The high volume of the horizontal hive and the use of advantageous constructive solutions allow the application of the numerous maintenance procedures of the bee families, which contributes to obtaining high honey production.
The maintenance in beehives of bee families with a single hive consists of the development of bee families in this hive system and is carried out on a horizontal line (from one edge of the hive to another), by adding honeycombs as the power of the bee families increases. bees and intensification of harvest.
In the spring, the family nest is organized as follows: to each sidewall of the hive, a honeycomb and a honeycomb with grass are left, and the honeycomb with brood is placed in the middle. As the number of bees in the families increases and the time gets warmer, the nests expand by introducing honeycombs built between the honeycombs and the one with the brood.
The enlargement of the nests is continued according to the development of the families, introducing beech trees for the growth of young in the middle of the nest.
What you need to know about Beekeeping
Before the beginning of the main harvest, the nests of the families of strong bees are filled with bare honeycombs and artificial honeycombs, and in the nest of the less developed families, depending on their power, honeycombs necessary for the growth of the brood and the storage of nectar are introduced.
After preparing the nest, in the families of strong bees, in order to facilitate the circulation of the bees during the big harvest, the second-order with which the horizontal hive is provided is opened.
Maintaining Bee Families in Horizontal Hives
As the honeycombs in the hive are filled with honey, they move to the side of the hive (opposite the nest), and in their place, empty honeycombs and artificial honeycombs are introduced.
At very strong bee families, in the case of high-intensity harvesting, to increase the space needed for the storage of nectar, special shops made for the size of the horizontal hive, equipped with 18-20 honeycombs can be used.
In order to keep the bee families inactive state, from the families that tend to enter the beehives of the brook, beech trees with ready-hatching capacity are raised and young bees are used to strengthen the weak families or to form new families.
When the summer harvest is nearing the end, the food reserves needed for wintering are stopped in the nest and the honey that is harvested is extracted, and the family nests are reduced to the number of bees occupied by the bees.
In the latter part of the season, honeycombs not covered by bees are removed from the hives, and the nest of families is packed with insulating materials.
In order to evacuate the water vapor from the hive during the winter, the floor scales on the edge of the nest are left out. The families thus prepared winter outside in the open air.
Individual and Bee Families
From basic knowledge of general order, it’s known that neither feeding, digestion, or excretion is unrelated to the life of the group. They perform as mechanical acts and processes of cellular physiology of the individual.
But this undeniable truth, the life of the honey bee is much shorter when, or, she has to live in isolation.
Hemolymph is the primary means of transport of metabolism – essential for knowledge-based on social circulation.
Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash
Hive Consciousness
It transports a large part of the substances with the role of regulating what, but very close in meaning, designated as “hive consciousness”. One of the most impressive behaviors of the bee family, the replacement of the bee, its loss of invalidation. The intervention of these secretions explains it. After 30 minutes after the disappearance of the hive from the hive, the workers become restless.
After almost 24 hours, they already transform some hexagonal cells, which are: Eggs or larvae linear cells cylindrical vertical. Thus, we are witnessing one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the family.
The differentiation of the female castes, producing as its starting point the organism – the bipotential genetics of the developing larvae.
The leading factor of differentiation emanates from the match, content in the match substance, elaborated and released by its mandibular glands as long as the workers perceive the material.
Their behavior is standard, and from all the larvae, the cared woman hatches workers. When the quantity of pheromone decreases without interrupting the care of young babies.
Bee Larvae Stages
The instinct of building the logs or the size, shape, and orientation of the cells inspire changes in the specific feeding behavior.
Here’s how: the larva in the worker cell receives, currently, three qualities of food – one white milk, one transparent and another yellow, in the proportion of 2: 9: 3. The white one is a mixture of hypopharyngeal secretion and content.
Goose and the yellow one contain pollen (the latter component appears after the larva exceeds the age of 2 1/2 days.).
Stages of Bee Development
In the first three days, the nymph receives nothing but white food, afterward a combination of white and transparent components in a 1: 1 proportion (this is the milkweed.).
