Friends who know much about bees know that bees are animals that do not hibernate in winter, and the price of not hibernating is to have enough honey to maintain the life of bees, while generating heat and keeping the inside of the colony warm until winter has passed.
Therefore, although we can't see bees in winter, it doesn't mean that bees, like other animals, do not eat or drink hibernation, and whether the farmed bees, whether the winter honey is sufficient, is directly related to whether the bees can safely overwinter.
Because beekeepers underestimate the amount of food they eat, many human-farmed bees find that they have no food in the middle of winter, so beekeepers begin to feed honey or sugar water to bees. Theoretically, this practice is no problem, but some beekeepers have found that it is such a simple feeding, resulting in all the deaths of bees in winter, just these days there are fans to the bee tribe Xiaobian said this problem, so what is the specific cause? Today, the small editor of the bee tribe will share this problem with you.
The state of the bees in winter
In the winter, the temperature inside the swarm is actually relatively high, as long as the bees are alive, even if the outside temperature is very low, the temperature inside the general swarm is above 14 degrees Celsius, this temperature is dependent on the bees to eat a lot of honey and exercise to produce, and the production of this temperature, not a single bee to produce, but bees into a bee colony, relying on the strength of the group to produce, so in winter, although the bees did not have a nest, but there is no hibernation.
Why does feeding bees in winter feed bees to death?
The crux of this problem lies in the problem of clumping mentioned above. Although it is said that it is for the bees to eat, but in fact, the honey water or sugar water fed is not the same as the honey stored in the bee colony, the real food of the bees, in fact, the honey that the bees in the bee colony have brewed, and the sugar water or honey we feed is the raw material for honey for the bees, the bees will not eat directly, and the honey fed will cause bee chaos.
As mentioned above, if the bee eats the stored honey, then the whole bee colony is always close together, and the whole bee colony will slowly move with the consumption of honey, so the temperature inside the entire hive is stable, but the honey we feed is not the same.
For the sugar water or honey water we feed, because we use the way of feeding the feeder, there is no guarantee that the bee colony will not fall apart, and the bees must rely on the strength of the group to generate heat, when we use the feeder to feed the bees, the bee colony is scattered under the stimulation of smell and hunger, this time is the winter, the temperature is very low, when the bees eat the feed fed, the temperature inside the bee colony is slowly reduced, and finally it is difficult for the bees to fly, and then a large number of bees freeze because of the cold, Fell to the bottom of the hive and froze to death. This is why feeding bees in winter will all die.
How to solve the problem of honey shortage in bees in winter?
In fact, for experienced beekeepers, it is completely predictable to estimate the amount of feed that bees consume in winter, but in order to prevent accidents, even experienced beekeepers will make some other preparations, that is, to reserve honey spleens.
For the above situation, if it is not fed syrup or honey water, but feed the mature honey spleen, there will be no problem of a large number of deaths, if we store bees in the autumn when overwintering honey, deliberately put forward some capping honey spleen as a preparation, to find that honey is insufficient in winter, the hive is moved to a warm room, replace the empty spleen inside the hive, and then by cooling, waiting for the swarm to clumb and then move outside, so that there is almost no impact on the bees.
However, generally according to the number of bees and the length of winter to prepare honey is the best way, because the winter box is not safe for the bees, so breeding bees, as far as possible in the autumn to solve the problem inside the hive, do not easily open the box in the winter, if there is no honey spleen, although there are some rescue measures, but are risky.
How do you save a colony that has no reserve of honey and lacks honey in winter? May as well share with us, let us also learn to learn.