When is the best time to manually divide bees?

Bee distribution is the most important way to increase the number of bees. From the operational point of view, there are two kinds of bee distribution: natural bee distribution and artificial bee distribution. Among them, natural bees are gradually abandoned by beekeepers because of their low controllability. In fact, many large beekeeping farms use artificial bees. Let's see when artificial bees are best!

I. Natural conditions

The most important natural conditions for artificial bee sorting are temperature and honey source, in which the temperature should be suitable for the survival of bees, and the temperature difference should not be too large in recent days, otherwise the bees after bee sorting will consume a lot of resources to survive, and the honey source must be rich, which is conducive to the collection of worker bees. If the external honey source is scarce, beekeepers can make up for the shortage of honey source by artificial supplementary feeding. In case of continuous rainy weather, it is best not to manually divide bees.

Second, the status of the bee colony

Artificial bee colony requires certain conditions, among which the potential of bee colony has the greatest influence on artificial bee colony, because weak bee colony often develops slowly because of its small potential. Therefore, the colony potential of artificial bee sorting generally needs more than six frames, and it is best to have a mature queen bee platform in the colony, so that the colony can be divided into two by using the queen bee platform and the original queen bee. In the absence of queen bee platform, the bee colony should be made into queen bee platform before artificial bee distribution.

Third, the operation of separating bees

Artificial bee separation basically uses mature queen bees and original queen bees to divide the bee colony. The specific operation is that the old queen bee, the new worker bee and most of the covered spleen re-form a new bee colony, while the mature queen bee, the old worker bee and the egg spleen remain in the original bee colony. After the bee colony is divided, it is necessary to install escape prevention pieces to move the new bee colony to a place about 3 ~ 5 meters. In this way, although the old worker bees in the new colony will return to the original colony, the new worker bees who have not recognized the nesting will stay.

Fourth, bee colony management.

After artificial bee sorting, both groups of bees should strengthen management to ensure the success of bee sorting. The reason is that after artificial bee sorting, the population potential of the two groups of bees is basically only half of that of the original group. When the population potential becomes weak, various pests and diseases often take advantage of it. Once pests and diseases break out in a group, it is almost devastating. Therefore, it is necessary to take preventive measures against pests and diseases after artificial bee sorting. In addition, insisting on reward feeding every evening or night is helpful to quickly restore the group potential.

Summary: The best time for artificial bee sorting is determined by natural conditions and colony conditions, in which natural conditions mean that the climate is suitable for bees to survive and there are rich honey sources, while colony conditions mean that bees have certain colony potential and mature thrones.