Beekeeping involves many important nuances. These include the need for seasonal feeding of bees. This is the key to the health, proper development and melliferousness of insects. Top dressing must be carried out according to a certain technology.
Why feed the bees in the spring?
Spring is an active period for bees when it is necessary to build up strength for the upcoming honey collection, which is usually held in July.
Spring feeding of insects is carried out with the following objectives:
- replenish feed supplies;
- stimulate the laying of the uterus;
- cure some diseases and carry out their prevention due to special additives;
- improve the quality of honey, its aroma and taste;
- increase overall apiary productivity.
Early spring is characterized by unstable weather, the absence of a bribe in nature, a small amount of feed in the nests and weakening of bees. If insects massively begin to fly out after nectar, then most of them will die. To prevent this, replenish feed reserves.
Features of feeding bees in spring
Spring feeding of bees has several goals and in each case has some features. It should be started after the audit.
Top dressing before the first flyby
Before the cleansing flyby, top dressing is not always carried out. It is necessary when there is brood in the nest. In this case, the bees take a lot of energy to feed the larvae and maintain a stable temperature in the nest. This leads to a sharp increase in feed consumption.
For feeding in early spring, used honey or sugar-honey dough, formed into cakes weighing no more than 1 kg. Such cakes should be wrapped with gauze or clean paper. Place them under the canvas on the frame next to the nest.
If there is no bee bread in the nests or there is not enough pollen in nature, then use the Gaidak mixture. For this, skim soy flour, skimmed milk powder and brewer's or baker's yeast are used. These ingredients must be mixed in a ratio of 3: 1: 1. Effectively add bee bread to this mixture to attract bees.
So that the intestines of bees are better cleared of feces accumulated over the winter, they can be given acid fertilizing. To do this, prepare a syrup from sugar and water in a ratio of 1: 1.5, for each kilogram of granulated sugar adding 2 g of citric acid. If you use vinegar, then per kilogram of sugar you will need 25 g of a 9% or 40 g of a 6% product.
To induce bees to fly around, you can use liquid honey satiety. For its preparation, a part of honey and 1-2 parts of water are used.
If the weather for the first flight is not favorable, then you can give the bees a thick honey full. For its preparation, 9-10 parts of honey are taken per part of water.
Top dressing after the first flyby
After the first flight, the bees need incentive feeding. Syrup for it can be prepared in many ways:
- The simplest way is to take part of the sugar into two parts of water. Sand should be poured into boiling water and mix until it is completely dissolved. The resulting syrup should be cooled to 30 degrees. By consistency, it turns out to be liquid.
- To prepare a thick syrup, you need to take 2 parts of sugar per part of water. To obtain an average density, the components must be taken in equal amounts.
- Invert is also prepared for feeding. To prepare such a syrup, natural honey is used - 40 g of product per kilogram of sugar is enough. Such top dressing accelerates sugar inversion.
- The strength of the bees can be supported by feeding with bee bread. For its preparation, 1 kg of honey requires 0.5 kg of water and bee bread. All these components must be mixed, passed through a sieve and insisted for 3 days.
- To prepare honey, it is necessary to dilute honey with water. The proportions of the components depend on what consistency of the product is required in a particular case. Crystallized honey is first dissolved in a water bath, and then mixed with the desired volume of water.
You can’t boil bee syrup. If it burns, then insects can die from such feeding. For diluting syrup, use a clean container that is not oxidized. There should be no impurities in sugar.
Syrup for feeding can be poured into the upper feeders. Servings should be small - half a liter is enough. The portion for weak families should be smaller.
Another feeding option is the use of plastic bags. They need to pour syrup, seal the edges of the bags with an iron and make 3-5 holes for insects to access.
If you use the Gaidak mixture, then it is necessary to form cakes from it and place them within the framework.
For spring dressing, small feeders should be used. Before adding a new portion of the feed, thoroughly clean the leftovers. Otherwise, they will ferment, and the bees will become ill.
Instead of feeders, you can use frames and install them on the edge. In this case, you can not spill syrup on the ground, otherwise this will provoke a raid on the family.
Feeding is best given in the evening so that the bees do not fly out for a bribe. This approach also reduces the likelihood of theft in the apiary.
Honey feeding is most effective for bees. This approach provides the maximum number of brood. Honey for feeding bees should not be soured. Do not boil it, as it can be caramelized and become unsuitable for insects. If honey crystallized, then you should print it in empty cells and pour warm water. After liquefaction, the product can be transferred to the nest.