As follows, it receives more mandibular food than worker larvae. From the handling of the larval food component, the donuts continue to offer the corresponding one for the larvae of workers or change the ones of the booty. They are thus orienting the evolution of the occupants towards the destination.
How does honey bee larvae look like?
Success is conditioned by a fundamental element – the age of the larva, the largest of three days. Once overcome, the female larva’s body is no longer bipotential; there are already irreversible changes, including a drastic reduction in the number of future ovarioles. (this detail is particularly crucial for present or future matrix breeders.).
Photo by Bianca Ackermann on Unsplash
In the first three days, the appearance and weight of the larvae of the two castes evolve, but after this age, not only the quality of the food offered/consumed differs but also the quantity. Visited ten times more than larvae of workers, worms of the goat eat more.
The milkweed has a higher concentration of sugar, and it has a phagostimulant role. The quality of the food, it’s level in sugar, perceived by the larvae with the help of the organs of feeling found on the mouthparts, and finally, the pupae in the boot reach twice as heavy as those of workers.
Honey Bee Larvae Stages
The rate of food consumption, in turn, regulates the activity of the allied body and the release of them by the youth hormone. In large quantities, this leads to the differentiation of the working caste.
The same hormone triggers ovarian growth in the adult workers left without a mask (the egg workers in the Nemzeti family) – this only 24 hours after the disappearance of the mate, and in the absence of eggs or larvae of most three days. The lack of incapacitated brood also induces ovarian development in workers.
Since the beginning of the embryonic development, there are already printed, complicated programs – they only have to trigger by one or more external factors among them.
At the realization of the remove “consciousness” of the hive, the sense of smell also competed – in recognition of bees in a colony and the hive’s mat.
The bees do not distinguish only between bees in the hive and strangers, but even between their sisters (daughters of the same mate) and other bees in the colony.
Moreover, they distinguish the good sisters from the daughter-in-law of the same mate as them, but with a different father.
During the spawning, the beehive workers separated by genotype: with the offspring of a satisfied paternal family. Good sister workers leave her, in the hive, semi-sister workers of her but good sisters with another mother, his sister but from another paternal offspring.
The genetic structure of the family itself is a factor that intervenes in the mechanism of recognition.
Many mating matrices and the implicit sperm mix lead to the coexistence of several families. As a result, the genetic composition of the working population changes during the life of the family, while the identity of the worker changes when the redness or quiet change occurs. Under this changing genetic structure, the mask is more recognized than the workers, because its identity is more constant.
Odors from the environment provide an efficient way of maintaining the same indicator useful in distinguishing workers. Genetic signs held by workers offer essential information, helpful in identifying the mother and the larvae.
The beekeeper intervenes in the family with works that affect bee recognition systems.
When replacing the mat, for example, in a short period, the workers must assimilate new features for the recognition of the mother. They must learn the identity of an unrelated mate and their previous mate.
In the hive, there are also a series of substances whose presence and the effect was until recently ignored or only suspected. Materials like those mentioned, which have not been identified, isolated, emanating from bees, and to which the bees react. The chemical reactions that take place to regulate certain behaviors that as a whole, make up the extraordinary social life of the bee.
Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash
Some are “Interaction” or “Familiarization” Substances (called generic images).
Like the known hormones and pheromones known, all contribute to ensuring the cohesion of the family or mark the objects that belong to it:
1. Either one of them, very persistent, affects even for the bodies of bees, which remains an attractive time for their companions.
2. Another mark space (bark, hive, cage) in which a few bees spent a time of familiarization speeding up their learning by the family. It seems that at least, this hair is confused with propolis.
3. Any beekeeper can prove the existence of another one on the occasion of the breeding of mates – artificial logs introduced into the growing family, with the young larvae already traded in them, accepted with more or less reserve depending on the family size. Still, if the stumps kept empty, before, in the hive, the percentage of acceptances is much higher. The repeated finding in the practice of truth has led the generalization of the start of growths of the match with the introduction of hollow stumps 24 hours in the hive. It is unnecessary the contact of bees with these flocks, but only their presence around them;
4. The beekeeper, with some experience and with a spirit of observation, finds that the feeder already used preferred to a new one, but not used in another family. If we rotate with 180 ‘the hive around its axis the collecting bees land on return to the old place of the ordinary and then, on foot, to the new one. After 10-15 minutes, the landings take place on the flight board in its original position. Bees draw the road with a hedgehog.
