How to manage the bee colony in winter?
1. Insulation of bee colony
The biggest threat to bees in winter is severe cold, so heat preservation is the key task of winter bee colony management. At this time, the beehive can be moved to a sheltered place. The outside of the beehive can be wrapped with straw, straw, etc., and the inside of the beehive can be filled with some foam, Insulating materials such as cotton wool should be appropriately reduced or closed, but be careful not to seal the beehive too tightly to suffocate the bee colony.
2. Ning cold and not hot
The most suitable temperature for bees to live through the winter is -2～8℃. Therefore, although heat preservation is the focus of winter bee colony management, it must be "cool and not hot". The reason is that high temperature will cause the bee colony to disperse early After the mission, the activity of overwintering worker bees will increase, which will shorten the life of worker bees and die early. In addition, beehives in areas with higher winter temperatures in the south can survive the winter without any heat preservation treatment.
3. supplementary feeding
In winter, bees rely on a large amount of honey to produce heat to maintain the temperature of the colony. If the colony lacks food, it will starve to death or freeze to death. Therefore, during the wintering period, it is necessary to ensure that the bee colony is adequately fed. The beekeeper can be before the wintering period Feed a large amount of feed at one time, and then adjust it according to the reserve of feed in the colony. In addition, you can also add some anti-bee disease drugs to the feed to prevent diseases.
4. check the bee colony
Although bees rarely move during the overwintering period, regular inspections of the bee colony are essential, but must be carried out at noon in fine weather. The focus of the inspection is whether there is a queen bee, whether there is sufficient feed, whether there are too many dead bees, etc. The bee colony that died unexpectedly should be merged into other colonies in time, the bee colony with insufficient feed should be re-fed in time, and the cause of too many dead bees should be found and dealt with in time.
5. Disease control
In winter, the diseases of bees are relatively small, but if a large number of worker bees die abnormally, you must be vigilant. First, you must rule out whether they died of cold or starvation, and then find out the cause of the disease and deal with it in time based on the characteristics of the dead bees. Sick bee colonies should also take precautions. In addition, sometimes mice may enter the hives. At this time, the hives must be opened to drive them out and the gaps in the hives should be repaired.
Summary: Winter is a critical period for bee farming. At this time, whether the management work is reasonable will directly affect whether the bee colony can survive the winter smoothly. In fact, many novice beekeeping failures are mostly caused by management mistakes in winter. Therefore, beekeepers in this season must be It is necessary to strengthen the management of the bee colony.
