How to collect honeydew honey or how to organize the collection of honeydew honey in an apiary
Collecting honeydew honey is one of the options for obtaining valuable marketable honey, especially during periods when the collection of nectar honey is limited. But in order to collect honeydew honey, the beekeeper must know how to prepare the apiary for collecting honeydew honey, know where and how to look for honeydew, assess the amount of future honey collection, and take into account other nuances. Read to the end - it will be interesting!
Content
- Honeydew honey where and when is it found
- How to collect honeydew honey
- How to determine honey productivity for collecting honeydew
- How to predict honeydew honey yield?
- In which month is secreted honeydew
- The difference between honeydew honey collection and nectar
- How to properly prepare an apiary for a commercial honeydew honey collection
- Early honeydew
- Late honeydew honey collection
- Work in the apiary after honeydew
Where do bees get honeydew honey?
Honeydew honey where and when is it found
For the commercial production of honey, the beekeeper must know the honeydew where and when it secretion, and migrationing the apiary to the place where the honeydew is collected. As a rule, the secretion of honeydew in large quantities occurs in forests. secretion of honeydew with grasses, shrubs or small forest plantations can only spoil the winter forage or create problems during a drought period, but will not give a marketable harvest of honeydew. There fore, it is important to know where large tracts of forest are located and which trees secretion honeydew.
What trees secretion honeydew?
How to collect honeydew honey
How to collect honeydew honey, there are many technologies, one of them is presented below.
How to determine honey productivity for collecting honeydew
So the beekeeper determined where there are large tracts of forest, where honeydew is possible. Now the beekeeper must determine how much honeydew is available for the bees to collect. In general, the beekeeper should make a forecast for the secretion of honeydew on the site.
The honeydew honey productivity in the forests is quite significant, so the researcher Schmutterer determined the secretion of honeydew for a spruce forest at 300 l / ha, Zwelfer estimated the amount of secretion honeydew per 1 ha of forest at 400 l, Wellenstein argued that in emergency cases, honeydew can be secretion per 1 ha of forest up to 10,000 liters. As we can see, honeydew secretion in the forests is quite significant.
Insects that secrete honeydew - honeydew excretors, are found both in mountain forests and in forests on hills and plains.
However, not all zones have favorable ecological conditions for the development of honeydew spawning insects, and therefore honeydew is secretioned differently in different types of forest.
How to predict honeydew honey yield?
Making a forecast for the strength of a honeydew collection is a long-term matter. Therefore, in order to predict the honeydew collection, the places where there are honeydew producers are identified in the previous year, and in the current year, starting from early spring, the areas where these honeydew excretors could overwinter and survived are determined, the beekeeper counts old insect cysts on spruce and fir or counting eggs on the branches of trees.
A particularly effective way to find the best places to collect honeydew is to count anthills. There is a symbiosis between forest ants and honeydew producers, which contributes to the successful existence of both. Ants protect honeydew producers from enemies, and they feed them. The relationship between ants and honeydew spawners is characterized by the density of Lakhninda populations, which reaches a maximum near anthills, at a distance of 25–50 m it decreases to 50%, at a distance of 100 m it decreases to 10–15%, and at a distance of 150 m it is less than 10%. Therefore, the secretion of honeydew in forests where there are many anthills is 50-70% higher than in forests where there are few ants.
Important!
As you know, bees do not collect honeydew from every tree, and scientists cannot explain the reason why honeydew stands out, but the bees do not carry it. For example, in Siberia, on poplar, alder, birch, Siberian pine (cedar), Scotch pine, spruce, bird cherry, acacia and others, bees do not collect honeydew. Although in other regions honeydew from spruce or pine is collected well. Therefore, in specific conditions, it is worth placing control hives and determining how much and from what bees carry honeydew into the hive.
In order to determine when honeydew will appear in the current year, it is necessary to monitor the development of individual generations of aphids and mealybugs from the moment of egg laying to the mass appearance of adults, to know their appearance and development cycle. It is also difficult to determine where this year there will be a honeydew. The richest sites may be located far from settlements, in hard-to-reach remote places.
