What are the methods and precautions for beekeeping and harvesting honey
As people's awareness of honey grows, the price of honey has been on an upward trend in recent years, so more and more people are devoting themselves to the honey farming industry, but there are certain methods to keeping bees, so let's take a look together below!
Methods and Precautions for Beekeeping and Harvesting Honey
1. Clean the honey harvesting site thoroughly, and wash and dry the honey harvesting tools and honey containers.
2. Separating the honey: secure the honey extractor so that it does not shake violently during separation, use an uncapping knife to cut away the caps of the sealed honey cells, place honeycombs of similar weight into the frame of the extractor, and turn the extractor to separate out the honey.
3. Generally, the honey on brood combs is not extracted. To avoid the honey compressing the area where the queen lays eggs, when it is necessary to extract honey from brood combs, take care to avoid pressing the comb surface and slow the rotation speed so as not to fling out the larvae.
4. The separated honey often contains dead bees, larvae, wax crumbs and the like, so it should be filtered through double-layer gauze and sealed in a container.
5. Containers for long-term honey storage should be rust-proof and sealed. The special honey container is a steel drum coated with polyester anti-rust paint.
6. Place the cut wax caps of the honey cells on a gauze net over a container, let the attached honey drain out, then wash them with warm water and melt them in water into wax blocks.
7. When the last honey of the year has been harvested, place the extracted empty combs in a super box, add it on top of a strong colony, let the bees clean up the remaining honey on the combs, and then fumigate them for storage.
Are Bees Easy to Keep
Bees are not easy to keep. Bees are now divided into two types: Chinese bees (Apis cerana) and Italian bees (Apis mellifera ligustica). Chinese bees are somewhat easier to keep than Italian bees. Beekeepers must be able to endure hardship. Italian bees depend entirely on manual management.
In China, relatively more people keep Chinese bees. To keep bees well, you must first grasp the key to keeping Chinese bees well, which is mainly a superior queen, a strong colony, sufficient honey, new combs and crowding, while also ensuring safe overwintering through summer and autumn and timely prevention and control of pests and diseases.
The Role of Bees
1. Bee larvae can provide humans with a variety of nutrients, making the body stronger after people eat them. Bee larvae are a high-protein nutritional product, with a protein content as high as 75 percent, and they also contain many vitamins and amino acids, all of which are essential nutrients for normal human development.
2. Bee larvae have the effect of improving human immunity. Protein is an important component for maintaining normal immune function in the human body, and it is also an important nutrient for the production of white blood cells and antibodies in the human body, and bee larvae happen to contain a large amount of high-quality protein, so after people eat them their own immune function will rapidly improve.
3. Bee larvae also have a diuretic effect and help eliminate edema. The active substances in bee larvae can quickly expel excess water from the human body, speed up the metabolism of blood and water in the human body, and play a role in diuresis and eliminating edema. They have an obvious therapeutic effect on symptoms such as this type of edema and difficult urination.
4. Supplementing qi and nourishing blood is also one of the important roles of bee larvae. It can accelerate the regeneration and division of human hematopoietic cells, strengthen the body's blood-forming function, and play a role in preventing anemia. It has a good conditioning effect on symptoms such as cold limbs and dull sallow complexion caused by insufficient qi and blood.
Conditions Required for Keeping Bees
1. Site conditions
Within a radius of 2.5 km around the site there should be sufficient main nectar sources and auxiliary nectar and pollen sources, and the main and auxiliary nectar and pollen sources should be suitably matched; the site should preferably be chosen on a south-facing slope near a hill, with plenty of sunlight, backed by high mountains as a screen, with natural shade above, open to south winds in summer and blocking north winds in winter, and with fertile soil, vigorous growth of nectar plants, a long flowering period, sufficient water, and fairly convenient transportation.
2. Purchasing bee colonies
1. Purchase time: in the north it is suitable in April to May, when the colony is in its reproduction period; choose relatively stable ones, and with a good external environment, rearing is likely to succeed.
2. Selection method: observe at the hive entrance; those where worker bees go in and out diligently and where the proportion of foragers carrying pollen is relatively high are generally lively, good colonies. Then open the hive for inspection; if the worker bees are quiet and not alarmed, it shows a gentle temperament; if the queen is large in body, thick in legs, tall in height and broad in chest, long and full in abdomen, densely covered with down all over, and lays eggs nimbly and quickly without panicking, it shows the queen is young and robust with strong egg-laying ability.
3. Arrangement of bee colonies: it depends on the size of the site, how many bees are kept and the season. There are four arrangements: single-box arrangement, double-box arrangement, staggered arrangement, and three-box arrangement.
3. Feeding
1. Supplementary feeding: that is, artificial feeding carried out when nectar sources are lacking. The methods are:
① Supplementary honey feeding. Honey can be diluted with warm water at 20 percent (for crystallized honey, it needs to be slightly heated with water to dissolve). The diluted honey can be fed to the bees by the method of pouring it into the combs or poured into a frame-type feeder.
② Supplementary syrup feeding. The syrup is made with white sugar plus 50 percent water, fully dissolved by heating, then cooled to slightly warm; it is best to add 0.1% citric acid to the syrup to aid digestion and absorption; brown sugar should not be used at this time.
2. Reward feeding: artificial feeding carried out during the colony's reproduction period and the bees' production period. Generally give a small amount of 60% honey liquid or 50% syrup; in early spring once every other day, and later as consumption increases, once a day, starting 40 days before the nectar flow period until a large amount of nectar and pollen is collected from the outside. Each frame of bees can be rewarded with 50 to 100 grams of syrup each time.
3. Feeding pollen: the purpose is to supplement protein feed. In the late overwintering period and early spring, supplement with pollen saved from the previous autumn, and soybean flour can also be used as a substitute. The feeding methods are as follows:
① Liquid feeding. Add pollen to syrup at 10 times the amount, boil, and after cooling place it in a feeder for feeding.
② Cake feeding. Add an equal amount of honey or syrup to pollen or substitute pollen, stir thoroughly and evenly, make it into a cake shape, wrap it with plastic paper, leave both ends open, and place it on the frame beam for the bees to eat. This method is often used when cold waves occur.
4. Feeding water and salts:
① Water. Generally each colony needs to collect 200 to 300 ml of water per day. Put water in the feeder or place a wet towel on the gauze cover for them to collect water on their own.
② Salts. Just add 1% table salt to the syrup.
Although the honey market is now relatively popular, the honey market is also relatively chaotic at the same time, and in the market everyone is very afraid of buying fake honey or impure honey, so now this kind of native honey and pure honey is relatively popular, and the price is also relatively advantageous.