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Outline:
Russian bees:
Health of bees
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 Russian bees are very different from other bees because they live in areas with long winters and short, changeable summers. Russian Bees have adapted to these severe conditions quite well. Among mellifluous bees who survive mainly by stored food, Russian bees are most sensitive and careful to save a supply of food. Russian bees cannot survive the winter without consuming a lot of food and therefore store as much of it as possible during a season. The food is also reserved in much larger amount than is required to feed the colony till the next season, for the next season may not have enough food to save for the winter. Russian bees have the sharpest reaction to mellifluous plants: they never miss their chance for this food supply. Russian bee’s honey is a honey of light tones and of greatest taste. Russian bees need a big hive with a lot of room to store honey, with enough space for a brood and free space for the development of a colony and the work of bees. The volume of a hive must be a minimum of 80 liters, that is enough to contain a minimum of 12 big frames of 50 cm height. This maintains normal biological colony conditions during the whole year and eliminates unnessary openings and reconstruction of the nest by the beekeeper. The hive does not even need to be artificially warmed. A strong, healthy bee colony can warm itself even on the coldest winter days. The breed of Russian bees has a minimal bias to swarming. This is due to the fact that their survival depends first of all on supplies of food. Swarming, as a way of searching for places with the most favorable conditions of life is not the main way of survival. In nature, Russian bees swarm because of extensive supplies of honey in the nest, not because of the need to find better living conditions. Earlier you could even find nests full of honey, but without bees which left to find a bigger nest for more honey. Despite all of this, there is an opinion in modern beekeeping that Russian bees swarm a lot. It is based on practical work with Russian bees, but it does not take into consideration that it can be due to our mistakes in dealing with this particular strain of bees. Russian bees are very sensitive to our intervention in their life, especially in their hives, and try to avoid it by frequent swarming. Russian bees do demand good living conditions and a minimum of disturbance, but providing this, you will have the easiest maintained, and most productive, bees for the central Russian forest areas. |
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