Another feeding option is centrifugal honey. To obtain it, the product must be placed in an enameled container, adding a glass of water for each kilogram. This mixture must be heated to a boil and stirred until the crystals dissolve. Pour the resulting mass into the feeders.
Settled honey can be warmed up or add half a glass of boiling water for every kilogram. After the mass must be thoroughly mixed and placed overnight in a warm place. In the morning, such honey is given to bees in a warm form.
Watch the video that talks about the need to feed the bees after the first flyby, the peculiarities of preparing syrup and how to feed insects:
Feeding to stimulate the laying of the uterus
Stimulating the oviposition by the uterus is necessary for better redness. The speed of renewal and population growth in the hive depends on the start date of the laying.
The bee queen is fed by bees, secreting the mother’s milk. To do this, they need to provide good nutrition, which should be based on protein and carbohydrate feed. For this purpose, use purg, honey or sugar syrup.
Perga is a protein feed and must be present in the nest. Her stock should be left from the summer. Perga is called bee bread, as it is necessary for feeding the larvae.
If there is no bee bread, then you can replace it with milk. Such top dressing is also protein. For its preparation, it is better to take whole skim milk. First, sugar syrup is prepared. For a kilogram of sugar you need to take 0.8 liters of boiling water. After the sand has dissolved, you need to cool the syrup to 35 degrees and add a glass of milk to it.
If there is no whole milk, then you can do with a dry product. For 0.25 kg of the mixture, 0.875 liters of warm water should be taken. First, a small part of the liquid is added to the dry mixture and triturated to a thick sour cream consistency. After add the rest of the water.
The mixture with the addition of milk can not be left in the feeder for a long time, otherwise it will become acidic. Such feeding should be given to bees in a small amount - 0.4 kg per hive per day is enough.
To stimulate worming with a uterus, it is good to use coniferous infusion. To prepare this stimulant, finely chop 1 kg of conifer needles (you can use the tops), pour 5 liters of water, boil and insist in heat for 8 hours.
After the product should be filtered and added to sugar syrup in a glass for every liter. To prepare the syrup, 6 glasses of sugar per liter of water is required. Such stimulation should be carried out every other day for a week and a half.
You can not start dressing with liquid syrup. Otherwise, the bees can fly out of the hive, and in cold weather they will simply die.
Carbohydrate feed is needed to feed not only bees, but also larvae. The more this food, the more bees will secrete royal jelly, which feed the uterus and the larvae of working bees. In the absence of honey, uterine redness will be limited to bees.
To stimulate oviposition, cobalt preparations are used. Practice shows that such tools provide a larger brood.
It is enough to add 8 g of the substance per liter of syrup. If this dosage is exceeded, then the productivity of the family will suffer. Feeding is provided every 2 days for 3 weeks.
Egg production can be stimulated with sugar syrup with a concentration of 40%. This means that part of the sugar needs 1.5 times water.
To enhance reproductive function in bees, it is good to use top dressing with powdered sugar.
Nutrition for the treatment and prevention of diseases
With the help of top dressing, various diseases can be treated, as well as their prevention. One of the common problems is nosematosis. You can identify it by the stool on the arrival board and the front wall of the letka.
For the treatment of nosematosis, Nosemat is often used, which is added to liquid top dressing. For preventive purposes, top dressing with acetic acid is used. Enough 3 grams of the product per 1 liter of water and 1 kg of sugar.
Fumagilin is also used in the treatment of nosematosis. For 5 l of syrup, 4 g of the drug is enough. For one family, 0.3-0.5 kg of the mixture is enough.
Another common disease is foulbrood. For its treatment or prevention resort to oxytetracycline. For one bee street for 0.15 kg of fertilizing, 500 thousand units of the drug are needed.
The need to use antibiotics for bees is determined by the livestock specialist or veterinarian. He establishes what type of preparation is needed and how much to give to bees.
For prevention, Apimax is often added to spring dressing. This drug has bactericidal and antimicrobial properties.
If the bees need to be given medicine, then it is often added to candi. To make this mixture, you need to mix 0.2 l of sugar syrup, 0.5 kg of powdered sugar and 0.3 kg of milk powder.
When treating bees and carrying out preventive measures, all hives must be cleaned and disinfected.
Why feed the bees in the fall?
Autumn feeding of bees is part of the preparatory work for the upcoming wintering. There are several reasons for this stage of preparation:
- Provide a supply of food for the winter, if it is completely absent. Often this is due to the fact that the beekeeper took too much honey.
- Replenish feed if there is no autumn bribe. In this case, the bees eat up the stocks before wintering.
- Replace poor-quality feed. This applies to rapidly crystallizing or honeydew honey. In the first case, the bees can starve, because they cannot take the crystallized product. In the second case, there is a risk of poisoning.
