Passive bees in the family during honey harvest season

It can seems strange, but during the honey harvest, a situation may arise, when a part of the bees in the family does not find work and causes a violation of its normal vital activity. This can lead to loss of honey or to swarming.

The main messages of the device, based on acoustic control technology, during honey harvest - are about the power of honey collection. In good family, actively working on the honey collection, the bar of the chart at a frequency of 280-330 Hz or 330-380 hertz is high enough. In the ideal case, the column at a frequency of 200-240 hertz, which is indicating the number of passive bees in the hive, should not be large. This is an ideal situation. But things are changing.

It seems to be strange, but the number of passive bees in the family, can grow during honey harvest. During very good honey harvest bees use all possible places to put nectar, even the nest, reducing the place for the queen to lay eggs. The amount of work for the young bees reduces. This is a natural factor of accumulation of passive bees in the family. Normally, there are not too much passive bees in the family.

What else increases the amount of passive bees during honey collection? First - this is a possible overflow of the hive with nectar and the inability to find a spare place for the storage of new nectar. In this case, the beekeeper must add a new frameworks, or housings, depending on the type of the hive, or to take away mature honey.

Another option is less optimistic. It is possible that honey harvest is not as strong as it seems, and the strength of family has become redundant. In such a family, a large number of bees can not find a job, and provokes swarming mood. Beekeeper also need to take action.

But things are not so simple. Usually beekeepers try not to disturb the bees by frequent inspections during a strong nectar flow, since every such inspection means the loss of tens kilograms of honey. But the beekeeper which use the methods of acoustic control of bee families, have nothing to fear. Checking the hive will show the increase of amount of passive bees. If this happens quite sharply, there is a reason to make a personal inspection, and correct the situation. If bees continue to work actively and there are no passive bees, the inspection is not required. Calm of bees will be not disturbed. Loss of honey will not happen.

Source: http://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/141956_en.html?isPermaLink=true&WT.mc_i...