I don't know if you have encountered this phenomenon when beekeeping: bees are slow in action, difficult to fly, can only crawl on the ground, the abdomen is unnatural, cut open the abdomen, and even found that there is a small bug inside, in fact, this is the bee is parasitic. There are two types of culprits that cause bees to be parasitize - parasitic bees and parasitic flies, and today we mainly introduce parasitic bees - Szan bee cocoon bees.
The image comes from the literature
According to relevant literature records, the earliest in 1980 found that there are parasites in the bee body, The Sizan bee cocoon bee, also known as the bee velvet cocoon bee, the Si's bee cocoon bee, the adult bee body length of 5 to 7mm, the body color is dark brown, the old mature larvae are milky yellow, 5 to 6 mm long, resembling fly maggots, which can be identified in the picture above.
According to literature, the life habits of the Sizan bee cocoon bees found in hubei are to gather in the top cover of the hive, the bottom plate, the crevice of the hive or the old nest spleen in the box in the state of adult bee, and to start activities from mid-to-late March to early April of the following year when the outside climate warms, and forag for food and tailing. They mainly begin to harm medium bee larvae from late April to September, with the most harmful from June to July.
The harm of the Sizan bee cocoon bee to the bee colony is that they will lay eggs directly in the body of the worker bee, and after the eggs hatch, they no longer need to look for food, and directly feed on the internal organs in the worker bee to obtain energy and spend the larval stage. After the internal organs of the worker bees are eaten, the larvae are close to the pupal stage, and these mature larvae will crawl out of the anus of the worker bees along the intestine, and then form cocoons at the bottom of the hive or in the soil of 2 to 3 cm on the ground, and after feathering, they will begin to replenish nutrition and find a suitable place to overwinter.
Some people also said that the Spitzene Cocoon Bee should be regarded as a foreign body intruder for a bee colony, is there no swarm to drive them away? On this issue, some people have also observed, according to observations, a single Szan bee cocoon bee may be because of its small size, and slow movements, does not cause the bee to repel, trigger the defense mechanism, in most cases can freely enter and exit the bee colony, and move on the nest spleen. Moreover, the weaker swarms are more seriously harmed by the Sizan bee cocoon bees, so the strength of the defense mechanism still has a certain effect on the prevention and control of the Swarm.
Yes: "The abdomen of the worker bee is slightly shorter than normal, dark, slow to move, incapacitated, often crawling slowly on the outer wall of the hive, the wings do not vibrate, and the tail is stilted when stationary" as a reference phenomenon, and then open the bee abdomen to see if there are maggots as a judgment, to confirm whether the bee colony is endangered by the Sizan bee cocoon bee.
Nowadays, there is no more efficient way for the prevention and control of Theszan bee cocoon bees, or the living habits and hazards of the Spitzan bees cocoon bees, mainly for prevention and manual hunting, the specific methods are:
Raise strong flocks to reduce the harm of Sizan bee cocoon bees to bee colonies.
Before the early spring bloom, the hive and the old nest spleen are cleaned, especially in the gaps, and the high temperature insect control method can be adopted, which is both insect control and disinfection.
Observe the bee farm and beehive during the peak period of the activity of the Sizan bee cocoon, and destroy it if it is found.
For bee colonies found to be parasitic, timely isolation is carried out to avoid larvae burrowing into the soil in the bee farm, and the bee colony will continue to endanger the bee colony in the coming year.
Article source: Dr. Bee APP