Since ancient times, people have bred honey bees to obtain healthy and natural products. Somewhat later, people realized that with pollination of bees, plants grow better and faster. In order to feed the whole family, the toilers work all day, eventually dying themselves on the fly. You can collect a lot of honey from such bees.
Description and structure of honey bees
The body of the honey bee has three parts:
- head;
- chest;
- abdomen.
The bee has 2 complex eyes and 3 simple ones. The first are on the sides of the head, and the second on the crown of the head. In the head there is a tentorium (inner skeleton), muscles attached to it are responsible for turning the head, proboscis and jaw. Each antennae has a segment and one flagellum, consisting of 12 small segments at the drone, and females have 11. The abdomen of a female bee is divided into 6 segments, and for a male, it is divided into 7 segments.
An exoskeleton called a cuticle is considered to be a support. On the inner side of the insect are hairs that serve as protection against pollution, and also perform tactile functions. All three parts of the body are interconnected by elastic membranes.
The work of the body and individual organs
Bees, like other insects, animals and humans, have sense organs and other organs. But with insects, they work completely differently.
Digestive system
There are three sections of the bee's digestive system. The first department is called anterior gut. It includes the mouth organs, pharynx, esophagus, honey goiter and muscle stomach. The digestive tract begins with the bee's mouth. Further, the oral opening is connected to the pharynx, which passes into the narrow esophagus. In the throat there are special muscles that, contracting, push food into the esophagus. In turn, the esophagus also has muscles that in the same way advance the food eaten further into the honey goiter. The latter has the appearance of a pouch and serves as a kind of warehouse for nectar. Honey goiter can stretch as it is filled with food.
In the uterus and the drone, honey goiter is underdeveloped, since they do not need to participate in honey collection and bring nectar to the hive.
Behind the honey goiter is the muscular stomach (it is the intermediate intestine). This organ is like a valve of honey goiter. It has the shape of a funnel, the wide edge of which is included in the goiter, and the narrow - in the middle intestine. Thus, food moves forward only when the honey goiter is full.
The second section of the bee’s digestive system is called middle intestine. This is the main section of the bee's intestines, in which food is digested and absorbed. Water, carbon dioxide, uric acid and urate are also formed here. The first two elements are removed from the body through the respiratory system, and the last two enter the hind gut and are excreted.
The third division is called hind gut. It consists of a small and rectum, which ends in the anus. The small intestine also has muscles that push the remnants of food into the rectum. In the latter, excrement is finally formed and brought out.
During wintering, excrement accumulates in the rectum, which causes the bee’s abdomen to increase. Bees are emptied only during the spring honey harvest.
Respiratory system
The respiratory system of a bee consists of a large number of tracheas that run along the entire body. The bee has special openings — breathing holes, 3 pairs of which are located on the chest, and 7 pairs - on the abdomen. Initially, air enters through the spiracle into the respiratory chamber, which is covered with hairs to trap small particles of dust. Further air enters the air bags. After which it passes through small tracheas into various organs of the bee.
Bees can hold their breath for a long time when they are in an environment with toxic air.
Organs of movement
The organs of motion include legs and wings. The honey bee has three pairs of legs. They are needed not only for movement, but also for maintaining balance when walking, as well as for collecting nectar and cleaning the antennae.
Bees can walk on a smooth and rough surface due to the structure of the legs. There are claws on the paws, which make it possible to cling well to a rough surface, and between the claws there is a pillow that serves as a suction cup and thereby helps the bee to also hold tenaciously on a slippery smooth surface.
As for the wings, their rudiments form in the pupa. Wings are fully developed only in adults. There are veins on the wings, which are a kind of wing frame and help in overcoming air resistance during flight. The main role in flight is played by indirect muscles, which are located in the sternum of the bee. They also set wings in motion.
Sensory organs
Honey bees have well-developed sensory organs. Thanks to them, the insect is able to survive and adapt to the environment.
Vision
Large complex eyes have many small eyes:
- their uterus is from 3000 to 4000;
- at a working bee from 4000 to 5000;
- the drone has from 8,000 to 10,000.
With the help of three simple small eyes, insects are able to see the direction of the sun when it is not visible at all. Bees are able to see yellow, blue and ultrasound rays, and they do not see red color at all.
