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The division of bee colonies (industrial division)

Dividing bee colonies, or artificial swarming, is one of the most important practices beekeepers use to increase the number of their bee colonies. This allows them to expand their hives by approximately 20% annually. What to Do Before Dividing Bee Colonies The first and most important step is maintaining the strength of the bee colonies throughout the year. This ensures they remain safe from diseases, predator attacks, and robber bees . Only strong colonies are suitable for division since weak ones cannot quickly recover from the loss of worker bees and stored food. For instance, if a beekeeper moves their apiary to a location with abundant forage, they should combine weak colonies to create strong or at least moderately strong ones. Strong colonies gather significantly more food than they consume compared to weaker colonies, which require more resources than they collect due to the low number of active bees. Conditions for Dividing Bee Colonies Division should only be carr...

Prevention bee colonies from the cold and frost

In winter, temperatures can drop to their lowest (a few degrees Celsius below zero) or slightly above zero, with cold winds blowing and occasional rainfall. In such extreme cold, bee colonies may perish entirely, or at least the number of bees in the colonies may decrease by more than three-quarters. Spring and summer come ( honey flow season ), and the colony is not ready to collect nectar and pollen, and the abundant forage might exhaust what remains of the bees in the colony due to the abundance of forage and the scarcity of foraging bees in each colony. As a result, the honey flow season passes without benefit. Since honey bees do not hibernate in winter but spend the winter in a state of calm or dormancy inside the hive, where they regulate the temperature to suit their survival by clustering together in a ball, raising the temperature to 32-34°C by releasing energy from feeding on honey and muscle activity. The number of bees perfo...

The phenomenon of theft between bee colonies and to deal with them.

The phenomenon of robbing is usually ingrained in strong bee colonies, where they attack weak colonies to steal the honey present in them. This happens during times when nectar sources are scarce outside. Several factors encourage the occurrence of robbing, such as leaving the hives open for too long during inspection, not properly sealing them, exposing feeders full of sugar solution for long periods in the apiary, feeding certain colonies without others, or feeding at different times rather than uniformly. Additionally, offering wax combs with some honey can lead to robbing, so they should be emptied of honey before adding them to the colony, especially when storing them after the collection season. These combs should be offered clean and empty when added to the colonies during the egg-laying season. Robbing can lead to the destruction of a large number of bees, the death of the queen, or the spread of diseases between colonies as a result. How ...

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