The main functions of the bee woman in the bee family

The bee can be called the queen of the hive. She is responsible for the main function ensuring the existence of the entire bee population, the continuation of the species and the maintenance of the viability of the offspring.

Each functional subspecies in the hive is responsible for a separate function. Drones are male individuals, adapted only for fertilization of the uterus.

Working bees, i.e., females, have an underdeveloped reproductive system, but their body is designed to collect nectar, pollen, extract wax and build honeycombs. The little bee combines all these interesting inhabitants of the hive, giving them a new life and development.

Description and functions

It is quite possible to find a little bee-maid in a hive, since it is larger than ordinary bees. The barren individual weighs about 170-220 mg, while the fetus weighs about 180-330 mg. The length of her body is 20-25 mm.

A distinctive feature of queens of different breeds is their coloring. Their abdomen resembles a torpedo, its shape is elongated and pointed.

A barren individual is more difficult to find, as it moves quickly, jumping over the honeycomb.But the fetal one, on the contrary, is slow, difficult to walk and visually becomes much larger.

She is surrounded by other bees that care for her and provide royal jelly. Below is the queen bee.

In addition to procreation, the bee-woman is also responsible for one more important function. She unites her swarm into one with the help of a special mother substance, which is secreted only from her.

This substance is then distributed between all the inhabitants of the hive, with the result that they have the same smell. This helps the protection to distinguish between "their" and "strangers."

The main types of queens

Depending on the method of breeding the maternal individual, several of its species are distinguished. Consider the features of each of them.

Quiet shift

The uterus of the quiet shift begins to withdraw in three cases:

• if such a change was intentionally provoked by a beekeeper;
• in the hive, where the uterus is already old;
• if the individual has been damaged.

This change occurs as follows: the old uterus lays 1-2 eggs in separate bowls, outwardly no different from swarms. At the same time, the situation in the hive does not change much: the uterus actively lays eggs, but at the same time its size does not decrease.

Bees continue to work actively, collect nectar and pollen, build honeycombs. This clearly indicates that the queen was just a quiet shift. They are always of the best quality and exceed the size of the fistulous and swarm.

After 16 days, a new young individual comes out of this queen cell and kills the old one. Life in the hive continues to take its course until the next quiet shift.

In addition, each species of bees differently refers to this method of breeding a new uterus. Some do it extremely rarely, others are able to make a shift annually.

Fistulae

The fistula is removed in case of its unexpected injury, old age or the beekeeper’s negligence.Such an incident in a short time can stop the work of the entire hive, the bees will begin to show anxiety, make a noise like a howl.

The loss of the little bee makes them independently take out a new mother. Insects place eggs in the queen cells on bee sowing, where the development of a new queen bee occurs. During the whole time of their cultivation they are fed with royal jelly.

After 16 days, juveniles appear, which are far from the best in quality. Bees produce only one or two individuals from the queen cells, the most suitable in their opinion.

Then one of the queens destroys the other, and then all those remaining in the queen cells. This is how the fistula queen hive appears.

Swarm

When the bee colony prepares for swarming, a period of hatching of swarm bees begins. Basically, they are gradually laid in the hives in the amount of 10-50 pieces.

The bee lays its eggs in special bowls, after which the process of their active cultivation takes place. These larvae feed a large number of royal jelly, providing them with the best care.

As a result, after 16 days, the individual turns out to be much better and larger fistulous.However, there is one global flaw, because a family with such a womb is prone to swarming.

Features of the life cycle

There are several stages in the development of the beekeeper:

• for the first two days the egg is in the womb of the maternal individual, then it is placed in a special bowl;
• on the third day, the larva gets into the open state, it begins to be actively fed with royal jelly;
• on the 8th day, she returns to the bowl;
• till the 12th day it ripens to the state of a pupa;
• from the 13th to the 16th days is in a puppet state;
• The 17th is the day when the barren little bee leaves.

The uterus becomes ready for mating after 4 days, and on the 5th it already flies around the hive and mates with the drones. 10 days after this, she is already able to make the first sowing.

The average lifespan of a bee-woman is 5 years.However, after 2 years of her life, her reproductive functions weaken, she lays fewer eggs and sows more drones than working bees. With all this, the old bee-girl in the autumn period stops laying eggs before the deadline, and in the spring, on the contrary, later. All these factors have a strong influence on the strength of the bee offspring as a whole and on the amount of honey produced by it per season.

Experienced beekeepers recommend changing the queens every couple of years. The best way in this case is a quiet change.

Conclusion beemaps

The process of withdrawing queen bees at home can seem complicated and requires a lot of experience. However, knowing the basic principles and methods, it will be able to perform even a novice.

Conditions

The withdrawal of new bee makers should be carried out only over a strong family, so that their quality is top notch.

Maintaining optimal growing conditions also plays a key role.The temperature in the queen cells should not be below + 32 ° C, and the humidity - 75-90%. This will help you Aerothermostat, thanks to which such conditions are very easily provided.

Also, be sure to evenly distribute the queen cells throughout the family, this ensures complete feeding of royal jelly and balanced development.

A successful maternal breeding process is directly dependent on the strict observance of the time frame. Below is the queen bee hatching calendar, with which you can accurately track the phases of insect development.

Process

Directly, the process itself of maternal individuals involves the following sequence of actions:

1. Pick up and prepare paternal families for maximum saturation of the drone individuals with the best males. This choice should be among the strongest and healthiest.
2. Pick up and then evaluate the selected maternal families. They, like drones, must be of the highest quality, as they are responsible for the productivity and number of offspring, as well as for the success of the brood as a whole.
3. Organize recruitment and work with caregiver families.There are several types of them: families-educators with a brood of different ages without a uterus and with its presence, starter families without an open brood and a bee-woman, a family without a bee-woman and any brood. Select a specific family based on the purpose for which you are maternal.
4. The appearance of layering, the implementation of uterus fertilization and evaluation process. Pay particular attention to the analysis of the egg production of the uterus, productivity and efficiency of newly created families.

Many beekeepers use replanting of queen bees, if there has been a loss of the past individual or it has become weak to perform its reproductive functions.

This method should be carried out only in good warm weather, especially during the abundant collection of nectar. The optimal time is spring and early July.

Tag

The search for maternal individuals can be quite long and time consuming. To facilitate this process, beekeepers use labeling on the body of a bee-woman with the help of markers of different colors.

It will also make it easier to keep track of her age, because we all know that the period of the mother’s highest productivity is the first 2 years of life.Tags also help in finding the swarm that has flown in, identifying the family with their unique womb.

Moreover, odd bees, oddly enough, cause greater confidence among buyers, who are sure that such individuals are much better than others. The queen bee is a truly unique creature that can unite thousands of others of its own kind, giving them life and being really a "mother", the loss of which the bees suffer very painfully.

If you want to grow a successful family of these insects, pay the most attention and take the maximum care to the maternal individuals. The strength of the genus as a whole, the number of the hive and its productivity and viability depend on them.