Rebirth in 1984, starting from beekeeping in the mountains

Chapter 18 The First Steps in Your Beekeeping Plan

Old Duck Ridge.

In the thorny moss.

Fang Hong was half-crouching on the ground, carefully removing the stones that were blocking the opening of the honeycomb, piece by piece.

This beehive is not newly dug.

It was the huge beehive that was dug up two days ago, which produced more than 20 kilograms of honey.

When harvesting honey two days ago, Fang Hongan specially left two honeycombs and then blocked the dug hole with stones.

The reason is that when we come to collect the bees today, these bees will still be in the hive.

After sweeping Mashiling, Laoyaling and Qilishan, Fang Hongan couldn't find a new target to attack in the surrounding mountains.

The accumulated honey at home had exceeded 200 kilograms. Lan Wenxiu found several old jars that had been unused for a long time and then bought them all.

If there are more, you will have to find a way to borrow a jar.

It just so happens that tomorrow is market day, and selling these honeys will be enough to alleviate the current difficulties at home.

And yesterday the old carpenter delivered another beehive.

Based on the above factors, Fang Hongan decided to officially start his own beekeeping plan.

To keep bees, you first need bees!
In later generations, there are two main ways to obtain bees.

The easiest and safest way is to go to other apiaries and buy ready-made bee colonies.

The other is to collect wild bee colonies.

For Fang Hongan, the first approach obviously does not work.

Fang Hongan chose to collect bees in the wild.

This is not a difficult task for Fang Hongan.

When digging up wild beehives these days, Fang Hongan did not cut all the honeycombs in each hive, so some were left behind.

If the honeycombs are kept in the hive, the queen bee will have nests to lay eggs and will not abandon the hive.

As long as the queen bee does not abandon the nest, the drones and worker bees will not leave either. Even if there are not enough honeycombs, they will rebuild them!
This way of reserving in advance can fully ensure that Fang Hongan has bees to collect immediately after starting the beekeeping plan.

Among all the reserved bee colonies, the strong bee colony in front of him, which produces more than 20 kilograms of honey, is Fang Hongan's first choice for bee collecting.

Beekeepers are accustomed to dividing the size of bee colonies according to their strength, which can be roughly divided into four categories: weak colonies, medium colonies, strong colonies, and super strong colonies.

The purpose of dividing the size of bee colonies is to better carry out bee breeding.

In beekeeping, there are great differences in the breeding methods adopted by strong bee colonies and weak bee colonies.

For weak bee colonies, the main goal is to cultivate and strengthen the colony rather than harvest the honey, so honey will not be harvested easily.

For strong bee colonies, the primary pursuit is to produce as much honey as possible during the nectar flow period, so as long as the honeycombs meet the conditions for honey harvesting, the honey will be harvested immediately.

Indeed, any strong bee colony grows from a weak one.

But this is Fang Hongan’s first hive of bees. There is no reason for him to leave the strong bee colony alone and collect the weak one.

A strong bee colony can not only enable the colony to adapt and recover quickly after major changes in its living environment.

It can also ensure that honey can be produced as quickly as possible during the peak honey flow period in May.

Although Fang Hongan couldn't count the number of bees in the hive, the total number of honeycombs reached 15, and half of them were over 30 centimeters long. It was certain that this must be a strong bee colony. Fang Hongan estimated that the total number of worker bees in this hive was at least over 2.

If this hive of bees is taken back, even if there will be some losses after transferring them to new hives, during the honey flow season in May, it only takes a few days for the number of worker bees to recover. At most, it will take no more than 5 days before this hive of bees can be opened for honey harvesting.

If it is a weak bee colony, it will take at least half a year from beekeeping to honey harvesting!
Of course, choosing a strong bee colony is not all about advantages. In terms of the difficulty and risk of collecting bees, strong bee colonies and weak bee colonies are completely on a different order of magnitude.

Weak bee colonies have fewer people, so it is easier to find the queen bee when collecting bees. After the queen bee is put into the bag, the pheromones secreted by the queen bee are more easily received by the entire bee colony, so collecting the bees is naturally relatively simple and safe.

A strong bee colony often has tens of thousands of bees in its hive. Finding the queen bee from among the vast number of worker bees is a task that requires considerable eyesight.

Even if the queen bee is found and successfully put into the bag, in the chaotic situation, it is difficult for the pheromones secreted by the queen bee to be received by all the bees in the hive, which can easily lead to the escape of the hive and incomplete collection of bees.

What's worse, if the queen bee is accidentally killed during the bee collecting process, the entire bee colony may even riot. In that case, the bee collector will be in danger.

It is precisely because of this that, despite having rich experience in his previous life, Fang Hongan still took the most cautious attitude towards it.

He didn't dare let Wang Tong, who had no experience, take action and just asked him to wait far away outside the thorny moss.

During the entire process, he almost held his breath and concentrated on every movement.

Even though it was the last stone, he still didn't dare to relax at all.

As the stone was steadily moved away, his eyes quickly turned inside and began to look for the queen bee.

Not surprisingly, although he had been as careful as possible, the inside of the hive was already in chaos.

The buzzing sound is like countless fighter planes roaring in the sky!
There were so many chaotic black figures that Fang Hongan couldn't even see them all.

Fang Hongan quickly turned around and lit a cigarette.

The main purpose of lighting cigarettes is to calm the bee colony temporarily without letting them be completely knocked out by the smoke, so the smoke is not as strong as when the honeycombs were cut before.

Fang Hongan slowly brought the cigarette holder closer to the hive and carefully observed the reaction of the bee colony. Seeing that the chaotic swarm of bees gradually calmed down, but did not lose its activity, he finally put his mind at ease and looked through the diffuse smoke to find the queen bee.

Many people believe that finding the queen bee in a wild hive is a eyesight job.

But in Fang Hongan's view, this is more of a technical job.

If the hive is destroyed, the bee colony will fall into chaos.

This chaos, in the eyes of many people, is a sign that the queen bee pheromone is ineffective on the bee colony.

But Fang Hongan doesn't think so at all.

He believes that the main reason for the chaos in the bee colony is actually the result of the queen bee pheromone.

In other words, even if the nest is destroyed, the driving effect of the queen bee pheromone in the core area still plays a decisive role for the bee colony.

The queen bee does this not only to deter invaders, but also to instinctively protect itself.

This rule has been established.

You can create conditions for the bee colony to guide itself to find the queen bee.

Take this nest of strong bees for example. After being fumigated, the restless swarm was forced to calm down, which means that the deterrent effect of the swarm's chaos has been completely lost. At this time, the queen bee, sensing that the danger still exists, will release pheromones to make all the worker bees gather around her, feed and protect her.

In this way, one only needs to observe the movements of the worker bee colony to locate the queen bee.

As I watched, I saw that the black swarm of worker bees in the nest had begun to move in an orderly manner, gathering towards the top of the first honeycomb.

Fang Hongan immediately looked towards where they were gathering.

In the field of vision, black swarms of bees kept crawling and piling up, dazzling, and Fang Hongan couldn't see clearly for a while.

Fang Hongan stared with his eyes wide open, not daring to blink.

Finally, after nearly three minutes, a bee with a shape that was obviously different from a worker bee appeared in Fang Hongan's sight!

(End of this chapter)