SYSTEMATIC TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE THE PRODUCTION AND QUALITY OF BEE HONEY AND ROYAL JELLY

Transcription

1 SYSTEMATIC TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE THE PRODUCTION AND QUALITY OF BEE HONEY AND ROYAL JELLY Senior engineer Liu jinzu and Wu zhonggao Beijing Apiculture and Silk Worm Administrative Centre No.8 Yumin Zhonglu Rd.Beijing, , China. Phone: , Fax: , Introduction According to beekeeping production status quo and climate character in Beijing area, bee pasture, plant, distributing and excreting orderliness, we sum up some synthesis and high-grade technologies which can make Beijing honey and royal jelly produce more. That is, strong colony of bees can hibernate safely; accelerate colony of bees breed in spring; choose well-breed bee and foster high grade queen; foster strong colony of bees, strive for high yield of royal jelly; understand bee plant, make use of bee plant; prevent and control bee spreading around, keeping strong colour of bees fettle, etc. Beijing is located in the north of the North China Plain which plain occupy 38% areas, the others are mountain area.the average height above sea level is from 800 to 1000 meters, the highest is 2303 meters. It is a typical region of warm, semi-humid and monsoon climate, the average temperature is 10 to 20 degrees centigrade and the average rainfall is 600 mm a year. The major nectariferous plants in the city are jujube, achaste and locust, etc. And there are jujube, apricot, etc. in suburban districts. The major pollen plants are corn and chestnut. There are more than 1000 supplementary pollen and honey plants. Sedentary and short distance migration beekeeping can be conducted here because of the full major and supplementary nectar plants both in city and in suburb districts, the difference of topography and temperature and the different period of bloom. Since these years, many apiaries have had high economic returns, increasing production of farm crops and more wide social benefits because of the pollination. However, some apiaries pay no attention to the utilization of apicultural science and technology and have small economic returns. After studying and practicing over a long period of time, the scientists in Beijing apicultural circle sum up a set of complete and comprehensive technology to get high quality and high yield of royal jelly and honey. The technology spread progressively in the city, which not only brought about great social and economic results, but also won the Second Prize of Agricultural Technology Spreading in Beijing. Wintering Safely with Strong Colonies Wintering with strong colonies can save feed and prolong the life spans of honeybees. Bees gather in the combs around the queen in winter. When there are no larvae, the temperature is usually from 8 to 10 degrees centigrade, the highest is 14 degrees centigrade in the central part of colonies. This helps keeping the colonies quiet, reduced food and weaken metabolism. Bees rely on the feed and the thermal energy of rubbing each other to adjust and keep the temperature. If there are 5 to 6 full frames of bees in one colony, about five kilograms of food is needed for a wintering period of about 4 months. One kilogram of honey is needed for one full frames to live to April or May of the following year. However, 1.5 to 2 kilograms of forage is consumed for no more than 3 full frames to live to March of the following year. So, the stronger is colony, the more forage is saved; the longer lifespan is wintering bees, the safer is wintering bees. Proceedings of the 37 th International Apicultural Congress, 28 October 1 November 2001, Durban, South Africa APIMONDIA 2001 To be referenced as: Proc. 37 th Int. Apic. Congr., 28 Oct 1 Nov 2001, Durban, South Africa ISBN: Produced by: Document Transformation Technologies Organised by: Conference Planners

