BeeCastle Hives

After entering the winter, the climate is cold, and the bees will go out in the external average temperature is higher than 10 degrees, less than 10 degrees in the honeycomb caking heating, so pay attention to the winter to keep warm, it is very easy to the bees cold death. So what should you pay attention to when keeping bees in winter? The small and medium-sized wasp generally can't find any threat to bee colonies, but in large and wasp lack of ingredients, usually dozens of large and wasp can destroy a swarm, so avoiding wasp is a key step in bee production, then how to avoid the wasp?

1. Prevent stolen bees

The most important thing to keep bees in winter is to prevent bee theft, because there is no honey source outside the base in winter. When bees steal honey from each other and attack each other, it causes huge damage to the bees, and when it is more serious, it causes the entire apiary to be wiped out. According to the size of the nest door, maintaining the stolen bee colony can also improve feeding, give the bee colony plenty of food, and avoid bee theft, but it should be noted that it is not necessary to say that the syrup drops outside the hive, will attract other bees to attack.

2：Cultivate winter bees

In winter, the queen bee's ability to lay eggs will be reduced, and the newly born bees will be lower and lower, and the bee colony will be slowly brittle. Therefore, it is necessary to immediately cultivate new high-quality queen bees, immediately replace the old queen bees, and restore the main production force of the bee colony. In addition to the queen, the worker bees are the key to the bee colony, which takes up the rearing and collection of all the bees, so it consumes a lot of energy, and generally dies after the early spring. Therefore, in order to prevent the main production force and fecundity of the bee colony after the spring bloom, a batch of worker bees should be cultivated in winter.

3, heat insulation solution

The average temperature in winter is low, and the temperature difference between day and night is very large, ultra-low temperature will immediately cold bees to death, but also harm the eating and vitality of the bee colony, under the ultra-low temperature standard, bees will eat a lot to raise their body temperature to resist the cold, which will lead to food consumption, so it is extremely important to do a good job in winter insulation and insulation countermeasures. In addition, honey sources should be eliminated in winter apiaries to prevent bees from dying immediately when they collect honey.

4. Plenty of food

Honey source is scarce in winter, bees will lose food materials to fill, will spend a lot of storage honey source, at this time must be artificial service feed.

The way to avoid wasp

1：Artificial service hunting

When the bee colony is damaged by wasp, if the total number is small, it can be killed by manual service attack according to the basis, and the beekeeper can wait for the apiary and kill wasp immediately. This kind of method is relatively simple, but time-consuming and laborious, the beekeeper must wait in the bee field every day, although it can very well alleviate the harm of wasp against bees, but only to overcome a small number of bees. If the total number of bees is too large, not only can it not have a very good actual effect of killing, but the safety of the beekeepers themselves will also be threatened.

2： Destroy the cave

Wasp not only has beehives, and the cave management scale is huge, so looking for beehives and removing or poisoning them is the best way to avoid wasps. After capturing wasp, tie it with a colored plate silk thread in its abdomen, abandon the homing nest at night, and look for caves by following the line. However, in the rush to destroy the cave, we must do a good job of safety protection, wasp is not better than bees, its toxic side effects are stronger, after stinging pain, swelling condition, one or two is good, the total number of more than one will be fatal, so solve the cave must be careful, careful, careful.

Winter is coming, you need to know how to keep warm in advance. We will introduce seven commonly used methods:

1：The beehives are covered with straw, cotton and other warm materials

  Covering the hive with straw, cotton and other items can play a certain heat insulation effect. It is suitable for places where the temperature is not particularly low, and belongs to a primary insulation measure.

2：Put straw in the empty space inside the hive

  Winter temperature is low, if the free space in the hive is too large, the bees' difficulty in adjusting the temperature is high, which is not conducive to bee insulation. Filling the spare parts with straw reduces the loss of heat, thereby keeping the colony warm. This method is also a basic measure of insulation.
Note: The straw used must be dried, preferably exposed to the hot sun.

