Experienced beekeepers begin preparing for winter from the summer. The main focus is on strong families, which consist of young bees not exhausted by the collection of nectar. How to create a suitable environment for wintering bees in northern conditions will be described later in the article.

Wintering features for bees

Wintering is an important issue in the life of a bee family. This is especially true for the central strip and the northern regions of Russia, when insects can’t fly out of the hives for about six months and update their food supply, rebuild their nests or solve other important issues.

Did you know? In contrast to many insects, honey bees do not hibernate.

Moreover, being in minimal mobility, bees have few opportunities to maintain a microclimate in their home, which leads to the accumulation of dampness and other negative consequences. Accordingly, most insects die in the winter. Sometimes they die whole families and even apiaries.

The main task of bees in winter is to maintain a temperature of at least + 6 ° C. If this indicator drops, then this factor becomes dangerous for the family.

The next task of insects is the economical use of energy. Food for bees needs to be stretched until spring - before the start of the bribe.

The family solves such problems simply: going tightly to the club. The core of the cluster generates heat, and the dense shell does not allow it to go outside. The lower the temperature indicators outside, the more heat transfer inside increases and the more pronounced are the heat support mechanisms. That is, the denser the bees gather, the more the shell thickness increases and the core warms up more.

Preparing bees for the winter

Winter for bees is a period that is important in their life activity, because the insect productivity of the coming year depends on this phase. If the wintering was successful, then the bees quickly activate with the onset of spring, more young animals will appear.

Important! The result of an unsuccessful wintering may be the death of the uterus, the weakening of the bee family, and susceptibility to disease.

The first thing the beekeeper should take care of is the preparation of the hives. The beekeeper should in the fall, before frost, inspect the bee dwelling for the presence of queens. Spent individuals are removed from the family and young promising queens are planted there. Thanks to this action, the family will be able to safely survive the winter, because fresh and healthy insects survive much better.

Each owner must create suitable conditions for wintering:

1. Maintain temperature. To do this, use pillows with stuffing, special bedding, straw and other heaters.
2. Reduce the number of nests. Free frames are removed from the house, and the full ones are moved to the head plate. After such manipulation, the bees will be able to get food directly from the nest. About 7 structures should remain in the house, and in the center 2-3 slats of such a format that will be appropriate to ensure the Queen's egg production are equipped.
3. Stock up on fertilizing for the winter. After collecting the nectar, the frames from the nest should be checked for the presence of a paddy. If there is one, the framework is freed, and the bees will have to be fed with sweet syrup.
4. Insulate the house. This can be done by narrowing the gutters. At the same time, the doors to the hive should also become smaller. The winter club should have a way out through which the bees could calmly fly in and out.

Important! Working individuals tolerate winter worse than the rest of the inhabitants. And the bees that were born during the main honey collection are the most productive and hardy - their adipose tissue allows you to easily tolerate wintering.

How to make top dressing for wintering bees?

After the dwelling is prepared, they begin to organize feeding. Usually, additional food is required for those families in which there is not enough honey in the center of the nest. On average, one family will additionally need 2–4 kg of sugar syrup.

One family of medium power consumes about 15 kg of honey per winter. And most of all it is spent precisely in the frosty period and at the beginning of spring, when all the family’s forces are devoted to raising offspring, and there is no production yet.

Experienced beekeepers know that, leaving a limited amount of food, in the spring you can get a weak family, not ready for honey collection. The Queen in the spring will lay (sow) eggs only on condition that there is at least 10 kg of fertilizer in stock, therefore it is recommended to leave about 25 kg of honey in the hive. In addition, it is desirable to have about 10 kg of emergency stock.

From time to time they listen to the house. If the buzzing is uneven and a strong hum is heard, then the bees need additional feeding.

Important! In sunny weather, the hives are not checked so as not to cause insect activity.

In northern conditions, honey collected from such plants is used to create a winter food base:

• white clover;
• angelica Siberian and forest;
• acacia;
• raspberry;
• fireweed;
• clover.

But the product of colza, mustard, willow shrubs or rapeseed for the winter is not stocked.

Wintering of bees in Siberia

This region increases the requirements for the microclimate and nutrition of bees in the winter, so the question of preparing insects for winter is especially acute, because frosts come here already in October - November.

