If, standing near a beehive, you hear a rumble and hum, and at knock on a wall of a lodge of a bee amicably respond, then the wintering goes safely. When reaction of insects to percussion weak, so bees starve. In this case they need food. How to feed bees in the winter and than?
Instruction
1. Begin to prepare bees for cold season in August – the beginning of September. That insects safely wintered, leave them in a lodge up to 20 pounds of honey. Fifteen of them are necessary to them on food, and five - in a stock. Honey – the main source of forces and energy for activity of bees. Some bee-keepers recommend to increase bee stocks of this product to 35 pounds. The stern is more – the wintering is better and more reliable.
2. A stock of honey it is necessary to arrange competently in a nest. Layers should not complicate movement of bees and constrain air circulation. Do not fill the middle of a nest with honey at all, and place it from above, over bees, sideways and by a back wall of a beehive. In process of eating of honey the insects will easily move in a nest on free cells. Also in a beehive there has to be a space over a framework.
3. If natural stocks of honey in a beehive are not enough, begin artificial fertilizing since August. Daily give sugar syrup in a small dose, about two hundred grams. For preparation use it kilogram of sugar on one liter of boiled water. In August, syrup will be processed by old bees who will die off with the onset of cold weather.
4. In September finally collect nests for a wintering. If there is still not enough honey, use syrup of high concentration. Three kilograms of sugar are dissolved in two liters of water. Feed up in rather large volumes. In portion there can be about four liters that cells were filled rather. If there is a lot of forage, and intake of nectar stopped, then the queen bee ceases to lay eggs. It favorably affects the subsequent wintering as young insects do not wear out on nursing of a rasplod.
5. Directly it is better not to carry out fertilizing of bees in the winter. It causes concern of insects, badly affects their safety. Addition of a forage is necessary in the winter in extreme cases when bees starve.
6. In the spring, at the end of a wintering, happens so that there is not enough honey. In that case, the family of insects needs to be fed up. For this purpose the frame to which cells warm sugar syrup with honey is added undertakes. It is also possible to give wrapped in a gauze of Kandy or flat cake of the sugar and honey test. The frame of 435 x 300 mm in size includes about two kilograms of food. For fertilizing remove empty cells from a beehive, and filled – place in a nest. Cover with an insulating pillow.