the mass is removed from the fire and poured into the feeder.
Settled honey also needs to be prepared. Before serving, it should be preheated to dissolve all crystals. To speed up the dissolution process, add a glass of boiling water for every kilogram of honey and stir well. Then the honey is left overnight to completely dissolve. The next day, it can be served to bees in a warm form.
Ways to feed honey
Feeding with honey can be done in the following ways:
- With the help of feeders, special devices for feeding feed. Before use, the feeders must be thoroughly washed and dried. Only after that can wax be filled over the cracks with baking ash or rosin.
- From cans - in this case, ordinary glass jars are used in which liquid complementary foods are poured (for example, sugar syrup).
- By filling in the cells.
Protein feed
Bee nutrition should not only consist of honey and sugar. Of great importance for the development and life of the bee family is protein food. This source is pollen. This must be taken into account when feeding bees is planned. In February, the lack of protein foods is especially acute. As a rule, closer to spring stocks of bee bread are already running out.
Lack of pollen negatively affects the quantity and quality of offspring. As a result, small bees with weak muscles and shorter lifespan are hatched. In addition, pollen is an important component for bees to release wax. Therefore, protein supplementation of bees in the spring is very important, and in some cases even necessary.
It is proved that the addition of pollen to the feed before the 11th day of the bee's life helps to increase the wax glands. After this period, pollen no longer has such an effect.
But using this type of feeding, beekeepers need to adhere to an important rule: protein and carbohydrate foods should not be mixed. The fact is that in the hive live two groups of bees - young nurse and summer bees, which feed exclusively on honey. Therefore, an excess of sugar for the first group or an excessive amount of pollen for the second will not correspond to their normal diet. To meet the requirements of all bees, two types of food should be given separately.
Feed preparation by Stepanenko
Among beehive owners, Russian beekeeper Stepanenko Gennady is highly respected. He developed a whole system for preparing hives for wintering. So, the beekeeper Stepanenko has been harvesting food for the winter since spring. After flowering sainfoin and acacia, he selects 8 frames from the nests, which should contain at least 1 kg of sealed honey. The beekeeper places these frames on the east side of the hives.
Stepanenko explains this by the fact that the next honey bees will give from sunflowers. Such honey crystallizes faster. The beekeeper places a frame with this honey at the bottom of the hive so that the bees during wintering eat it in the first half of winter. And in the second half they will eat sainfoin honey. If you leave enough honey to families, then feeding the bees in February may not be necessary.
Stepanenko carries out top dressing after the last pumping out of honey, but no later than mid-September. According to Gennady, feeding of bees in February should be carried out only with the aim of preventing rotten diseases and better development of families. To do this, he prepares cakes from therapeutic paste, the weight of which does not exceed 1 kg, and places them on top of the nest. For all spring, families should receive three of these cakes.