Therefore, in some countries where bees collect honeydew honey, there is a special service that looks for honeydew and notifies beekeepers about the presence of honeydew honeydew. Therefore, if a commercial apiary wants to specialize in collecting honeydew honey, it makes sense to establish contacts with forestry workers who can predict the future honeydew harvest and help with a place for an apiary in the forest.
The development of honeydew producers is facilitated by a warm, dry autumn, a mild winter with little precipitation, and a warm and early spring. From May to July it should be humid and warm. Abundant honeydew is associated with sufficient soil moisture in spring and warm nights in summer. Honeydew extractors are usually well adapted to weather conditions and often produce abundant nectar in hot summers. Most often, honeydew is found on trees growing in hollows protected from the wind, near streams or wet meadows, where fogs are frequent and the air stagnates. As a rule, fall does not occur in sunny places well blown by the wind.
In which month is secreted honeydew
The most important question - when secretes the honeydew appear? The time it takes for honeydew to appear depends on many factors, including:
- host plant,
- maker-honeydew insect,
- weather.
Therefore, in order to determine the timing of the appearance of honeydew and the beginning when bees collect honeydew honey, the beekeeper must take into account each type of plant and insect producing honeydew separately. In the article Which trees release honeydew, typical periods of honeydew secretion for each plant were presented.
The difference between honeydew honey collection and nectar
How to collect honeydew honey, if you do not know what is the difference between nectar honey collection and honeydew.
Honeydew honey collection is characterized by such moments that distinguish it from nectar:
- honeydew producers produce honeydew irregularly;
- abundance of honeydew honey collection;
- it is difficult to make an accurate forecast of honeydew;
- during honeydew honey collection, there is no fresh pollen entering the hive;
- the unsuitability of the collected honeydew for wintering bees.
These features should be taken into account when preparing the apiary for honeydew honey collection and when bees collect honeydew honey.
How is honeydew honey collected? How to properly prepare an apiary for marketable honeydew honey
Why do not all bee colonies carry honeydew honey? In order to collect honeydew honey, it is necessary to properly prepare the apiary for honeydew honey collection. In order not to raise the question why not all bee colonies carry honeydew honey, in the apiary that uses honeydew honey collection, there must be strong
families ready for a bountiful collection of honeydew. In order to collect honeydew honey, it is desirable to have a karnik line that was created to collect honeydew honey (Nyska, Ivonka, Beskidka, Kamenka, ST 46, Ср, J, CNT, PA, Aga, Alsin, Tb, Ab), but in principle any bee honeydew is collected breeds.
How is honeydew honey collected? In order to prepare the apiary for the honeydew honey collection, during the honey collections that precede the selection of the honey fall, the queen in the sowing is not limited. There should be a supply of honey in the nests, the more it should be, the later the apiary will be taken to the fall (at least four to ten kilograms of honey per family). Colonies should have a lot of brood, as the high daily honeydew collections require constant replenishment with young bees.
As a rule, it is necessary to roam for honeydew honey collection, the time of migration depends on the availability of honeydew. It is better to migration as soon as information about its appearance arrives. Up to 100 hives can be placed on one parking lot of a mobile apiary.
There is nothing to fear here, that there will be too many bees in relation to the amount of honey collection; it is only a matter of providing the bees with a honey collection near the apiary parking lot.
It is more important to choose the right place for the apiary, it is important to take into account the presence of poisonous plants with pollen and nectar, such as aconite, buttercup, hellebore and other poisonous plants, otherwise many bees may die from pollen or nectar toxicosis.
How is honeydew honey collected with secretion early honeydew
An apiary can be prepared for an earlier honeydew harvest, when bees collect honeydew honey from June to the end of July, as well as for strong and plentiful nectar honey collections. At this time, colonies are at the peak of their development, there are many pollen-bearing plants in nature, and the remains of honeydew honey remaining in the combs with brood do not pose a danger to bees.
