Nine Practical Beekeeping Tips to Help You Keep Bees Easily
Bees are actually not a very easy species to keep, but China's honey market is rather chaotic. Although there are many beekeepers, it is still quite difficult to buy genuine native honey, so the price of good honey on the market is not cheap.
Nine Beekeeping Tips
1. The beehive should be placed in a shady spot, with the entrance facing south. At night bees are phototactic, so they should be kept in a dark place at night.
2. Bees require flowing air to live, and a certain level of humidity must be maintained inside the hive.
3. In summer, the spacing between the frames should be slightly larger to help lower the temperature inside the hive. In winter, the spacing between the frames should be slightly smaller to help retain heat.
4. In winter, sufficient food and water must be kept inside the hive, and the hive should not be opened casually.
5. When the bees are overwintering, do not open the hive, and do not shake the beehive, otherwise the bees will die faster.
6. After the queen bee makes a "clucking" sound inside the queen cell, she will emerge the next day. After emerging, the virgin queen will leave the hive the next day for a test flight, to identify her bearings and familiarize herself with the entrance.
7. From the size of the egg-laying circle and the rate of development, the egg-laying capacity of the queen bee can be judged. A large egg-laying circle, with larvae on the same brood comb developing uniformly, indicates that the queen bee has strong egg-laying capacity and good quality.
8. When a colony swarms, it first raises some drones and builds queen cells to rear a new queen bee. One to two days after the queen cell is capped, when the new queen bee is about to emerge, about half of the bees escort the old queen bee away from the hive, leaving the old nest to the new queen bee and the remaining bees.
9. The bees that fly away with the swarm are mainly young and strong worker bees capable of working, while most of the bees left in the original colony are young bees. Swarming generally occurs on clear, warm mornings from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in late spring and early summer.
Are Bees Easy to Keep
Bees are not easy to keep. Honeybees are now divided into two types: the Chinese bee and the Italian bee. The Chinese bee is somewhat easier to keep than the Italian bee. Beekeepers must be able to endure hardship and toil. The Italian bee depends entirely on human management.
In China, relatively more people keep the Chinese bee. To keep bees well, you must first grasp the key points of keeping the Chinese bee well, which are mainly a superior queen, a strong colony, sufficient honey, new combs and dense clustering, while also ensuring a safe summer and autumn and timely prevention and control of pests and diseases.
What Are Bees Good For
1. Bee larvae can provide humans with a variety of nutrients, making people stronger after eating 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. These substances are all essential nutrients for normal human development.
2. Bee larvae help improve human immunity. Protein is an important component for maintaining normal immune function in the human body, and is also an important nutrient for the production of white blood cells and antibodies in the human body. Bee larvae happen to contain large amounts of high-quality protein, so after people eat them, their own immune function will improve rapidly.
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 a clear therapeutic effect on symptoms such as this kind of swelling and difficult urination.
4. Supplementing qi and nourishing blood is also one of the important effects of bee larvae. They can accelerate the regeneration and division of human hematopoietic cells, strengthen the human body's blood-forming function, and play a role in preventing anemia. They have a good conditioning effect on symptoms such as cold limbs and dull yellow complexion caused by insufficient qi and blood.
Conditions Required for Raising Bees
1. Site conditions
Within a radius of 2.5 kilometers 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 area near a hillside, with plenty of sunlight, a high mountain at the back as a screen, natural shade above, southerly winds in summer, blocking of northerly winds in winter, and fertile soil, vigorous growth of nectar plants, a long flowering period, sufficient water, and relatively convenient transportation.
2. Purchase of colonies
1. Purchase time: In the north, it is best in April to May, when colonies are in their reproduction period; choose relatively stable ones with a good external environment, making them easier to raise successfully.
2. Selection method: Observe at the hive entrance. Those where worker bees go in and out diligently and forager bees carry a relatively large proportion of pollen are generally lively, good colonies. Then open the hive for inspection. If the worker bees are quiet and not alarmed, it shows they are gentle in temperament; if the queen bee has a large body, thick legs, a tall body and broad chest, a long and plump abdomen, dense down covering the whole body, and lays eggs flexibly and quickly without panic, it shows the queen bee is young and robust with strong egg-laying capacity.
3. Arrangement of colonies: It depends on the size of the site, the number of bees kept and the season. There are four arrangement methods: single-hive arrangement, double-hive arrangement, staggered arrangement, and three-hive arrangement.
Before raising bees, breeders should first understand the living habits of bees, and then build an environment and site suitable for their survival. Usually, communicate more with successful beekeepers, learn more of their techniques and methods and apply them to actual breeding; this is far more useful than empty talk on paper.