2 Raising strong over- wintering bee of the right age is the key to raising strong colonies. The broods had no experience in collecting and nursing but had flied for excreting are the most suitable for over wintering. The death ratio (from November to March the following year) of over-wintering bees in Beijing is usually from 35% to 50%. * These beekeeping technologies take the videotape and VCD for appraise through comparison. Therefore, it is the right time to raise the over- wintering bees between the middle 10 days of August and the last 10 days of September. The worker bees will die in winter if they are raised untimely and participated in collecting or nursing. After the last 10 days of September, the weather become cold, the raised bees will have no time to be taken out to excrete. Excrement and urine accumulated in belly will lead to uneasy. Meanwhile, cold weather and no pollen plants will result in sharp decrease of the queen egg-production. The young bees nursing will shorten their lifespan. Raising over- wintering bees of the right age should be ended in advanced before Sep.20 if 8 frames are wanted in last summer. From the middle 10 days of August to Sep.20, the right time to raising the over-wintering bees, some relevant measures should be taken: 1. No fewer than 10 frames in one breeding colony of the over-wintering bees. Otherwise, bees should be taken from other colonies. 8 to 9 combs in one colony are suitable. 2. Replace the old queens and low quality queens with weak egg-productive capabilities.the queens raised in Chaste flow is best. 3. Conducting stimulative feeding: Feeding the bee colonies continued with little honey in many times. Selecting the high quality feed to ensure the autumn built-up and the safe of over-wintering. Pollen or mixed feed should be fed when there is no pollen in fields after September to supplement protein, vitamin and micro-element, and to promote the gee-production of the queens and supplement the nutrition of larvae. 4. Deal with bee mites seriously: Bee mites should be killed when breeding in autumn. In late autumn, queens stop laying eggs, kill bee mites thoroughly again. The drugs are avoided to use in producing period. So, it is an effective way to raise the quality and the production of honey and royal jelly. The slice of Manpu and Manpulin are used with some other drugs to decrease the bee mites and to ensure the health of the over-wintering bees. Between the last 10 days of September and the first 10 days of October in Beijing, the queens are shut in specially built bamboo cages to stop ovipositing. The advantage of this method lies in the following: the queens lighten the burden of nurse work and prolong the life of many bees. After there are no brood combs, kill the mites for one or two times by spraying drugs to ensure there are no mites in the following year. The bee s colonies are fed with high quality sugar and no polluted honey to prepare for over-wintering when the queen is shut. Speed up the Spring Built-up The first major nectar resource in Beijing is locust. In order to get locust nectar, the bees must be propagated before 45 days of locust bloom. The time of locust bloom is from the first 10 days of May to the second 10 days of May. Only the bees bred before the last 10 days of March can collect the locust nectar. There is a phase that new bees replace the old ones and the new bees accumulate straightly. So the time of spring built-up in Beijing is elected in later February or early March. At the time, the temperature is low; no bloom in nature, some efficacious measures should be taken to accelerate the propagation of the bees:

3 1. Spot-check the bee s colonies and feed them when necessary (with honey or sugar, pollen or cooking starch and water). In early March, make a spot-check, feed with honey when little of honey is stored or with thick honey or syrup when there are no honey- combs and semi-honey combs. Meanwhile, the colonies are fed with proper amount of protein feed (pollen or mixed feed) until the pollen plants come into bloom and the pollen is enough. When the temperature descends and cold current often appear, bees can not go out to gather water and so they should be fed with water at the entrances of hives housing. With the temperature raising, bees fly normally, water can be placed in the public place of an apiary. 2. Checking overall and improving the preservation of heat. An overall checking is conducted to improve the conditions in side of the hives when elm is in bloom. It will provide a good condition for the ovipositing of queens and hatching larvae: Opening the shut queens and taking the unnecessary combs out to make more bees than combs in the colonies; Packing inside of the hives well, some materials of preserving heat should be put into the hives; Narrow the entrance of hives properly; The old bees have a long life and the young ones have good health when the temperature controlled well. The replace of old bees and new ones will not come apart. 3. Adjusting bee combs to having more bees than combs. Keeping more bees than combs is the key measure to Spring built-up. The size of brood combs is large and the speed of breeding is quick. Such as three same full frames bees in one colony: three combs a group, the size of brood combs occupies 60% to 70%; five combs in the other, the size of brood combs occupies 40% to 50%. This result indicated that the first group s breeding speed is quicker than the other. The supers are added in the first group in advance from 10 days to half a month than the other group. 4. Adding combs timely at the blooming period of willow tree. The weather turns warm in April and nectariferous plants such as mountain peach and fruit trees bloom one after another. The broods emerge one after another and number of bees rise again. Especially in the bloom period of willow tree, pollen and honey are plentiful, take away the heat preservation frames and other heat preservation materials, add combs timely and expand the honey combs in order not to effect the speed of breeding.the entrance of hives must be enlarged properly when there are drones. Add combs in accordance with the strength of colony, temperature and the state of nectar resources. Before Tomb-sweeping Day, the colony is still weak; adding combs to the centre of colony is unsuitable. But if there is a pollen-honey comb aside, the empty comb can be taken to the side of second one.the new comb can be taken to the side when there are broods, eggs or pupas in the side one and remove it to the centre after the eggs are breed on it and then add another comb aside.use the old combs first then the news in order to preserve the heat of bees combs. With weather becoming warm, temperature rising gradually, the number of bees increasing, combs can be put into the centre of hives. But the best way is taking one comb once a time instead of 2 to 3 combs.the second comb are added after the first one was full of broods in order to get concentrated eggs and large size brood comb and so as to enhance the colonies propagation when the hive is full of bees with eight frames, two thirds of brood combs are sealed, some supers are added and the ratio will gradually become 7:10 between the hives and the super.