Understanding the Normal Behaviors in The Hive
Photo by Bianca Ackermann on Unsplash
Besides the spinach, among substances are the family of repulsions, or inhibiting, of alarm substances, of picking materials and attractants.
A repulsion has already been mentioned in the example with the feeder.
From this example, it should keep in mind that the same substance, as in the case of socio-hormones has a double capacity of familiarization, in one family and rejection, in another.
It is the other reason why before we intervene in family life, we should seek a deep understanding of all the “normal” behaviors in the hive.
Each reaction has an explanation, which may, for the moment, escape the beekeeper, but with patience, the spirit of observation and study, it can decipher.
Natural Beehive Structure
Of the family alarm substances grouped as such based on the common property of causing violent agitation followed by the aggression rule, the beekeeper comes in contact with the venom and with the mandibular gland secretion (2-heptanone).
Have you ever noticed that after a bee has stung you, many more immediately and it stings in the same skin area? The phenomenon is emanation the alarm substance flow needle stuck in the skin, thrown around agitated bees.
The mandibular glands of the handcuffs or crowded by the workers between whom it introduced release a secretion that reached on the skin of the workers around it, induces, to the other workers, an aggressive attitude.
It is another example of the many capacities of a pheromone: on the one hand, attractive for bees in the suite, on the other pheromone of stress and alarm.
Elections or picking substances are a category of pheromones of unknown nature, which have the role of throughout the flowering of the flower-bee bond.
They may also relate to recognition indicators.
Beekeeping Tools and Equipment
The beekeeping inventory represents all the tools needed to carry out specific beekeeping works.
They consist of shelters for bee families, equipment for beekeeping projection, tools for beehive works, frame framing, and fixing.
The beekeeping inventory includes all the tools and objects that belong to the entire beekeeping operation:
- Shelters for bee families
- The bees build their shelter in tree trunks, rock cracks, and in different places away from the weather.
- The man, bringing the bees around his home, sought to provide them with a shelter more like the natural one.
Types of Natural Beehives
As in the natural shelters and the first beehives, the bees built by the bees pruned and did not allow human intervention; the ingenuity of the beekeepers led to the construction of the hives with movable frames.
The stupor of today is the result of the synthesis and observations made over the years of entire generations of beekeepers.
Pros and Cons of Horizontal Hives
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
The constructive solutions adapted for the realization of different types of hives are many, but could have two distinct orientations:
- colonies in which the development of the family of bees and nest made on the plan
Thus bearing the name of vertical hives;
- hives in which the development of the family and nest is made on the horizontal, thus falling into the category of horizontal hives.
Regardless of the type of hive — vertical or horizontal — it must provide the following conditions:
- to prevent the bees and nest of families from rain, moisture, wind and
scorching heat; - to be roomy, thus ensuring the space needed for front development
As well as for storing food reserves;
- allow to increase or decrease the volume of the hive about.
Family development and harvest evolution;
- to be easy to manipulate without hindering the activity of the family
bees; - the parts have the same size to use.
From One Hive to Another
- adapted for the movement of bee families to different crops.
- allow the application of advanced methods of growth and maintenance
- be resistant.
Types of Natural Beehive Structure & Parts of a Beehive
Researches Carried out in our Country Found the Fact That Modern Beekeeping Requires a Reduced Number of Hives.
And the replacement of the elements of beehives, the same as the other related apicultural machines, went to typing the colonies and the main tools used in beekeeping.
It is part of the high capacity vertical hinges category. The volume of the hive can increase at any time, as needed, by the overlap of new bodies. At the same time, the colony adapted to the use of the latest methods of raising and exploiting bee families.
The Layens Hive Plans Metric
Credit to horizontalhive.com
The Layens process of maintaining bees in horizontal hives is based on the maximum reduction of the volume of works during the season.
Thus, from the beginning of spring, the bee family’s nest is organized in one of the two hives of the hive as follows: at the wall of the hive are placed two honeycombs, of which one with honey and one with honey and grass, then honeycombs containing brood.
