Four seasons shake to collect honey tips

The main economic benefit of beekeeping comes from shaking honey. The method of shaking honey varies with the seasons of the year. As far as the Yangtze River Basin is concerned, the basic principles of shaking honey are: early in spring, diligent in summer, stable in autumn and stop in winter.

1. Spring should be early

After the beginning of spring, the queen bee begins to lay eggs, worker bees go out to collect, and the enthusiasm of feeding their young rises day by day. Chinese bees, in particular, fly around to collect scattered nectar when the temperature is getting warmer and colder. They generally brewed the first batch of mature honey around the end of March. In addition to breeding and self-feeding, they also had surplus storage, plus overwintering surplus feed, which laid the foundation for shaking honey in early spring. As the number of flowering plants increases one after another in spring, early shaking honey can vacate the honey nest in time, so that there is a nest room for storage when entering the honey, thus stimulating worker bees to actively go out of the nest to collect honey and promote the colony to reproduce and develop as soon as possible. However, the purpose of shaking honey early is not to sweep away the honey, but to save enough food for the bees.

2. Be diligent in summer

The number of times of shaking honey in summer should be increased appropriately. Especially in early summer, the main nectar plants blossom and secrete honey one after another, and the field bees enter honey quickly and in large quantities, and the indoor bees process day and night; therefore, they should be diligent in shaking on the premise of ensuring adequate feed honey. For example, during the flowering period of citrus, rape and jujube, honey can be shaken once in 3 to 5 days. Shaking honey diligently can promote worker bees to collect honey actively. After the end of the florescence of the main honey source, it is followed by scattered honey sources, and the interval between shaking honey should be appropriately increased, usually once every 15-20 days. Enter the hot summer season, there are very few flowers, honey can be suspended for a period of time.

3. Be stable in autumn and stop in winter

First, autumn flowers are obviously less than summer flowers, and the amount of honey collected by worker bees is reduced, so it is necessary to stop shaking honey. The main sources of honey in autumn are buckwheat flowers, wild chrysanthemums and other wild flowers. Second, after autumn is winter, the source of honey is less, the climate is cold, and the number of worker bees coming out of the nest is reduced, so it is necessary to think of enough feed for bees to shake honey in autumn. The storage of overwintering feed would rather leave more surplus, not less and scarce, otherwise it will add a lot of trouble to the overwintering management, and even cause losses to the bee colony. Taking the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River as an example, the overwintering feed of Chinese bees can store 400 tons of honey per spleen, while that of western bees is much more. take 5 spleen as an example, each group needs 12~15kg, that is, it is necessary to prepare 5-6 honey spleen to meet its overwintering needs.