4 Breeding of Honeybee of Fine Strain by Selection, Rearing High-- Quality Queen The strain of honeybee is an important factor to get high yield of honey and royal jelly. It is very difficult to get high yield both there are nectariferous resource and not if only with the high-quality queen selected in local apiary. Therefore, it is a simple, effective and quick way to get the high yield of honey and royal jelly. The Jingha bee and the bee with high yield of royal jelly were imported in Beijing several rears ago. And the fact indicated that the effect of the importing is perfect. Beekeepers can select the proper strain according to the requirement of the market, situation of nectariferous resource and the advantage of themselves. The bees with strong foraging and little consume should be particularly raised to collect nectar, such as Black Carpathian bee; Italian bees with high yield of royal jelly should be particularly used to produce royal jelly, such as ZND-strain A of Italian and other jelly bees. There is high heterosis in the hybridisation of Jingka honeybee. Experiment demonstrated that the output of honey of the hybrid bees is 29.5% higher than that of local Italian bees. The hybrids are not only bee bread-saving, but being able to use scattered nectar plants, resistant to low temperature, highly adaptable to local climate in Beijing. Moreover, they can quickly restrain to breed when there are no nectar plants in fields and have high resistance to disease. The strain with high yield of honey is suitable to be raised in Beijing. If Ha queen and jelly queen are raised in one hive, high yield both of honey and of royal jelly can be obtained. Pay attention to rearing high quality queens when the fine strain is imported. The queens are reared when there are plenty of nectar and pollen resources in nature, many drones in colony, a lot of nurse bees and feed. Queens ovipositing is limited in this period. The best way is using the implement of controlling the queens ovipositing to control the queens and no place for ovipositing in 10 days to get big and heavy eggs. And rear queens from the larvae brood from these eggs. Removing brood in double entry and broods are no more than 6 hours age. There should be enough bees in the nucleus to ensure stable temperature in the later stage of new queens growth. Raising strong bee colonies, getting high yield of honey and royal jelly. More bees in strong colonies can keep the hive temperature. The bees bred from strong colonies have great physique, long life and high foraging ability. Meanwhile, in nectar flow, strong colonies adjust the humidity to lower than weak ones and so as to evaporating the water in collected honey. So the honey is high quality and mature quickly. The supers are added in well over-wintering colonies after spring built-up in the area of Beijing Plain to achieve the honey standard of strong colonies. Two or three weak colonies of over-wintering bees in some mountain areas should be combined to a strong colony before locust flow to get high yield of honey and royal jelly. Strong colonies can be breed by raising two-queen colonies. Because two queens in the same colony can raise colony reproductive capacity and it is easy to form a strong colony and beneficial to produce honey and royal jelly. Someone worried that the honey production of two-queen colonies are fewer than that of one-queen ones, so they take the measure of breeding by two-queen and producing by one-queen. In fact, the honey production of two-queen colonies is more than of the one-queen colonies so long as to deal with the relationship between nursing and collecting well. First, raising plenty of foraging bees of the right age

