What are the techniques and precautions for keeping bees in spring?

Honey is a common food in our daily lives, deeply loved by consumers, and more and more people are keeping bees artificially. Beekeeping is not simple. Let us take a look together below: What are the techniques for keeping bees in spring? What precautions are there?

1. What are the techniques for keeping bees?

1. Feeding water

Use an entrance feeder to keep feeding warm water at the hive entrance, and replace it with fresh water every day. For the first 3 days, add 0.1% citric acid or 1% edible vinegar to the water; stop for 3 d, then add 30 g of honeysuckle leaves and 30 g of hawthorn to the water, decoct three times to make 600 g of medicinal liquid, and mix the medicinal liquid and water at a ratio of 3:7 to make a 30% medicinal warm water solution to feed the bees. Feed once every other day, for a total of 3 feedings; stop for 3 d, then add EM slurry dew to the water according to the instructions, and feed for another course of treatment.

Advantages: (1) It reduces worker bees flying outside to collect water, helps prolong the lifespan of overwintering bees, prevents them from freezing to death after leaving the hive to collect water due to low temperatures, and prevents bees from being harmed by sudden strong winds during water-collecting flights; (2) Feeding warm boiled water helps worker bees prepare feed and maintain warmth, prevents worker bees from using contaminated water, which damages the health of old bees and the health of eggs, larvae, pupae, and new bees, and can even cause disease; (3) In the arid regions of North China, feeding water at the hive entrance helps increase the humidity inside the hive; (4) Adding some medicinal liquid helps bee health care and promotes worker bee activity and queen egg laying.

2. Feeding honey

When there is no nectar source outside, the temperature is low at this time, so by no means should stimulative feeding be carried out. It is best to add honeycombs to feed, or feed honey. When there is no honey, high-quality white granulated sugar can be boiled into a 1:1 syrup, and 0.1% citric acid and edible salt must be added to the syrup before filling combs to feed the bees. Vitamin C should also be added to the syrup (6 tablets per kg), and feeding should continue until there is a nectar flow outside. However, in some years and some regions, the external nectar source is not enough for the bees' spring reproduction, so at this time a feeder can be placed inside the hive in the evening for feeding. As for stimulative feeding, it can only be carried out when the temperature reaches above 15 °C and there is a nectar source outside.

3. Feeding pollen

To breed 1 kg of bees (4 frames of bees), nearly 1 kg of pollen is needed. When there is no pollen source outside, feed pollen by adding pollen combs or placing pollen cakes on the top bars. The pollen fed is best collected and reserved by the apiary itself in the previous year, and bee pollen should be sterilized at high temperature before feeding. If there is no pollen or not enough pollen, defatted soybean flour can be used or added as a substitute (not exceeding 1/3). It is best to process it yourself; when purchasing, guard against adulteration. Add yeast powder to the defatted soybean flour, then add 1% “quick supplement” (multivitamins), and it can only be fed to bees after about 1 week of fermentation. When preparing pollen (or substitutes), add 20% high-quality white granulated sugar, which helps the bees consume it.

4. Adding combs at the right time

When adding combs, consider the colony's nursing capacity and comb-protecting ability, and do not add combs blindly. Under the premises of dense bees, sufficient feed, capped honey being cut open, proper warmth retention, and no disease, adding combs at the right time is the key to quickly and abundantly rearing the first batch of robust new bees. Because the bees in the hive are dense and the temperature is suitable, the queen lays eggs actively. Under normal circumstances, the queen begins laying eggs on the 2nd day after the spring reproduction hive is arranged, and in 5~6 d the first egg-laying comb can be more than 70% laid. At this time, the second egg-laying comb can be added. The method of adding the comb is to move the first egg-laying comb outward, place the original honey-pollen comb in the middle as the second egg-laying comb, and add a new honey-pollen comb. After another 5 d, that is, on the 11th day, the third egg-laying comb can be added, using the same method as adding the second egg-laying comb. If a queen laying unfertilized eggs is found, a spare queen should be used promptly, or a queen should be taken from a double-queen colony to replace that queen.

The reason a queen lays unfertilized eggs in spring is generally that the queen was frozen during overwintering, causing dysfunction in egg-laying ability, or it is caused by merging with other colonies. Principle for adding combs: when the combs are added until bees and combs are proportionate, pause adding combs; wait until a large number of new bees emerge and bees outnumber the combs, then add combs again. That is to say, a 4-frame colony starting reproduction can only add 3 egg-laying combs. A 5-frame colony starting reproduction can only add 4 egg-laying combs. When adding the fourth egg-laying comb, move the first egg-laying comb (now a capped brood comb) to the outer feed comb. For a 6-frame colony, add the fifth egg-laying comb according to this method. Note that at this time the honey-pollen comb is added outside the capped brood comb.

2. What precautions are there for keeping bees in spring?

1. Moderate flight

Spring is a critical period for bee reproduction. At this time, after going through winter, bees will have a large amount of waste deposited in their intestines. The presence of this waste is not conducive to the growth and reproduction of bees, so bees should be allowed moderate flight to excrete the waste in their bodies.

2. Hive warmth retention

Spring weather is rather changeable, and in early spring the outside temperature is still relatively low, not reaching the temperature required for bee larvae to grow, so beekeepers must warm their bee barrels and beehives!

3. Queen rearing and colony splitting

Generally speaking, the queens in spring colonies are mostly old queens bred in the previous year. After laying eggs for two seasons, the peak egg-laying period is basically about to end, so queen rearing and colony splitting should be done early.