What skills should novice beekeepers learn first?

First of all, the technology of collecting bees

1. Bee-picking: Bee-picking refers to the direct collection of China bees living in the wild. One is to find the hive of wild Chinese bees and collect it with the bees in the nest. The other is to collect bees in the process of natural bee separation or migrating bees in the process of nest abandonment.

2. Bee trapping: Bee trapping refers to trapping bees in the wild. One is to find a new place to nest when trapping natural bees, and the other is to trap migratory bees that have to abandon their nests because of lack of honey sources or serious enemy damage.

Second, the bee separation technology

1. Natural bee-dividing: Natural bee-dividing is a natural behavior after the bee colony develops to a certain scale. The advantage is that it completely conforms to the habit of dividing bees, and both groups of bees can recover quickly after dividing bees, and basically will not return to bees. The disadvantage is that there are many uncertain factors in the time of natural bee sorting, and a little carelessness in managing bee colonies may lead to the escape of bee sorting.

2. Artificial bee-sorting: Artificial bee-sorting is to manually divide the bee colony into two or more groups. The advantage is that you can freely decide the time of bee distribution, and you can manually distribute bees at any time as long as the climate and bee colony conditions are met. The disadvantage is that artificial bee sorting requires beekeepers to have certain skills, and artificial bee sorting is prone to bee returning.

Third, parallel group technology.

1, principle: Although bees are typical social insects, they are relatively independent and rely on smell to identify whether they are nesting bees. Among them, when the smells are the same, bees can cooperate with each other. Once the smells are different, two bees will fight. So the basic principle of merging bees is to find ways to confuse the smell of bees.

2. Methods: There are two ways to merge bees: the direct merging method means that after spraying some white wine or honey water on two bees, the bees are directly merged into a bee colony, and the indirect merging method means that the two bees are isolated in a hive with a partition, and after the smells are mixed, the partition is removed to merge them into a bee colony.

Fourth, the introduction of king technology.

1. Principle: Bees are typical social insects, and each colony has a unique smell (bee colony smell). In fact, smell is also the most important basis for bees to identify whether they are nesting bees. Wang Jie's basic principle is to try to confuse the smell of the queen bee and the bee colony. As long as the smell is the same, the bee colony will accept the new queen bee to participate.

2. Operation: There are two main methods to introduce the Queen: direct and indirect. Online shopping queen bees generally recommend using relatively safe indirect methods. The specific operation is to put the queen bee into a king cage or a king guide, then buckle the queen bee on the honey spleen and spray some honey water to confuse the smell, and then release the queen bee after the bee colony accepts the queen bee.

V. Feeding techniques

1. Supplementary feeding: The purpose of supplementary feeding is to supplement the food necessary for the survival of bees. For example, beekeepers should make up the feed needed for the whole wintering period before wintering, and also feed the bees when the honey source is scarce and the honey stored in the hive is insufficient.

2. Reward feeding: The purpose of reward feeding is to stimulate queen bees to lay eggs and encourage worker bees to breed insects. For example, both spring breeding and autumn breeding need to be rewarded, because the breeding speed of bee colonies will be regulated by honey sources, and rewarding breeding can create the illusion of abundant food.

3. Soothing feeding: The purpose of soothing feeding is to quickly stabilize the mood of bees. For example, feeding bees in time after leaving the box can calm them down quickly, merge bees or intervene in the feeding of the new queen bee in time, which can also help bees quickly return to normal order.

Six, breeding king technology

1, emergency queen platform: emergency queen platform is the easiest way for beginners to keep bees. The specific operation is to take the queen bee out of the bee colony during the honey flow period. Generally, the queen bee colony will respond to the queen bee platform in 2 ~ 3 days. When the queen bee platform is mature, it can replace the old, weak, sick and disabled queens of other bee colonies.

2. Artificial selection: Artificial selection is the easiest way for novice beekeepers to raise queen bees. The specific operation is to leave the queen platform and drones in the colony with excellent genetic characteristics during the natural division of bees, and remove all the queen platforms and drones in other defective colonies.

3. Moving insects to raise the king: Moving insects to raise the king is the most commonly used method for novice beekeepers. The specific operation is to make a platform with beeswax, then move 1 ~ 2-day-old worker bee larvae into the platform, and finally put the artificial platform into a breeding colony to be fed by worker bees.