5 starts from about 45 days and controlling the ovipositing of the queens properly from 7 to 10 days before the nectar flow. For example, in short locust flow, no conditions are offered to the queens to oviposit until prosperous nectar flow. The oviposting of the queens are only limited properly in the apiary with short distance migratory and two blooming period of locust; It is unfavourable to limit the ovipositing of queens for long time in long chaste flow. Frames are added into the hive to enlarge the comb and adjust the ovipositing of queens. Both the strength is not weakened seriously and the production of honey is raised. Know and Use of Nectar Resources, Taking Short Distance Migration. The blooming period of locust or chaste bloom is different in different areas of Beijing. For example, locust in the south suburb Daxin bloom is earlier than those in Changpin and Miyun about one week. Chaste in Xishan, Bada bloom earlier than those in Mongtougou and the remote mountains area in Huairou about half a month. Locust in Tiangjin and the south and the east of Hebei province bloom earlier than those in Beijing. The best time and routes are selected according to nectar resources, feature of climate, bloom in the south earlier than that in the north, low latitude and conduct short distance migration to collect honey and jelly. But the factor related to nectar flow must be mastered. Such as locust, the quality of nectar is related to the plant kind (In general, much nectar in earth which is rich and full of water), temperature (much nectar in high temperature) and climate in nectar flow (the windstorm and rain will influence the flowing of nectar plants directly). Therefore, the best place and time can be mastered only the area of nectar plants, feature of climate, regular pattern and circumstance of nectar flowing in these years are considered carefully when we select the routes and places of migration. Excessive swarming must be avoided and controlled, strong colonies must be kept. The ovipositing of the queens decreased, the proportion between the larvae of different age and the adults is imbalance in productive hives when there are more than 10 full frames in the hive with a super. In order to keep strong colonies and keep the foraging bees in active state, the following measures are efficacious: 1. Producing Royal Jelly. Producing royal jelly in time after the supers are added stimulate the ovipositing of the queens and the collecting of worker bees. The larvae can be fed with royal jelly secreted by nurse bees. 2. Raising of Primary and Secondary Colonies. After the supers are added to the bee colonies, a group of new queens can be breed at first when it is nearly one or two months to major nectar resource chaste flow in Beijing. A frame of pupa comb and bees divided from the primary colonies made up the secondary colonies and put it aside of the primary colonies. Exchange the pupa combs of primary colonies and the larvae and brood combs of the secondary colonies after the propagation of the secondary colony. So it can accelerate the propagation of little colonies and prevent them from the excessive warming in the primary colonies. At the same time, the little colonies can be merged to the primary ones before long nectar flow comes. Replace the old queens with new queens and make up strong colonies to collect honey and jelly. 3. Replacing the old queen.