- Stimulate autumn oviposition. This allows you to strengthen the hive for the winter with strong young animals, which is the key to a successful wintering.
- To conduct treatment and prevention of diseases. It is in the fall that bees are most exposed to them.
Features of feeding bees in autumn
Autumn feeding of bees has a number of features. This applies to the timing of its implementation, the method of preparation of the syrup and feeding technology. All these rules must be observed, as it is important for the upcoming wintering.
Dates
The time frame for autumn top dressing may vary depending on the climatic zone. Weather conditions in a given year are also relevant. Feed stock should be created when honey is selected and an autumn audit is conducted.
The first autumn top dressing is carried out in September. Pulling with it is not worth it, since the bees weakened after the first bribe, and sealing the honeycombs and processing the feed require a lot of energy.
Top dressing in September is necessary with a weak bribe or its complete absence. In this case, the bees can be given honey syrup or liquid syrup. For its preparation using a ratio of 1: 1. Liquid syrup should not be abused, as this can cause the bees to fly.
If winter in the region begins early, and bees already fall into suspended animation in October, then autumn feeding should be carried out from mid-August. At the end of September it should be completed.
In most regions, top dressing can be carried out until October 5-10. An exception is the southern regions, where the uterus sows until the middle of the month. Optimal for autumn top dressing is considered to be the period from August 20 to September 10.
In November, top dressing is carried out only if the moment was previously missed. Before the cold, it is better not to disturb the bees in order to avoid stimulation of their activity. If necessary, during this period, the feeder is installed in the upper part of the hive - so it is more convenient for bees to pick up syrup.
Making syrup for autumn dressing
For a better wintering, you should use honey stuff. The undoubted advantage of such a feed is the almost complete assimilation of insects, which do not have to spend a lot of energy on its processing.
To make honey full, you need to boil the water, cool it to 50 degrees, add honey and mix everything thoroughly. For autumn top dressing use a ratio of 1: 1.
Instead of honey full, you can use sugar syrup. Its concentration should be 64%, that is, 1.5 kg of sugar should be taken per liter of water. To prepare the right syrup, you need to take into account several nuances:
- Use soft water. If it is stiff, the processed feed will crystallize quickly. If the water is hard, then before preparing the syrup it must be boiled and left to settle.
- First, water is boiled, and then sugar is poured into it and the mixture is stirred until it is completely dissolved. It is impossible to boil the syrup, since in case of burning it is forbidden to use it for feeding bees.
- Sugar syrup needs to be acidified, as acid is present in natural flower honey. For acidification, you can use vinegar essence. For 1 kg of sugar, 0.3 g of product is enough. Such an additive serves as a prophylaxis of nosematosis.
For the preparation of syrup, you can also use 1: 1 proportions. This approach allows you to accelerate the inversion of sugar, but feeding is complicated due to the increase in time spent on processing.
Bees syrup should be given in a warm form. If you give them a cold product, then the insects will spend a lot of time and energy on its processing.
The best food for bees is flower honey, but a drop can be found in it. In such situations, insects need to be transferred to syrup. Otherwise, the bees will have indigestion.
Bee feeding technology in autumn
It is important to provide the bees with a sufficient amount of food. It is better to let the excess remain than the bees will starve and die.
Features of autumn top dressing depend on climatic conditions in the region and weather, wintering method, size and strength of the family.
If the region is characterized by long and harsh winters, then bees need more food. A greater number of it is required with the open method of wintering. As a stimulation to one family, 0.1-0.2 liters of syrup or are full enough.
For a successful wintering, it is necessary for the bees to observe all the frames. Each of them should have up to 3 kg of feed. It is imperative that there is sealed food in the center of the frame, while the edges may be empty in whole or in part.
Sugar syrup for bees can be given in different ways.In addition to the framework, you can use wooden feeders or glass jars. The best option is ceiling feeders.
If you use cans for feeding, it is important to prepare them correctly. The containers must be filled with syrup and tied with several layers of gauze or other material. The liquid should not flow from the inverted can, otherwise several more layers of fabric should be added. Inverted banks set on the frame. It is better to install small whetstones between them - so the bees will quickly take the syrup.
Autumn top dressing should be carried out in the evening after the termination of summer of bees. The amount of syrup is calculated individually for each family - by morning it should be all selected, otherwise theft will begin in the apiary.
Bees need seasonal additional feeding, which, depending on the season, solve different problems. It is important to properly prepare the feed and follow the feeding technology. Otherwise, the bees can not only not be helped, but also hurt.