Sense of smell
The antennae have a sense of smell. The hairs with which the bee’s body is covered play a major role in touch. This feeling allows bees to navigate in the nest at night. Drones have 7 times more pores than working bees.
Taste
Taste is in the honey proboscis, in the throat, on the antennae and on the legs.
Hearing
Hearing organs are located on organs that are not located in some parts of the body, as well as on the legs.
The antennae also have organs that absorb moisture, cold and vice versa heat. These organs are able to control the climate of their nests and the level of carbon dioxide.
Poison glands
Poisonous glands are located on the abdomen, consisting of two glands: a reservoir for poison and 2 mm sting. It has notches on it, due to which the sting gets stuck in the skin, with a “bite”, this is the cause of the bee's death when the stinging device is lost.
The taste of the poison is bitter and sour, the color is absent. In the open air it freezes and turns into a piece of crystal. It freely withstands both freezing and heating to 115 degrees. When bitten, a bee is capable of secreting about 0.5 mg of poison, and the lethal dose for humans is 2 grams, that is, about 700 “bites”.
Bees life cycle
The bee family consists of three items:
- Drones.
- Working bees.
- Uterus.
Their life cycle is completely different, the life of the bee depends on the caste, for example, the uterus can live 7 years, the working bee - 8 weeks, and drones die in a maximum of five weeks.
A new family is created by the uterus in the month of May-June. Initially, males are driven out, cells are laid for the birth of the new queen. As soon as it is born, about half of the working bees fly with their uterus from the hive. First, they wait on the branch until the bee finds a new place of residence.
A young uterus flies with drones into the air, mates with them and returns to the place for laying eggs. Bees in the new nest build honeycombs where they collect nectar and pollen for supply and for feeding the new generation.
In July, the bees harvest honey for the winter, and with the onset of cold weather they cover the cracks, and in the winter they sit together on the combs and eat prepared food.
In the hive, bees communicate with each other using movements, namely, if one bee finds plants in which there is a lot of nectar and pollen, it returns to the house, whirls around the combs, wagging its belly. Thus, she explains to the rest where to fly. She also conveys the aroma of a flower on which she recently collected nectar.
Uterus
When winter ends, the uterus lays eggs, after 3 weeks the larvae hatch. Their working bees feed them for about a week, then the wax hen closes in the cell, there it already turns into a doll, and then into an adult.
After 12 days, an imago appears, this is an insect that differs from an adult bee in the soft integument of the body. She feeds the brood, removes the hive and does other household chores.
The role of the uterus is to replenish hives with brood, increasing the family. She can fly out of the house only during the swarming period.
Working bees
In an elite family, there are about 70,000 worker bees in the summer and about 20,000 in the winter. They all descended from one uterus. Bees cleanse their home of pollution, feed offspring and drones.
From the 16th to the 20th day of life, some bees process honey from nectar. After 20 days from the moment of hatching, the bee flies around, remembering its hive, and each time it increases the distance.
Drones
In males there is no sting and they differ in large sizes. Their only task is fertilization of the uterus. An interesting fact is that as soon as the male fertilizes the female, he immediately falls and dies. Therefore, their life cycle is different. Many drones hatch from the brood, much more than necessary, so the bees simply drive out the extra and weak individuals. Read more about drones here.
Hive bees
Hive bees are young individuals working only inside their house, their duties include:
- Feeding the larvae.
- Building new honeycombs.
- Maintaining optimal temperature.
- Cleaning and ventilation nests.
- Taking nectar from summer bees and processing it into honey.
- Wall insulation with propolis.
Then, from hive bees, they turn into summer ones.
Summer bees
Summer bees do not live long, about 8 weeks. The first 10 days they are not able to eat on their own, and eat only pollen, but when they grow up and become breadwinners, their feed glands are well developed. Summer bees fly in the field on the 15th day of their life, and some before. In addition to nectar and pollen, they also collect honey dew from plants.
Nest
The family of bees carrying honey in the hive consists of 10,000-50,000 individuals, sometimes this figure grows to 100,000 working bees due to the uterus. Worker bees in their houses build nests, without which they would not have life. It is in the nests that pollen, nectar, honey are stored, brood grows, etc.
