Natural bee splitting is a breeding method adopted by many medium bee keepers. This method is also the only way for the bee colony to multip in its natural state, when the swarm grows to a certain stage, the male bee begins to appear in the swarm and build the queen bee, with the birth of the new king, about half of the bees in the swarm together with the original queen bee, fly away from the original nest, looking for a new nest to live. But this behavior of bees needs to have certain conditions, not any season, any conditions will be divided into bees, bees naturally divided into bees Conditions mainly in the following aspects:
Seasons and suitable climates
Natural bees generally occur mainly in late spring and early summer, and although other seasons will also divide bees, this time is relatively concentrated. Because the climate from cold to warm, honey powder source is abundant, bees after a long overwintering period, began to enter a rapid proliferation stage, with the continuous accumulation of newborn bees, to a certain extent, will be divided into bees, at this time, the outside world has entered the summer, the weather is warm, honey powder is also relatively rich, suitable for bee life, the newly separated bee colony is also easy to survive.
Second, the hive is crowded
With the queen bee spawning and breeding, new bees continue to go out of the room, the number of bees in the nest increases sharply, coupled with the good external honey powder, a large number of bees are stored in the nest room, if the nest is not expanded in time, it will cause the bees in the nest to bee is very crowded, poor ventilation, honey powder fills the nest spleen, resulting in the queen bee spawning restrictions, in this case the bee colony produces a bee-splitting mood, and then the bees appear.
Third, the bee colony has accumulated to a certain extent
The decisive factor contributing to the bee division is the number of bees in the colony, and a strong colony is the premise of the bee division. Bee colonies are generally strong groups, and the swarms of such bees are relatively large and can easily develop into strong swarms. However, some bee species are more bee-divided, and only three or four spleens begin to divide bees, so that the bee colony cannot develop into a strong honey collection group. Although there are more bee colonies, there is not much practical value, and bee species should be renewed or eliminated.
Fourth, the factors affecting the natural bee division
1. Bee species Different bee species have different beekeeping characteristics, and different subspecies of bees of the same species are also different. For example, compared with the middle and western bees, the middle bees are strong in bee division, the bees in the north are relatively weak in the middle bees, and the southern bees are relatively strong.
2. Bee colony Internal factorsIf the queen bee in the colony is old and inferior, it secretes relatively little queen material, and it is easy to make the bee colony produce bee-splitting emotions. If the feeding power and labor force of the worker bees in the bee colony are relatively excessive, and the free activity space of the bees in the nest is reduced, it is easy to cause natural bee division.
3. Honey powder source If there is no honey source in the outside world or the honey flow is better, the bees are in a state of hunger or active collection, and there is generally no bee splitting phenomenon. The outside honey flow is not much, but it can meet the needs of bee colony breeding insects, or although there is no obvious honey flow, but the powder source sugar content is high, the feeding burden of the bee colony is not heavy, as long as the climate is suitable, it is also prone to natural bee division.
According to the situation you describe, and your local climate situation, the reason why the bee colony does not love to divide the bees should be caused by these reasons: one is that the swarm is not strong enough, because last year was a "warm winter", and this year's early spring temperature is higher, the bee colony breeding is more than 20 days earlier than usual, but after the bee colony begins to breed, there is a cold spring, the temperature fluctuation is larger, the bee colony reproduction is slower, and there is a downward trend in a short time, so until now there are only 4 to 5 spleen bees, and the swarm is generally weak; the second is that the weather is dry, and the outside world lacks honey powder sources. Last year, there was almost no effective rain and snow, resulting in a serious drought in today's spring, the lack of external honey powder, some until the beginning of summer still need to be fed, in this case, it is difficult to divide bees; the third is that the external weather is unstable, late spring including early summer This period of time, the outside world is windy, the temperature change is relatively large, is not conducive to bee colony breeding, and also has a certain impact on bees.
Although the bee can increase the number of bees, but has a certain impact on bee collection, if the bee colony is very weak to start the bee division, the main reason is also due to the factors of bee species, love bee colonies are often difficult to grow a large group, such bee colony collection ability is relatively poor, the beekeeping production is not good. If you want to promote the colony to divide the bees, you can take a tightening of the hive, keep the bees more than the spleen state, strengthen the reward feeding, when the bees in the colony and the cap accumulate to a certain extent, the temperature in the nest will be greatly improved, at the same time, continuous feeding will also accumulate a lot of feed, so that the space in the nest is tight, in order to promote the bees to divide the bees.
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