Of all ages, 2-3 honeycombs bare buildings, honeycombs, and the space left free in beehives are filled with new honeycombs.
The families of bees having nests organized in this way are no longer controlled until the end of the harvest when honeycombs are removed, and the nest is organized in one of the orderlies and narrows to the number of honeycombs occupied by the bees.
In order to multiply the families to which this procedure is applied, they are divided into two by a sealed diaphragm, and the remaining orphaned division grows its mask from lifeboats.
Applying the procedure creates the possibility of increasing the number of bee families that can be maintained by a beekeeper.
Building a Layens Hive
The ” in the nest ” process of maintaining bee families in horizontal bee hives bears this name because, by organizing families for harvest, the behavior for storing nectar corresponds to the nest from which the hive was removed and transferred to the opposite side of the hive.
In the bee families to which the procedure is applied, the maintenance of the bee families is common practice.
14 days before the beginning of the harvest, the stall is searched and together with 4-6 honeycombs, of which 2 honeycombs with eggs and non-disabled brood are transferred to the opposite side of the hive and isolated from the rest of the family by a tight diaphragm provided on the entire surface with a separating grace.
These honeycombs sit on a warm bed compared to the rest of the hive frames that remain in a cold bed.
Honeycombs with saplings after the diaphragm are organized in such a way that the young saplings are next to the diaphragm with a graceful partition, followed by the elder saplings and the empty combs for storing nectar.
By restricting the eggs of the quails during the harvest, most of the young bees in the hive turn into collecting bees participating in the valorization of the nectar.
At the same time, the activity of the beehive in the hive ensures the maintenance of the power of bee families for the following harvest.
Basic Components of a 10 Frame Langstroth Beehive Box
The hive consists of three bodies with identical overlapping dimensions, each body having ten frames. The parts of the hive are the bottom of the colony, three bodies, the nourishing frame with the internal feeder, the ventilation frame.
Illustration: Iris Kormann, © Oregon State University
Figure 1. Common configurations for the brood chamber of a colony.
They also have the dividing platform, the actual platform, the telescopic cover, the fixing, and locking mechanisms.
The outer dimensions of the bodies are 490 x 420 x 245 mm and the inner dimensions of 450 x 380 x 245 mm, having a useful volume of 0.126 NV or 126 liters.
The thickness of all the walls is 20 mm. As the front and back walls of the bodies are provided in the upper part of the interior with a height of 17 mm high and 10 mm deep to support the hangers of the frames.
Credit www.dave-cushman.net
The side walls pierced along the entire height by a 10 mm diameter hole through which the body is fastening rod slides during transport.
On the outside, front and back, there are two hollows in the shape of a shell with a depth of 10 mm that serve as handles.
Different Parts of a Beehive
The bodies, as well as all the parts (bottom, lid, platform), are not missing. By placing the first body on the bottom of the hive, the warbler formed, which has a length of 380 mm and a height of 20 mm. The warp was provided with a reducer block with two openings – one larger than 158 x 9 mm and the second smaller than 50 x 9 mm.
The frames, each 10 of each body, are identical, having the outer dimensions of 435 x 230 mm and the inner light of 415 x 202 mm.
The platform itself is made up of an outer frame with a width of 30 mm and a thickness of 15 mm. Inside the platform of the platform formed by the boards of 10 mm thick and fixed in the void.
The platform, on one side, has a flat surface, and on the other, has a shelter (space) of 5 mm being thus reversible, as needed. On the highest part of the platform, on one of its short sides, provided a 50 x 5mm groove, thus ensuring, during winter, proper ventilation of the nest. The dividing platform, resembles the hive itself, in that the frame surrounding the platform is 30 x 30 mm with grooves on both sides and three sides of the frame.
The height of the steps is 5 mm. The outer part is 50 mm, and the inner part is 40 mm.
Beehive Frame Dimensions Plans
The feeder consists of a wooden frame and a metal tray, provided inside with a wooden floating barbecue. On the inner walls of the feeder frame, in two grooves, two wooden strips of 15 x 400 x 300 mm fixed, which have the role of supporting the metal tray of the feeder.