In the center of the nest (occupied by brood) the optimum temperature is always maintained, which is necessary for the proper development of eggs. The stronger the bee family, and also the larger the volume of the nest occupied by it, the greater the temperature difference at the edges and in the center.
Around the nest there are honeycombs built of wax, the wax is released from the wax glands of the bee, which eventually solidifies in the form of plates. Bees spend their whole lives between the plates (honeycombs). In a healthy family, the nest is clean, dry and smells good.
In the cells there are 3 departments in the form of cells for different processes:
- Bees that are used to breed working bees. Beer and honey are also stored there.
- The drone cells in which the drones grow, honey is added to the same place.
- Uterine cells are temporary that worker bees build to bring out the uterus. Once the process is over, the bees gnaw at them.
Swarm
Bee families swarm around April or May, when warming sets in. Thus, they breed in natural conditions. Families in a small room swarm much more often than in large and spacious ones. As long as the brood grows well, and the working bees are busy feeding the larvae, there is no swarming. It comes at a time when a lot of bees are typed.
If the body of insects has enough nutrients and their physiology does not change, there will be no swarming.
Some methods to prevent swarming:
- moving insects to a cool place where they will use up a lot of energy;
- load the bees with brood feeding;
- pour a large amount of sugar syrup for processing;
- to transfer bees to intensive summer work.
By undertaking methods, it is possible to achieve the postponement of swarming “for later” or to prevent it altogether. Excess nutrients in the body are also not good, swarming will begin necessarily.
As soon as the bees clog the first queen cells, some of the bees fly out of the hive with the old queen. If the weather is bad, then the departure may be delayed for several days. Long before departure, working bees fly out in search of a new place of residence, they are looking for boxes, lightweight decks that beekeepers specially hang for a flock of flocks.
After digging, bees work much better than ordinary families. This is due to the fact that in the swarm there are mainly young bees that either did nothing in the old nest or simply helped feed the larvae. Young growth begins to work well in the construction of honeycombs, in collecting honey, in feeding larvae and preserving honey.
Common breeds
There are a large number of honeybees; they can be distinguished in appearance, color, and even with the help of some features. Description of the most popular bees can be studied in the table:
Types of Honey Bees | Description |
European dark | The most common honey bee. The proboscis of these insects is short, and the body has a dark shade. The bee itself is large. Light honey. The bee is a little aggressive and irritable. Among the pluses is good productivity, resistance to diseases and weather conditions. A family of such bees can bring 30 kg of honey per season. |
Ukrainian steppe | It has small dimensions, yellow color, does not show aggressiveness. Among the advantages: resistance to disease and wintering. Such a family is able to bring 40 kg of honey per season, more than other varieties. |
Caucasian | In size, it is almost the same as the Ukrainian, but the color is yellow with a gray tint. Since bees have a long proboscis, they can get nectar even from deep flowers. Work in any weather, not aggressive, not prone to disease. During the season, the family brings 40 kg of honey. |
Italian | Place of birth - Apennines. The proboscis of these bees is long, the abdomen is yellow, and rings are clearly visible around the body. The bee is clean, destroys harmful insects approaching the hive. Hives clean well and often, which has a positive effect on productivity. It is resistant to disease, but productivity is lower than that of other honey bees. |
Carpathian | The body has a gray color, there is no aggressiveness. Among the advantages are swarming, resistance to diseases and cold, high productivity of 40 kg. |
Maintenance and care
Caring for honey bees is hard and responsible work. We need rich knowledge and their constant expansion in order to properly go out and feed the bees. Breeding bees is a time-consuming process, because in spring and summer it will take at least 8 hours a week to take care of the hives. Experienced beekeepers cope much faster.
You do not need to immediately buy a lot of bees, only 6 families are enough, and then you can expand.
Terrain
It is necessary to choose a place for installing hives competently, it should be as close as possible to the natural habitat of a bee swarm. It is recommended that the apiary be placed near the skyscrapers, or a spacious beam, but it is necessary to establish the direction of the wind and make sure that the wind does not interfere with the bees and does not blow strongly into their houses. It is also important that as many honey plants as possible are located within a radius of 2 km from the apiary.
