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Beekeepers who have just started working in the apiary are interested in what bees eat at different times of the year and day. It is important to know this, since these insects are the suppliers of a useful and beloved product – honey.
What do bees love?
The diet of buzzing insects is quite diverse. They can eat pollen, nectar, perga and their own honey. The main food base of insects from spring to autumn is melliferous plants.
Bees collect pollen and nectar:
- from acacia, linden, buckwheat, alder and hazel;
- from apple trees, pears, cherries, bird cherry and other flowering trees and shrubs;
- from sunflower, dandelions, clover, lupine, rapeseed.
Many crops are planted specifically next to the apiary, taking into account the timing of flowering.
After collecting the pollen, the bee wets it with its own saliva. Then, having arrived in the hive, she deposits the collected product in a certain cell of the combs. The process of fermentation begins in it, as a result of which bee bread is formed, consisting mainly of proteins.
Do bees eat their honey
The question of whether the bee family feeds on its own product can be answered unequivocally – yes. To overcome the vast distances that worker bees travel in search of honey plants, they need enhanced nutrition. That is why insects eat for several days at once. Hungry bees simply die during the flight.
What serves as protein food for the bee colony
Thanks to protein food, the bees develop successfully, due to this, a successful brood is obtained in the spring. Protein is found in bee bread, pollen and substitutes that feed the bee family in late autumn and winter.
But sometimes there is not enough perga until the end of wintering, which means that protein starvation may occur. To compensate for the lack of this substance, insects are given cow’s milk. The protein of this natural product is easily digested by bees.
In early spring, when there are no flowering plants yet, worker bees feed the larvae with perga. If this substance is not enough, the development of the bee family stops, the queen does not lay eggs.
Before transferring hives to winter maintenance, beekeepers must leave a frame with bee bread. If this food is not enough for the bees, protein substitutes have to be used. This is especially important when there are still few flowering plants and the weather is rainy.
There are many options for preparing protein substitutes for feeding bees, each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Honey, water, pollen
It is best to use natural substitutes, which include:
- honey;
- water;
- last year’s pollen.
The composition of the substitute is as follows:
- Mix 200 g of bee product, 1 kg of dry pollen, 150 ml of water.
- This mixture is laid out on a frame and covered with canvas.
- From time to time the amount of food is replenished.
Powdered milk
If there is no bee bread, then the substitute is prepared from milk powder. Although the quality of this composition is not as effective as perga, it can be used so that the bee colony does not die from protein starvation. Prepare top dressing from:
- 800 ml of water;
- 1 kg of granulated sugar;
- 200 g milk powder.
Cooking food for buzzing insects is easy:
- Boil water, add granulated sugar, stir until it is completely dissolved.
- Introduce dry milk, stir so that there are no lumps.
What do bees eat in winter
The main food of bees in winter is honey. In the fall, be sure to leave sealed frames in the hive. This honey, suitable for winter nutrition, should be dark. One frame must contain at least 2,5 kg of a quality product.
In addition to honey, bees need water. But in winter, you can’t put drinkers, insects will use the condensate that settles on the walls of the hive. For the winter, in no case is it recommended to close the entrance tightly. In case of lack of moisture, the worker bees will get it outside the house.
If the summer was dry and the autumn was rainy, then the insects do not have time to prepare enough food for the winter or it will turn out to be of poor quality (quickly crystallizes).
In such a situation, you need to think about the timely feeding of the bee colony. Food in this case can serve:
- old honey;
- sugar syrup;
- sweet fudge;
- other nutritional supplements.
Syrup is given as food for a week, for each hive – up to 1,5 tbsp. every evening.
What does a bee eat
All her life, the queen bee feeds on royal jelly, and uses honey and pollen very rarely. Milk contains all the necessary nutrients to maintain tone and fertilization. Other food will not allow the uterus to lay the right number of eggs.
What do bees feed their babies?
Worm-larvae, just emerging from eggs, are very small, but voracious. In the first 6 days of life, one individual is able to eat 200 mg of food. The diet of the larvae depends on the status.
Future drones and worker bees feed on bee milk for only a few days. In the future, their food will be honey, water and bee bread. Little bees are looked after by “nannies”. They fly up to 1300 times a day to each larva. The larva itself increases in size by 10000 times. On the 6th day, the cells are clogged with wax and pollen, where the future bee will grow until February.
What happens when bees don’t have enough food and water
If there is enough food and water in the hive, then the bees behave calmly. It is easy to check this: just hit the house, and then attach your ear to it. If the bees are silent, then everything is in order with them.
With unfriendly noise, as well as with sounds resembling a groan, it can be determined that there is no uterus in the family. In such a hive, death of bees is possible, only a few will remain in it until spring.
A strong bee noise is a signal to feed. In order not to miss the right moment, the hives after the New Year must be checked 2-3 times a month. By this time, brood begins in the hives, the temperature inside the house rises to +34 degrees.
In addition to the generally accepted dressings, you can make a cake from powdered sugar and pollen. They love sweet dough in bee families. To do this, take honey (1 kg), heat it in a water bath to 40-45 degrees and mix with powdered sugar (4 kg). This food is very popular with bees. But before laying out in hives, the dough is mixed with water: 5 liters of liquid are added per 5 kg.
Food is laid out in bags, small punctures are made in them and removed to the upper part of the hive.
What do beekeepers do
Bees need food and water in any season. In spring, summer and autumn, drinking bowls are made in each apiary, into which clean water is poured. Otherwise, the insects will start drinking from questionable puddles and may bring disease into the hive. Or they will start looking for moisture far from the hives, at a time when you need to fly for nectar and pollen.
As a rule, drinkers are equipped with fresh and salt water (1 g of salt is required for 1 liter of water). Insects themselves will figure out which drinker to fly up to.
The number of drinkers will depend on the hives installed so that the bees can get drunk at any time. Water should be changed regularly, thoroughly washed before changing the container.
Food for bees must be organized not only in winter and autumn, but also at any time. In autumn, winter and early spring, until there are flowering plants and the family is weakened after wintering.
The prepared mixtures are poured into the feeders. Food is given to insects in the evening. It is necessary to feed the inhabitants of the hives in the summer when, due to the intense heat, there are not enough flowering plants.
The main food of bees is natural honey, since it contains enough vitamins and nutrients, micro- and macroelements necessary for the life of bees and the production of young brood.
In winter, you need to monitor the condition of the bees, feed them so that by spring the family remains strong and efficient. Check frames with honey. If it crystallizes, it must be urgently changed. If there is old honey, then it is melted or various top dressings are prepared on its basis.
Conclusion
You need to find out what the bees eat at different times of the year, if there is a desire to start an apiary. Only with the proper organization of the life of beneficial insects can one hope to receive a good bribe. Natural honey is a healthy and tasty product that is in demand.
Recipe for sweet fudge for feeding bees in winter:
