How to lay bees in spring: video and description of methods
You can get a new family of bees by trapping the swarm that has formed, but there are other ways. A video on how to lay bees in the spring will help the formation of new families and, at the request of the beekeeper, replenish the population of the hives.
Spring is the best time to get cuttings. During a long warm period, when honey plants bloom one after another, the adaptation of bees is easy, the new family manages to get stronger, replenish with new members and make supplies for the winter.
What methods of getting new families are used in practice? What are the positive and negative aspects of the existing methods? A video on how to lay bees in the spring will be a good help in solving these and other issues.
- from a third-party fetal uterus acquired in another household;
- with a young unfertilized uterus from her apiary or just emerging from the mother liquor;
- with an adult, laying eggs by a uterus from a strong large family.
Among other things, layers of bees are formed both with adult working insects and with the younger generation, who have not previously flown for a bribe.
Transplanting bees into a new hive: young or flying?
Mostly layering is done according to the second type. A hive with a new family is placed near where the insects lived before. Gradually, flying individuals return to their usual place, and young bees remain subordinate to the planted queen. The main problem of this method is the lag in the development of the new colony, but during the spring and summer, with proper care and organization of the bribe, the family manages to get stronger, bring out the brood and raise a strong generation of worker bees.
A video telling about layering of bees will help you master a technique that is useful for any beekeeper and, if necessary, quickly and painlessly divide existing families.
How to make layering of bees that have already flown out earlier for a bribe? In order for not only young, but also adults to remain in the layer, the beekeeper will have to take the hive at least 3-5 km from the main location of the apiary. In this case, all bees will have to stay in a new place. And the family immediately starts collecting honey and taking care of the brood. Unfortunately, unlike young ones, adult flight bees can show aggression towards the planted queen, which inevitably leads to problems. It is for this reason that beekeepers are not always willing to use a seemingly simple and reliable way of obtaining bee layering.
How to lay bees in the spring, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of this or that method?
Layering on a "foreign" fetal uterus
It is possible to form an early layer if a new colony forms around the uterus acquired in a region where spring begins earlier.
The fertilized queen starts laying eggs already a couple of days after transplanting into a new colony, so a sufficiently strong layering of bees can receive the first bribe as early as June. The weak side of this option is:
- high cost of getting a new family;
- serious risk of losing the queen if the beekeeper is not experienced enough or if the bees are aggressive towards the “alien” queen when transplanting into a new hive.
Laying bees with a barren queen
If an infertile female becomes the basis of the layering, or when bees are transplanted into a new hive, a queen bee is placed in it, the beekeeper should be aware of the inevitable delay in the development of the forming colony. At the same time, worker bees are better able to accept a queen that emerges from a queen cell than an infertile alien individual, so additional precautions cannot be avoided.
When the bees have accepted the queen, you have to be patient. Strengthening the layering by bees from another hive usually does not give results, and sometimes even harms the already existing families engaged in the main honey harvest. Usually, over the summer, even small layers gain strength and can, among other things, be used to merge with families when replacing old queens.
Layer with "native" fertilized uterus
If a part of the colony with a queen has been transplanted into a new hive, the bees left as "orphans" refuse to raise the remaining brood and are actively engaged in collecting honey, making a serious stock. This circumstance is used by beekeepers:
- to get the earliest product;
- to renew the family and replace the uterus in it.
It is important to take into account that, left without a queen, the colony weakens and needs special control and attention until a new queen appears and flies around, a new brood and a young generation of bees appear.
Watching the video on how to lay bees in the spring, and when planning the formation of new families, the beekeeper should take into account the peculiarities of honey collection at the place where the hives are installed. In spring and early summer, the flowering of honey plants can be blurry or short-term due to weather conditions. If there is such a danger in the region, you should not make the layers of bees knowingly strong. Otherwise, the lack of honey collection will lead to the risk of swarming and disintegration of a newly formed family.