The hives should be at an appropriate distance from each other, the distance between the houses should be about 4 meters, and between the rows there should be a distance of 6 meters. If the place does not allow the hives to be placed in this way, a closer combination is permissible.In a limited area, keeping bees in the hives involves 15 families on an area of 3 by 5 meters.
Home improvement
Beekeepers know how important quality hives are - they protect the bees from the weather and allow you to properly organize the life of the swarm.
Modern hives can be purchased at a specialty store. They can be narrow-wide or high-narrow, inside which are square or rectangular frames. On them brood will develop, and honey will be located. Such colonies can be either for one bee family, or for several.
The shape of the structure may be vertical or horizontal. The first is a multi-tiered design, from 10 to 14 frames are located on each tier. And the horizontal design can expand to any size by adding enclosures.
Spring Care
For the beekeeper, spring is the most difficult time, because he needs to create all conditions for life and development in the spring-summer period after wintering. The first step is to increase the number of swarms and strengthen it.
Immediately after the end of winter, you should carefully examine the hive, it should be dry, clean and warm. You also need to pay attention to honey reserves - this is one of the important conditions for the survival of the family. You need 8-10 kg of honey and 2 frames pergi for one family.
In addition to food, bees should have constant access to water, thanks to which they make larval food. If there is no water, the bees will look for puddles and may die in flight. For good oviposition and great survival of the offspring, the uterus must be laid with the onset of spring new honeycombs. After all, bees alone can make honeycombs only a month after the onset of heat.
The main principles of measures for the care of the apiary in the spring:
- reduction of weak bees in early spring;
- warming of strong individuals remaining in the hive;
- providing insects with food and the constant addition of food to feed the brood;
- breeding new uterus.
In summer time
When the bees are ready for swarming, the summer period of care begins; during this period, increased attention is required from the beekeeper. It is important to understand that you cannot remove more than one swarm from one hive. The first swarm flies out of the hive only under good weather conditions. The swarm swirls at the location of the swarm, the beekeeper waits for their landing, and then performs a series of manipulations:
- the beekeeper must take a scoop and gently catch the bees, releasing them for swarming;
- if the bees do not want to fly to the swarm, they are intimidated by smoke;
- leave the full capacity for an hour in a dark room until they calm down, if this does not happen, then this means that there are two or no uterus.
From June to August, the main bribe begins, during which the bees collect nectar and pollen within a useful radius. During this period, it is better to limit the bees from the construction of honeycombs, forcing empty places with wax. In this case, the insects will fully focus on the collection of stocks.
In August, bees should be checked for wintering; special attention should be paid to the central part of the nest. If there is honey, it is cut off, and the hole is laid with spare sushi. If there are cracks, they must be covered with clay.
In the fall
In autumn, there is complete preparation for wintering, the stocks of honey in the nests are checked, and the quality of honey is also being checked. To check the quality of honey, a small sample of the mass is taken and mixed 1: 1 with water. If lumps appear in the form of flakes after dissolution, then honey is honeydew. They must be removed from the hive, and set a quality framework. In order for the family to survive the winter well, you need to use additional bait in the form of sugar syrup.
In the fall, old uterus is replaced by young, but it is important to decide whether to leave offspring or not. In some regions, with sharp changes in temperature, weak individuals may not survive. After all the manipulations carried out, preparation for wintering in three stages begins:
- Only 2 with brood and honey stand out from all the frames; they move closer to the septum.
- Layers with spare uterus are transferred there.
- It is necessary to control the situation until all the frames are stuck on all sides.
In winter
Bees winter in special winter houses, and depending on how they winter, there will be productivity and vitality in the next season. Therefore, it is important to create all conditions for a good wintering.
Humidity should be 80%, if these indicators increase, then you need to pay attention to ventilation. It is also impossible for it to go down much, because insects will simply die of thirst. You can raise it by hanging wet towels around the winter house.
The same applies to room temperature, it should be from 0 to +4 degrees. If the temperature drops, then the room should be insulated, but if on the contrary it rises, then it is necessary to install ventilation.
In addition, care should be taken to ensure that there is no bright light and loud noise, because the bees can fly out, which is extremely undesirable.