3：Place cotton clothing in the empty space inside the hive

  It's the same principle as the second method. However, cotton is not as good as straw, because there is a hidden danger of bacterial contamination, so it is also necessary to disinfect cotton clothing and dry cotton cloth before use.

4：Foam insulation（Inference：https://www.beeculture.com/winter-management/）

• the foam board wrapped in the hive outside, so as to play a temperature insulation effect.
• the foam board stuck in the hive inside the temperature insulation. However, some beekeepers have found that bees particularly like to bite the foam, so when using the foam inside the hive, be sure to wrap it in cotton cloth before using it, or use a board to separate the foam from the bees. The bees should not be allowed to come into contact with the foam.

5. Move into the cellar

  In these areas of northeast China, the winter is long and very cold, and it is freezing and snowy outside, so bees can only be effectively protected by going into the cellar. The principle is the same as burying the mound.

6:Install a thermostat

  When it comes to extremely cold weather, it is certainly not enough to rely only on some basic measures to keep warm. At this time, we need to raise the temperature inside the hive, and the common methods are to install electric heating constant temperature devices and use methods such as hand warming treasure to control the internal temperature of the hive at about 18 ° C.

7:Buy polystyrene beehives

  Polystyrene beehives are suitable for winter insulation and are more expensive than wooden beehives. If the beekeeper is worried about the price, there is an option to wrap a layer of foam around the hive.

  In the early winter period, the temperature changes are very large, but outside there are honey powder source plants flowering, bees actively collect honey in the warm weather during the day, and a small number of strong bee colonies.

  Due to the changeable temperature in early winter, and the bees are still breeding and collecting honey, there are often three problems at this time: first, the seal of the hive is not good, and the cold wind blowing into the box causes the spleen to be frozen; Second, in the morning, low temperature bees out of the nest collection easy frostbite outside can not return to the nest; Third, when the weather is good, bees are prone to steal bees and fight to kill each other.

  First of all, beekeepers should do a good job of windproof beehives in early winter. The hives are all made of wood binding, with more or less gaps. The gap in the hive in winter has a great impact on the bee colony. Due to the ventilation of the gap in the hive, bees cannot properly maintain the temperature in the hive. Especially, the cold wind blowing into the hive in early winter will directly cause the stress response of bees, and bees will consume more honey in order to produce more heat. When the bees come out of the house to fly, the beekeeper will find a lot of bees crawling and jumping on the ground, although the wings are intact, but can not take off. The big reason is that during pupation, the cold causes stunting, and it is also a common low-temperature wing disease. Therefore, the early winter to check the hives, the hives of the gap plug, live frame feeding hives can be sealed with transparent tape, while closing the small nest door, conditional bee farmers can use rain cloth to cover the entire hive, can effectively reduce the impact of cold wind on the colony in early winter.

  In early winter, due to the low temperature in the morning, there is a honey powder source outside, and the collection bees that come out of the nest early are easy to get frostbite outside, so the beekeeper must do a good job of "controlling the flight" of bees. Flight control is to reduce the bees in adverse conditions to reduce the nest, the early winter morning will find that many bees due to cold, in the first time did not accurately into the nest door and fell to the ground after it is not easy to take off again, if the outside temperature does not improve, the bees are easy to die outside the hive. Of course, some bees may get frostbite during the collection process and be unable to fly back to the hive. So early winter flight control should be done two points: first, to keep the bees warm rather late than early. Second, do not let the hive sun all day, especially in the morning can not let the hive sun too early. The sun in the morning is easy to make the temperature inside the hive rise rapidly, then the bees will come out of the nest early, and the temperature outside the hive is not suitable for the bees to come out of the nest, the result is that the bees out of the nest a lot of frostbite, the hive outside will see a lot of bees pay on the hive, the ground is also a lot. Therefore, in early winter, the beehive also needs a sunshade, and the sunless beehive can be moved to the place where the sun can be exposed after the hot day in the morning, which can delay the bees' nest time and control the bees' nest well.