6 4. Taking efficacious measure to deal with the excessive warming. Separating the bees artificially and falsely. Put a hive with 6 combs and 4 frames aside of the hive with excessive warming and unfold canvas in the front of the entrance of hive, then shake the queen and bees off on the canvas. They will enter the hive slowly. The circumstances inside are changed and the excessive swarming are controlled. Changing the place between the old queen and new queen. The old queen is prevented by the implement for introduction from the bite of worker bees. The new queen colony is supplemented to strong colony some days later. The measure does not only deal with the excessive swarming but also do not decrease the ability of honey foraging. The set of Technology of the High Output of Royal Jelly. The producing of royal jelly, based on the habitual behaviour--that is when the feed surplus the bees colony will build natural queen-cells and rear queens, provide artificial queen cells, remove the larvae and then take out the larvae and collect the royal jelly in queen cells when the larvae consume minimally and the remaining of royal jelly is maximum. The essential conditions for royal jelly producing is as follows: - no more than eight frames healthy and illness bees in a colony. - the circumstance temperature is over 15 degrees centigrade, - bees food is sufficient. To achieve highly productive royal jelly, besides select or introduce high-productive strain a set of complete technology measure must be taken: 1. Raise jelly colonies advance and improve queen cells reception. The methods is as follows: 1 adjust the relationship between honeybees and combs and leave more honeybees than combs, all aged combs much sufficient and pollen is adequate so as to form swarming mean and let colonies have the tendency to build queen cells. 2 Separate the breed area and jelly-secret area with solid or plane board, leave bees in jelly-secret area no queen and result in the tendency to build queen cells. 3 According to the nectar resource, during the period of larvae rearing, shutting the queen properly several days before the major nectar flow comes will decrease queen s matter and cause the tendency to build natural alternating queen cells. All these will prepare for the queen cells reception. 2. Correctly master the date of removing larvae and time for taking royal jelly. The removed larvae aged from eighteen to twenty four hours, bow shaped and which is soaked in royal jelly. The time for taking royal jelly is after sixty-eight to seventy-two hours nursing. Because of the characteristics in bee s growth, the larvae queen cell s storage reached in peak ninety-six hours after the receiving of larvae and would reduce either the larvae s age is less or more than four days. When its age is one hundred and five hours or so, the consumption of jelly is maximal.

7 3. Control the quantity of queen cells and larvae. The quantity of larvae removed must be mastered flexibly according to the following factors: strong or weak colony, circumstance temperature and nectar resource. Under the condition of certain colonies and in certain range, the production of royal jelly increases with the increasing of larvae. In general, 80 to 120 larvae can be removed once a time in the colony with 10 full frames bees, 100 to 120 larvae in 10 to 20 full frames and over one hundred and fifty in 20 full frames over. 4. Control the ovipositing of the queens, centralize nursing energy. Before the major nectar flow comes, controlling the queen s ovipositing can slighten the nurse bees burden. Gather the jelly bees of the right age to provide jelly for larvae. 5. Conduct stimulative feeding to improve the activity of worker bees producing jelly. During the supplementary nectar flow, it is very necessary to conduct stimulative feeding. Change the proportion of sugar and water according to the bees foraging conditions and feed with pollen constitution or stored natural pollen when the pollen is insufficient. 6. Correctly adjust temperature and humidity In summer, when temperature is high and humidity is low. Beekeepers must shade the colonies and lay some soaked sponge on the covers. Which will decrease the temperature of the hive and increase the humidity and attract lots of worker bees up to the super and increase the royal jelly production obviously. In drought season, colonies must be watered and the entrance be enlarged to improve the air circulation. 7.Let colonies without queens or with old queens work first and then let strong colonies produce jelly. Let colonies without queens or with old queens work first and then turn to strong colonies to produce jelly after 10 hours. It will obviously increase the queen cells reception. Every day and every time can be put 3 to 4 jelly frames in colony. But sealed combs must be added to the colonies at the right time. 8. Keep continuity in producing royal jelly. Once the colonies start produce royal jelly, it will form condition reflex gradually. Do not stop producing suddenly for sake of temperature change or other factors. When it is necessary, stimulative feeding can be conducted. 9. During the whole produce period, the use of pesticide and antibiotics and other drugs is not permitted. To avoid pollution, be sure to make the larvae intact while taking out the royal jelly and the collected royal jelly must be filtered timely and stored in cold to ensure the quality.

8 SYSTEMATIC TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE THE PRODUCTION AND QUALITY OF BEE HONEY AND ROYAL JELLY Senior Engineer Liu Jinzu and Wu Zhonggao Beijing Apiculture and Silk Worm Administrative Centre No.8 Yumin Zhonglu Rd.Beijing, ,China. Tel: , Fax: , In July.1987, Mr Liu Jinzu graduated from the Bee Science Department of Fujian Agriculture University in Beijing, China. He is now employed at the Beijing Apiculture Company as well as the Beijing Apiculture and Silkworm Administrative Centre. At these companies, he manages General Managers, Directors and Senior Engineers.