However, as the stores fill up, the honeydew honey collected by the bees needs to be pumped out two or three times in a honey extractor, since it cannot be allowed that there is too much of it in the nesting combs with brood. In addition, honeydew honey can easily crystallize in combs, especially in combs that are not drained after honey from cruciferous plants, and then it can be difficult to pump out. When the daily weight gain of the honeydew collection is too large, the bees sometimes do not have time to seal the honey, then unsealed combs are also pumped out on the honey extractor. It is necessary to constantly monitor the honey store and, if necessary, substitute a new store: it is impossible to allow the flow of honey to limit the laying of eggs by the uterus. In summer, you can take out the entire apiary for summer honeydew collectiones.
It is interesting to note the Romanian experience of exporting apiary for honeydew collection. First, a package of bees is taken to the designated places, which does not have printed brood, but only young flying bees. The package is taken out at the first appearance of the honeydew, setting it on the scales. As soon as the gains go, the apiary is taken out, and the package is taken away. Thus, honeydew collectors from the package, returning back and not finding their hive, are distributed among the beehives of the apiary and quickly inform new families about the new source of the honey collection, as a result, the entire apiary quickly switches to collecting honeydew.
How is honeydew honey collected with secretion late honeydew
For late honeydew honey collection, which begins in August and can continue until frost, only specially prepared bee colonies are taken, they must be strong, with a large supply of honey and bee bread, with numerous brood.
To do this, until July 30, you need to pump out flower honey from honey combes. From August 1, it is necessary to start feeding the bees for the winter with large portions of sugar syrup, giving 3-5 liters of syrup daily. Simultaneously, the bees are treated with formic acid.
Top dressing should be completed around August 8-10. After that, within 2-3 days, select all frames with sealed and partially sealed summer honey and sugar syrup food from the hives, put them in free boxes and ensure their safety until the families are prepared for winter. Regardless of this, the apiary should have stocks of honey or syrup feed, in the form of frames or feed extensions, which were previously prepared by the same families. In autumn, for each bee family involved in the collection of honeydew honey, at least two or three frames of good food should be prepared.
After the selection of food prepared by bees, instead of them, the hive is completed with high-quality honeycomb frames in cases and store extensions, for storing honeydew honey. In this case, marketable honey will be pure honeydew. If the nests are structured correctly and the honey stores are expanded in time, honeydew will accumulate in the extensions outside the nest.
On honeydew, colonies develop poorly (in contrast to collecting honey from heather), they lose many flying bees. When bees collect honeydew and process it into honey, pollen does not enter the hive. Attention should be paid to this feature, since the lack of protein nutrition in colonies that work intensively in the pre-winter period can lead to serious losses of bees. Quite often, 30-33 percent of bees fall off in the colonies collecting late honeydew. Weakened families cannot make full use of the spring and even early summer honey collection. Therefore, if there is no natural influx of pollen, the bees should be given protein food during this period (bee bread, protein candy, or pollen rubbed with honey). Therefore, there should be at least two frames with bee bread in the nest.
The bees are given 1 kg of kandi and 0.5 liters of honey syrup. Replenish the feeder with syrup after 1 day to stimulate the laying of eggs by the queen and prepare food for the larvae. Adult bees feed on candy.
The lack of food supplies in the nest will force all the bees to intensively search for and bring honeydew, processing it into honeydew honey. At the end of September - October, all combs with honeydew honey should be taken from the nests and pumped out, given that the bees do not seal it well.
Work in the apiary after honeydew collection
The apiary is returned immediately, as soon as the growth of the control hive stops, especially if the honey collection is late. Colonies need to have time to prepare for the winter, besides, the danger of bee theft is growing (the greater, the more hives were concentrated in one place).
Take measures to store honeydew honey.
Immediately after the selection of honey, the most weakened colonies are strengthened by layering or combined to provide good conditions for wintering. Then the colonies of bees should be treated with heat treatment, bipin or bivarool and prepare the bees for wintering by returning their combs with high-quality summer honey or sugar food. Nests must be insulated, forming it for the winter.
Important!
When bees collect honeydew honey, there is a risk of diseases such as honeydew toxicosis, melanosis, protein dystrophy, and subsequently nosematosis. If need to take action against bears. You should also not forget that the apiary must be protected from ants.
Fall should not be allowed honeydew to enter winter food.
If the honeydew is in frames with brood, they should be placed behind a barn board outside the nest and let the young bees come out, and the nest should be formed from frames containing ready-made stocks.