Breeding
On the fly, the uterus mates with a drone in the air, fertilizing, after which the drones are immediately driven out of the hive and they die. Once every 30 days, the uterus lays about 1,500 eggs. There are uteri that live up to 6 years, then they can lay 3 million eggs in their entire life.
The benefits of honey bees
The benefits of bees are very high and diverse. Insects give healthy and nutritious honey, as well as wax, which goes for different purposes. The same applies to bee venom, it is used to treat certain diseases. Insects pollinate many plants, which positively affects them.
Bees are the most useful insects for humans living on the planet, because all beekeeping products are natural antibiotics. Unlike drugs that kill human microflora, bee products interfere with the propagation of pathogenic microorganisms.
While the bee is alive, it brings the following beneficial substances:
- poison;
- milk;
- honey;
- wax;
- perga;
- propolis.
Healing tinctures are made even from the body of a dead bee.
Honey
Gastrointestinal upsets, infectious diseases and colds are treated with honey. With daily use of honey, alcohol addiction disappears, so alcoholic beekeepers cannot be found.
Wax
The product is very valuable, used in industrial sectors. Based on beeswax, multiple creams and pharmaceuticals are created. To prevent colds, chewing wax is recommended.
Milk
A unique product that contains many trace elements. A working bee lives up to 30 days, the uterus can live up to 6 years, laying many eggs. She eats exclusively royal jelly. It is also used to treat many, even serious illnesses. Read about how to get royal jelly.
Propolis
Tinctures are made from propolis and taken in pure form. They are treated with burns, frostbite, tuberculosis, ulcers. Read more about the healing properties of propolis here.
Over the past hundred years, about half of the bee species have died out, if this continues and all the bees will die out. Because of this, flowers will not be pollinated, the plant world will slowly begin to die. In the future, people may begin to disappear as a species, because they will not have enough nutrition, oxygen (which plants produce).
Honey bees for bees
Far from all plants, bees can collect nectar and pollen, the following is a list of where the bees collect them:
Type of grass | Grass name |
Cereals and fodder | sweet clover buckwheat clover seradella sainfoin |
Medicinal | hyssop sage coriander mint thyme mother liquor oregano lavender angelica |
Oilseeds | sunflower tobacco kenaf chicory rape mustard |
More information about honey plants is written here.
Disease and Prevention
In bees, infectious and non-communicable diseases are distinguished. Infectious diseases, a bee can get sick by contacting with other sick bees, the most common include:
- acarapitosis;
- meleosis;
- nosematosis.
There may be parasites on the body of the bee that bring other diseases, such as varroatosis. Some contagious diseases can be laid down by the whole swarm, so the beekeeper should carefully monitor their health.
Non-communicable diseases can occur due to improper feeding of bees. Proper nutrition is very important for honey bees, because if a bee receives all the necessary vitamins, minerals and other useful substances, then its productivity is at a high level.
Non-communicable diseases also include those that occur during the development of embryos. The reason for this may be a cold or the presence of parasites, underdeveloped individuals will crawl out of such larvae or the eggs will dry out.
In the video, the beekeeper tells what preventive measures can be taken so that the bees do not get sick; it also refers to diseases that insects can get:
The difference between honey and wild bees
There are in nature, both domestic honey bees and wild bees that differ in characteristics and appearance. Wild bees are more industrious, more resistant to temperature changes, but they are too aggressive. The quality of the honey obtained is also different from homemade, it is better and more useful, because it manages to fully mature in the hollow. From year to year the number of wild bees falls, because they are affected by anthropogenic factors leading to their death.
Domestic bees live in a hive, which is built with the help of humans in the form of a hollow. After the swarm has flown to another house, everyone is actively involved in the construction of wax combs, thus saving wax. Honey is in some cells, and pollen and larvae in others.
Honey bees clean their hive from dust and harmful insects and maintain the necessary room temperature with their wings.
Honey bees are very beneficial insects that exist on our planet. Without them, humanity simply would not have survived. Thanks to bees, flowers grow, people get healing honey, treat many diseases. Before you start breeding honey bees, you should study the information about them in detail so that there are no problems when caring for them.
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