longevity

[dro]

Can you help telling things ca influence worker bee longevity an how long is this?

 

[Finman]

1. Wintered bees die soon when new bees emerge in spring. Wintered bees do not forage honey yield.

2. The hive need masses new bees to be able to forage.
Foragers are over 3 weeks old. 3 weeks brood + 3 weeks as home workers

3. Different bees must bee in balance in the hive that it has capacity to nurse the home and forage

4. Wax building bees are in special age 2-4 weeks old.

5. Those bees which have nursed larvae in autumn, do not survive to winter.

6. After winter colony has lack of young feeding bees even if the colony is strong. Brooding explodes when new nursing bees emerge.

7. Lack of protein and other nutritiens shortens the life ow worker.
If you feed only sugar in spring buildup, to make larva milk the bees can take nutrities from their body but it shorten their life. Of course it depends if weather allow bees to forage pollen.

8. In late summer flowers stop blooming and they start to prepare themselve for the winter. When bees fly on landscape and do not get food, they die soon onto meadows.

The bee number of the hive collapses 70% in two weeks. So I may press the colony from 6 box into one or 2 box.

 

[Finman]

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To get into balance for honey foraging you must make into balance different kind of bees.

In false swarming the hive is devided into old bees and into brood part.

It means that brood part is not able to forage for 3 weeks.

The bee part have soon lack of new bees because old bees die as much as new are layed. After 2 weeks nurser bees are wrong age the the hives has lost allmost half of its flying bees.

To put into balance the bee age join the brood part and flying bee part.
Brood part has much nurser bees but not brood to nurse.
in bee part old bees nurse brood and cannot forage.
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You may join what ever brood nuc and a colony which have not brood.

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