  The early winter weather is changeable, beekeepers should do a good job of bee colony management in time, the ultimate goal of management is to make the bee colony in the winter period to minimize losses. Whether it is to do a good job of windproof beehives, or to do a good job of bee flight control and anti-theft work, the final analysis is to let bees reduce the loss caused by these adverse factors. Let the bees can preserve their strength well, so that the spring can enter the spring more quickly, and expand the group to win the honey harvest.

Bees are critical to the health of ecosystems and human life, playing a key role in biodiversity, plant reproduction, economics, agriculture, and environmental changes. Here's an analysis of why bees are so important from various perspectives:

1. Biodiversity

• Maintaining Ecological Balance: Bees are essential pollinators in many ecosystems, aiding in the sexual reproduction of numerous plant species, which promotes genetic diversity and ensures the survival of various species. The presence of bees supports the interdependence between plants and animals, maintaining biodiversity.
• Mutual Relationships Across Species: Many species rely on bees for pollination. A decline in bee populations would affect animals that depend on those plants for food, disrupting the food chain.

2. Plant Reproduction

• Pollination: Bees collect nectar and pollen, transferring pollen from one flower to another, facilitating plant reproduction. About 75% of the world's flowering plants rely on animal pollination, and bees are among the most efficient pollinators.
• Plant Diversity: Through their pollination activities, bees help maintain the diversity of plants, which supports healthy ecosystems like forests, grasslands, and wetlands.

3. Pollination

• Increasing Crop Yields: Bees provide essential pollination services for a wide range of crops, including fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Their work significantly boosts crop yields and quality.
• Foundation of the Food Chain: By enabling the production of seeds, fruits, and nuts, bees not only provide food for humans but also for other animals, such as birds and mammals, further supporting biodiversity.

4. Habitat Creation and Support

• Maintaining Habitats: Bees help plants reproduce, which in turn stabilizes ecosystems and provides habitats for insects, birds, and small mammals.
• Link in Ecological Balance: Healthy plant communities depend on bees for pollination, and those plants, in turn, support diverse communities of organisms, including bees themselves.

5. Economy

• Agricultural Economic Dependence: About 35% of global food production relies on pollination services from bees. Crops pollinated by bees contribute significantly to the economy, especially in agriculture-heavy regions.
• Beekeeping Products: In addition to pollination, bees produce honey, beeswax, propolis, and other products that have high economic value in food, cosmetics, and medicine industries.

6. Agriculture

• Crop Diversity: Bees support diverse agricultural systems by pollinating a wide variety of crops, from blueberries and apples to coffee and almonds. Their work directly impacts farm productivity and the food supply.
• Agricultural Sustainability: By improving crop yields and quality, bees help farmers use less land and water, promoting more sustainable agricultural practices.

7. Environmental Changes

• Addressing Climate Change: Bees help plants reproduce, and these plants absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, helping mitigate climate change. Bees are crucial to maintaining healthy ecosystems that are better equipped to adapt to environmental changes.
• Ecosystem Restoration: Bees are essential for the restoration and regeneration of ecosystems. After natural disasters or human activities disrupt ecosystems, bees help regenerate plant diversity.

8. Pest Control

• Promoting Predator Plants: Some of the plants that bees pollinate attract beneficial insects, which can control agricultural pests, reducing the need for pesticides.
• Support for Organic Farming: In organic agriculture, bee-pollinated plants are vital for pest management systems, as they support a diverse range of organisms that naturally suppress pests.

Conclusion

  Bees are not only essential pollinators in nature but also vital to agriculture and the economy. Through plant reproduction, they support biodiversity, enhance crop production, maintain habitats, reduce environmental degradation, and provide valuable bee products. Protecting the health of bees and their habitats is crucial for ensuring the stability of ecosystems and the sustainability of agriculture.