The dimensions of the tray are 384 x 375 x 45 mm; this is made of the galvanized sheet. The feeder has a capacity of about 6 liters.
The ventilation frame is made up of a frame with a height of 20 mm weights that fix the wire mesh with 2-2.5 mm mesh. The ventilation frame is attached to the sides of two wooden bars 550 x 50 x 30 mm. The hive lid supported on these bars.
The lid is telescopic with a flat top surface. The side frame of the arch cover is 20 mm thick and 91 mm high. The outer dimensions of the lid are 534 x 463 mm, and the height is 101 mm.
For fixing the parts of the hive, for transport, it provided with two steel rods with a diameter of 6-8 mm and a length of 991 mm. The upper part of the rod threaded on a range of 70 mm and provided with a nut, type butterfly, which can screw. The lower part of the rod arises a hole with a diameter of 3.3 mm for the insertion of a fastening pin.
The vertical hull with body and warehouse is a large capacity hive; the volume can increase by adding or removing shops. The thickness of all the walls of the colony and the store is 20 mm.
keeping Bees In Horizontal Hives
A horizontal hive is the only type of colony used in our country that belongs to the category of horizontal hives. The development of the bee family’s nest at this hive is done from the ground, as opposed to vertical colonies where the nest’s event takes place.
The body has a parallelepipedal shape, the walls being 24 mm thick. The external dimensions of the body are 516x828x400 mm and the internal dimensions of 450 x 780 x 380 mm, having a useful volume of 0.116 m3 or 116 liters. The front wall has, in its lower part, two 20 mm high ceilings, one with a length of 300 mm. and the other 150 mm.
The bottom of the hive fixed reinforced on the back with two crossbars with a section of 50 x 30 mm and a length of 516 mm. The lid is foldable, covering the upper edge of the body by 20 mm resting on the arm of the body.
Beginner Beekeeping Hive Parts
The upper part of the lid is flat, and the two lateral parts have two longitudinal openings, 380 mm long and 30 mm high, with the role of providing ventilation. Inside the lid, on its side parts, there is a wire mesh placed fixed with a sleeve, thus ensuring ventilation during transport. The body sets the top with the help of two hinges.
The outer dimensions of the lid are 917 x 605 x 110 mm.
Besides the frames, the horizontal hive was provided with two diaphragms and six pods.
The frames, in some, have the external dimensions of 435 x 300m and the hidden ones of 415 x 270 mm.
The diaphragms, in number two, one sealed on all sides, forming the separator diaphragm, and the second shorter one at the bottom with 20 mm allowing bees access from one side to the other.
The floorboards have the following dimensions: 484 x 130 x 10 mm. The space formed among the platform, and hive lid used for the shelter of bees in time of transport and the introduction of the cushions necessary to protect the heat of the nest in time of winter.
For transport, the frames become fixed with the help of their fixing device, which is made up of a fastening bar with a section of 50 x 40 mm and a length of 778 mm and two rods with a part of 10 x 10 mm.
What to do with the harvest?
The harvested nectar is stored in the empty honeycombs in the compartment and in the honeycomb from which the brood has clogged. After the cessation of the big harvest, the diaphragm provided with a separate partition rises, and the mask is placed together with the honeycombs with brood, between the honeycombs extracted from the compartment.
In families where the procedure is to be used, measures are taken so that they are grouped pairs (two) at a distance of no more than 1m from each other.
As the families are weak, the care work in the spring season aims to create the necessary conditions for their development. With the beginning of the harvest, when the flight of bees is very intense, one of the families changes to a new place in the bee’s garden as far as the place he occupied.
The remaining family moves 50 cm to the place the previously moved family had. Through this operation, the collecting bees from the family that was moved, on the return from the harvest, denying the hive from which they left, populate the weak family located nearby.
The procedure is not recommended to be applied for the recovery of late harvest from July to August because after their termination the balancing and strengthening of families for wintering are done with difficulty.
Beehive Structure Architecture
Mattchobbs / CC0
Images for beehive inspired architecture
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeping
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_de_Layens
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