A Detailed Guide to Chinese Honey Bee Beekeeping Techniques: Living Habits and Management Essentials

Beekeeping techniques for the Chinese honey bee

The Chinese honey bee is also known as the Chinese bee, or Apis cerana cerana. It has existed in our country for thousands of years, and wild Chinese honey bees mainly live in mountainous and hilly areas with abundant rainfall, humid air and a wide variety of nectar and pollen source plants. They build their nests and reproduce in tree holes, under cliffs, in rock crevices, earthen burrows and other places sheltered from wind and rain. In the course of its long struggle for survival, the Chinese honey bee has developed its own unique living habits. Even after being captured and kept at home through human intervention, and even after being transferred into movable-frame hives, its stubborn primitive wildness still cannot be completely changed.

The Chinese honey bee is smaller than the western honey bee, agile in movement, strong in flight, fast in flight speed, and good at evading enemies; it has a keen sense of smell, is good at using scattered nectar sources, responds quickly to stimulation from the external environment, has strong defensive ability and a strong tendency to rob, and because of its smaller size and shorter proboscis, its utilization rate of nectar sources in deep flower tubes is relatively low. The Chinese honey bee forms tight clusters, has strong cold resistance, saves feed, secretes wax strongly, and likes to destroy old comb to build new comb. It has a strong swarming tendency, and its colony multiplies quickly, but it maintains a relatively small colony strength. Its orientation ability is relatively poor, and it easily gets lost from the hive.

The Chinese honey bee has a strong migratory tendency, and once the living environment is unsuitable, the whole colony may easily abscond; when the queen is lost, worker bees quickly begin to lay eggs, and after worker bees lay eggs it is not easy to introduce a new queen. The Chinese honey bee forages diligently, leaving early and returning late, and its ability to clean the hive is poor, making it susceptible to damage by wax moths. The above living habits of the Chinese honey bee are closely related to its long-term wild life.

Living habits of the Chinese honey bee

Like other insects, the Chinese honey bee cannot escape the natural law of survival of the fittest. The formation of its various living habits is a product of the struggle for survival. Only with strong flight ability and fast flight speed can it escape the pursuit of many natural enemies; those that cannot adapt to this living environment will be eliminated, and only those that can avoid being killed by natural enemies can survive and occupy their own living space. With a keen sense of smell, it can discover more nectar and pollen sources, and under conditions with no major nectar and pollen sources or in the harshest climate conditions, find food that can sustain the life of the colony.

Key points of Chinese honey bee feeding and management

Although Chinese honey bee feeding and management techniques share many similarities with western honey bee feeding and management, because the Chinese honey bee has its own unique living habits, feeding and management methods must better adapt to certain living habits of the Chinese honey bee in order to achieve good results. Otherwise, unnecessary trouble may be caused, and even losses may result.

1. Selection of apiary sites for Chinese honey bees

Apiary sites for Chinese honey bees should be selected on quiet hillsides, mid-slopes, and forest edges far away from factories, mines and highways, avoiding disturbance from people, livestock or vibration, and there should be sufficient clean water sources near the apiary. The Chinese honey bee is not very strict about major nectar sources, but it requires a wide variety of nectar and pollen plants, continuous nectar flow periods, and no overly long nectar dearth period. Because the Chinese honey bee is good at using scattered nectar sources, continuous scattered nectar and pollen from outside can help avoid triggering robbing and make management easier.

2. Arrangement of Chinese honey bee colonies

Because the Chinese honey bee has been domesticated for a short time, is relatively wild, and has poor orientation ability, it easily gets lost from the hive. Therefore, Chinese honey bee hives cannot be placed in rows, neatly and closely, with the same direction as western honey bee hives. When arranging Chinese honey bee colonies, the distance between colonies should be greater, with front and rear staggered, and the entrance directions need not be uniform, so as to avoid bees from different colonies entering the wrong hive and killing one another. Especially for mating colonies, the distance between large colonies should be increased to prevent virgin queens from entering the wrong hive and being killed. Each hive body should be supported with wooden stakes to prevent ants from invading the Chinese honey bee colonies and causing absconding.

3. Prevent contact with strange odors

The Chinese honey bee has a keen sense of smell and is very sensitive to strange odors. The hives used for keeping Chinese honey bees are best hives previously used by western honey bees. Or choose new hives made from wood without strange odors; before use, new hives should first be coated with a small amount of beeswax to eliminate the smell of the wood, which helps the Chinese honey bee accept them and prevents absconding. Do not use strong-smelling drugs to prevent and treat bee diseases. After hives and bee tools are disinfected, strange odors must be completely eliminated before they can be used again. Hives should be disinfected by burning as much as possible to prevent strange odors from irritating the bees and causing colony absconding.

4. Management of Chinese honey bee colonies

The Chinese honey bee has a keen sense of smell and a strong robbing tendency; preventing robbing is a major task in managing Chinese honey bees and should be watched for at all times. It is best to drill 6—8 small holes in two rows on the entrance gate board, with a hole diameter of 5—5.5mm. During the feeding process, open or block the number of small holes according to changes in colony strength. Seal hive seams tightly with plastic tape.

The habit of the Chinese honey bee of gnawing old comb is related to its poor resistance to hive moths (wax moths). When keeping Chinese honey bees, new comb should be built frequently to replace old comb. Apart from keeping a small amount of old comb for use during the honey collection period, the rest should be eliminated in time and rendered into wax to prevent wax moth eggs and larvae from being brought into the colony. Increase the distance between the hive bottom and the lower bars of the combs, with a spacing of at least 40 mm. Alternatively, use hives with removable bottoms so that wax debris on the hive bottom can be cleared at any time to prevent wax moths from laying eggs.

The nest of wild Chinese honey bees is as follows: the central part is mostly pupal comb, outside the pupal comb is larval comb, outside the larval comb is egg and larval comb, and outside the egg and larval comb is newly built incomplete comb. The whole comb is hemispherical, and the upper part of each comb has a relatively large band of honey and pollen, while the brood area is in the lower part of each comb. Therefore, when managing Chinese honey bees, it is not necessary to emphasize adjusting combs too much, and during the reproduction period the number of hive inspections should be reduced as much as possible to avoid disrupting the normal life order of the colony.

During the swarming season, appropriately increase the number of inspections. Chinese honey bee swarms fly out early; after the queen lays eggs in the queen cell, the swarm may fly out at any time before the queen cell is sealed. When signs of swarming such as colony loafing are found, artificial swarming should be adopted to eliminate them. Before nectar plants bloom, repeatedly destroying queen cells to maintain strong colony strength is not advisable. To increase honey collection, colonies may be merged at the beginning of the nectar flow, or field bees may be transferred to organize strong colonies for honey collection. During the honey collection period, build more new comb.

5. Overwintering of Chinese honey bees

To adapt to the living habit of the Chinese honey bee of clustering at the lower part of the comb and clustering tightly, the arrangement of overwintering combs should be as follows: in the central part, 2—3 combs with honey in the upper part and empty cells in the lower part, either half-honey combs or slightly less than half-honey combs, and on the outside place one large honey comb with a small number of empty cells in the lower part. Because the Chinese honey bee, in order to keep the cluster tight, often gnaws away large areas of the lower part of the comb. If these are all honey cells, the bees will eat a large amount of honey during the comb-gnawing process; eating too much honey leads to excessive accumulation of feces, and diarrhea in the late overwintering period will cause serious losses.

In short, the management of Chinese honey bee colonies should adapt to the living habits of the Chinese honey bee in order to achieve good results.