How much honey a bee produces in its life: averages and what affects the collection

The productivity of an apiary is measured by the volume of honey that insects give during the year. In addition, they take into account the manufacture of additional beekeeping products - wax, perga, pollen, propolis. So how much honey does a bee produce in its lifetime? It is difficult to determine the exact amount, since it depends on many factors - region, breed, conditions of detention.

Average

On average, one bee produces 5 grams of honey in a lifetime - only 1 teaspoon. At the same time, a large he althy bee colony is able to collect about 150 kilograms over the summer. This applies to families up to 50 thousand individuals.

Many factors affect the amount of honey. At the same time, the collection process itself looks like this:

bee leaves hive and flies to plants;
insect collects nectar;
substance is absorbed in the throat and mixed with enzymes;
then the nectar descends into special goiters through the esophagus;
in these compartments there is little substance left for their needs;
the rest of the nectar the individual burps into cells of honeycombs;
to fill the goiter, the bee must fly around at least 100 plants.

Factors affecting performance

To get a lot of honey, it is important to take into account certain features. And this applies not only to the insects themselves, but also to the influence of external factors.

Breed

To get the maximum honey, you need to give preference to the most hardworking individuals. The following breeds produce the most honey:

Carpathian;
Ukrainian;
Krainian.

The bee brings the maximum amount of honey under ideal conditions. All insects can work productively in clean and free hives.

Food Quality

Beekeepers often try to save honey or have too little of this product, and therefore use sugar syrup for feeding. Such a diet negatively affects the working capacity of insects. In this case, they can stay in the air for a maximum of half an hour and fly no further than 500 meters from the hive.

When using quality food, a bee can fly for more than 3 hours and move 2 kilometers from home. This helps to increase the amount of honey. In addition, quality feed increases the lifespan of insects.

Wintering

In order for the bees to comfortably endure the winter and prepare for an early harvest, beekeepers advise feeding them from August 1 to 20. Thanks to this, insects endure winter better and build up a large fat body.

To prepare for wintering, it is important to maintain the proportions of sugar honey and natural. At the initial stage, it is recommended to feed sugar honey to the bees. His share was to be 40%. At the same time, by the second half of winter it is required to use natural honey. His share is 60%.

When using this tactic, individuals and larvae eat natural honey during the initiation and development of brood. This has a good effect on the quality and vital activity of the bee colony.

Swarming bees

During swarming, insects lose their activity and get tired, which negatively affects their productivity. Untimely swarming can provoke the following:

poor hive ventilation;
aging uterus;
excess brood in the nest;
expanding the nest.

These shortcomings are recommended to be eliminated in time. Otherwise, there is a high probability of a decrease in the efficiency of bees.

To detect this process in time, it is important to be very careful. At first, the bees swarm over the hive, resembling a cloud. After that, they leave the house and settle nearby. In order not to lose the whole family, the beekeeper must catch the queen and place it in a separate box.

More experienced beekeepers do not allow swarming. At the same time, it is important to load the bees with work. To do this, it is important to remove sealed combs in a timely manner, replacing them with empty ones. This is a sign for insects that food is scarce. They start harvesting it again, which delays the breeding process.

Spare cells

The amount of honey harvested is affected by the availability of spare combs. In this case, the bees direct their energy to collect pollen and nectar, and not to create honeycombs. In addition, the presence of empty cells will force the insects to make an effort to fill them.

If there are not enough honeycombs, the bees will stop working, because they have nowhere to put the nectar. Sometimes at the peak of active collection, you can even remove incompletely filled combs, replacing them with empty ones.

Region of breeding

Each region is characterized by individual climatic features.The maximum productivity of bees is observed in the south of Russia. Long, warm summers and not too harsh winters have a positive effect on the process of collecting honey. In this case, beekeepers need to consider the following features:

average air temperature;
duration of summer, timing of spring and autumn;
soil fertility, which directly affects the quality characteristics of honey plants;
air humidity;
rainfall.

Honey Base

The productivity of insects is directly affected by the honey base. This largely depends on the region and the characteristics of the area. If there are many plants within a radius of 1 kilometer that provide valuable nectar, the chance of obtaining a large amount of honey increases. An excellent option for the location of the honey base is the area around which there are flowering gardens and fields.

If there are no plants around the apiary, package beekeeping is more suitable. A mobile apiary will help you get an excellent result. However, it is first recommended to carefully study the area and choose the most productive areas. It is also important to focus on the taste of bees. Each breed has a favorite plant species.

Hive dimensions

Hive size is an important factor that makes honey harvesting more productive. The larger the design, the more frames it contains. This means that the bees fill more combs.

In large hives, 24 frames can be placed, and in small ones - 8. However, if there is no high-quality honey base, insects will not be able to fill all the combs.

The productivity of bees depends on many factors. It is influenced by weather conditions, the breed of bees, the number of honey plants. To get the maximum amount of honey, it is important for insects to provide quality care.