Video: Wintering of bees in Siberia

Wintering of bees in the wild under the snow

Admirers of this method are constantly improving the housing of bees so that the processes that take place in it in winter are similar to the microclimate in a hollow.

For the construction of the winter road, the hive on both sides is closed with planks. The void formed between them is filled with tow, moss or fire. It’s nice to use polystyrene, but not cotton pads.

From above the nests are covered with a canvas not covered with bee glue, and insulated. Moss is a good insulation - it is a universal absorber of dampness. Moss can be replaced with reed bedding or cattail pillows. They fit in a device for fixing the ceiling or free shops. Thus, these pillows should be of a certain size, which allows you to cover all the free space above the house or fit against the insertion board.

Important! Only physiologically strong individuals survive wintering under the snow in the presence of adequate food and porous upper reinforcement.

Snow is a wonderful insulation under which bees carry winters even on Magadan. They enclose the houses so that the snow does not touch the walls. And for the houses themselves, you should choose a place that is practically not blown.

The disadvantages of this wintering include the presence of thaws with precipitation at the beginning of the season or snowless winters - during this period the hives freeze.

The advantages of the described method include the ability to maximize the use of warm days for flight, and this gives a swarm growth before honey collection.

Wintering in casings in Siberia

Many beekeepers use special covers when wintering on the street - they place hives in them. This method allows you to extend the period of family activity: they perform later departures in the fall and earlier in the spring. In such coatings, insects are hidden from gusts of wind and cold, which brings shelter closer to the winter hut.

Covers come in different sizes - on 2, 3, 4 and 6 hives. A quadruple shelter will require approximately 0.15–0.17 m³ of timber.

The casing is formed from shields of wooden planks or slabs. The thickness of the shields should be 1-1.5 cm. You can use local raw materials: branches, straw, reeds, sedge.

Did you know? A single bee is not able to tolerate cold: it requires hundreds, or even thousands of individuals.

The parameters of the shields directly depend on the design of the bee dwelling. For single-wall dwellings with 12 frames, a four-seater shelter is assembled from 6 fences: two of them 150 × 75 cm in size will go to the bottom, and 4 - to the side walls.

The bottom of the cover is placed on logs or stakes at a height of 5-10 cm from the surface so that the planks do not rot, and the damp does not get inside.

Inside, on the bottom of the casing, lay a heater with a layer of 20–25 cm. Then the hives are placed in summers in different directions. At the same time, they arrange corridors along which the bees can calmly leave the house and perform cleansing overflights. The corridors are made of veneer or thin boards with a gap of 10-15 cm and a height of 2-7 cm. The latches are protected by inclined slats.

The side walls with each other and with the floor are fastened with hooks, and the remaining space is filled with insulation (foliage, straw, moss, etc.). The density of the material depends on climatic conditions and is approximately 15–20 cm.

From above, the hive is covered with insulation to the edges of the side walls. Further, a lid is placed on the casing, which protects the houses from atmospheric precipitation and is firmly attached to the side shields. The roof is covered with roofing material.

A bee swarm is prepared as usual for wintering under such conditions. The hive is placed in a shelter immediately after the autumn assembly of nests and placed in groups in an apiary.

Did you know? High-quality food is collected in the first half of the honey collection: such honey practically does not contain a paddy.

At the onset of cold weather, casings are thrown with snow (0.5–1 m) to maintain temperature. With the onset of spring and with the establishment of heat, the casings are unloaded, cleaned the doors and released the bees to freedom. Shield shields can be used many times. In the summer they are cleaned at the warehouse.

Features of the "Norwegian" wintering

This method is common in the Scandinavian countries, hence its name.

The “Norwegian” wintering method is to use pure honeycombs when the swarm sweeps away to wax on September 15th. After moving the insects, enhanced feeding is provided so that they build honeycombs faster.

Putting in a clean honeycomb has a huge advantage, because they do not contain nozema spores and stocks of bee bread. Accordingly, the bees actively, without being distracted, build a honeycomb, and the beekeeper decides for himself when it is better for the family to start raising the brood.

Organization of wintering of bees is the main point in beekeeping. The vitality of the family and the productivity of winged toilers for the next season depend on how well equipped the place for the winter period will be equipped.