Bumblebee hive: how to make a house with your own hands, breeding and creating an apiary

Most cultivated plants require pollination for fruiting, which directly depends on the activity of insects. In order to increase the yield and taste characteristics of future fruits, some gardeners and gardeners install a homemade bumble bee hive in their backyard. What are domestic bumblebees for, and how to properly use insects, we will look into the details further.

Features of bumblebee breeding

The yield of fruit and vegetable crops directly depends on the intensity of pollination of plants. It is generally accepted that the most industrious insects are bees, which collect pollen and nectar from honey plants, thereby pollinating them.But in case of weather and precipitation changes, their activity decreases, which negatively affects the yield.

1. Bumblebees are characterized by excellent resistance to low temperatures and weather changes.
2. Insects have the ability to maintain the required temperature of their body, which is covered with many villi.
3. Industrious minke whales are not afraid of low temperatures, they fly out of the hive at a temperature of +2 degrees, when most insects are still hibernating.
4. Due to their dense coat, bumblebees are not afraid of rain, and are also able to see well in the dark.
5. Striped hard workers work almost 18 hours a day, pollinate 4-5 times more plants than bees.
6. Insects are not aggressive at all and are not demanding to care for.

Important! Bumblebees are bred both on agricultural farms and on private household plots to increase the yield of vegetable, berry and fruit crops.

Making a beehive with your own hands

In order to independently breed hard-working minke whales, they create comfortable living conditions for them. You can make your own bumblebee hive.

To work, you will need ordinary boards, plywood, a few wooden slats, a small piece of foam, insulation and a drill. Straw, tow or moss is used as insulation.

Steps in making a bumblebee house:

• boards are cut and used to make the base of a square box without bottom and lid;
• further, plywood is nailed as the bottom;
• the second piece of plywood is used for the lid, after attaching 4 wooden slats to it;
• in one of the walls of the house it is necessary to punch 2 holes, one of which is tightly clogged with cork;
• polystyrene is laid out on the bottom of the finished box, covered with any natural insulation on top.

Advice! For convenience, high legs are nailed to the bumblebee hive and put on a personal plot, close to flowering crops.

Choosing a location for installation

The timing of the removal of houses to the site directly depends on the weather and climate indicators of the insect breeding region. In southern latitudes, work is carried out in mid or late April, when the period of active vegetation of plants begins. In temperate climates, the transfer of hives is carried out 2-3 weeks later.

Houses are placed next to fruit trees and shrubs. Best of all, bumblebees are attracted to thickets of raspberries, currants or gooseberries. The hive is set up so that the holes in it always face the south side. To get the maximum effect from the work of striped workers, you will need from 4 to 6 houses placed at a distance of 4-5 meters from each other. Part of the hives can be buried in the ground. To ensure that insects can easily enter the house, a pipe from 70 cm to 1 m long is brought to the surface from the hive.

Important! To attract insects, the inner walls of the hive are rubbed with lemon balm or mint leaves.

How to move bumblebees into a new home

To breed a bumblebee family, first of all, you need a queen. The female insect is purchased at a special apiary or caught independently in natural conditions.

1. The female is distinguished by size, she is 2 or 3 times larger than normal insects.
2. In the spring, the queens fly over the ground in search of a suitable place to build a nest.
3. When catching, they examine the hind limbs of the minke whale. If there are no traces of pollen on them, then the insect has not yet acquired its own home and is suitable for breeding a family.
4. The queen is placed in a prepared hive where she is provided with protein nutrition.
5. The next step for the queen is to set up a nest and attract workers and drones.

As soon as the family is fully staffed, the house is filled with carbon dioxide emitted by insects, which activates the breeding functions of bumblebees. The stage of creating a family ends with the appearance of larvae in the house and the selection of barren females from the hive.

Important! The bumblebee hive must be kept clean, dead individuals and foreign elements must be removed from it, which provoke the development of parasites.

Main differences from beekeeping

Unlike bees, bumblebees do not have a highly organized swarm, are not amenable to third-party control and are not tied to their own hives. The life span of bumblebees is short, lasting only 1 vegetative season, after which most individuals die of natural causes. Viability is possessed only by the uterus of bumblebees, which by the end of autumn have time to be fertilized. Young females that are born in late summer or early autumn also survive, it is they who will bring offspring to the family next year.

Unlike the bee apiary, the bumblebee family must be replenished annually with new drones and working individuals from outside.Before the onset of cold weather, surviving individuals hide in shelter and fall asleep. The bumblebee houses are also easy to build and can be made by hand.

Important! A bee hive is a complex mechanism in which insects live, healing nectar ripens, propolis and other bee products are produced.

Bumblebee farming as a business

The level of bumblebee breeding business is at an early stage of development, but large agro-complexes and farms are already interested. With the help of industrious insects, the yield of various crops is significantly increased, their taste properties and commercial characteristics are improved. Many farmers specifically enter into contracts for the supply of populated bumblebee hives during the growing season.

Important! Insects actively pollinate plants not only in the natural environment, but also in greenhouse complexes, which increases the demand for their breeding.

What determines income

The profitability of such a business is quite high. At minimal cost, the bumblebee breeder gets a bountiful harvest of horticultural and horticultural crops, plus he can implement a project to sell insects to farms and agricultural complexes. And since the bumblebee family is characterized by a short lifespan, such sales will be annual and will bring financial stability to the breeder.

Bumblebee farming in numbers

Before breeding a bumblebee apiary, you need to familiarize yourself with the approximate costs. The cost of a full-fledged family ranges from 3 to 5 thousand rubles. If you get 10 or more bumblebee families by the season, then during the growing season you can earn more than 50 thousand rubles.

The cost of building insect houses is minimal, because they use improvised materials.

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