Chinese honeybee is an excellent native bee species in China. Before the live frame beehive was introduced into China, it was generally raised in barrels. At present, this method of beekeeping is still used in some parts of China, especially in remote mountain areas. Let's take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of barrel beekeeping!
1、 Closer to nature
Chinese bees have very strict requirements on the nesting environment. Most Chinese bees that live in nature build their nests in tree holes and stone crevices that are rarely seen by people. From this point of view, barrel beekeeping has the advantage of being closer to nature. Creating a wild environment for Chinese bees artificially is more conducive to the survival and reproduction of bees. Moreover, Chinese bees raised in this kind of simulated wild environment are not easy to escape
2、 Spleen making is more free
The nest spleen is generally rectangular when the live frame hive is used for beekeeping. However, in the natural environment, the nest spleen is actually semicircular, and all the nests and spleens are hemispherical as a whole. On the surface, there is no essential difference between rectangular and semicircular nests and spleens. In fact, it is precisely this honeycomb structure that is hemispherical as a whole and semicircular as a single spleen that enables Chinese bees to survive and reproduce in harsh environments.
3、 Not conducive to management
The biggest disadvantage of bucket beekeeping is that it is not easy to manage. For example, it is difficult to determine when the bees will be separated during the bee separation period, while the development of the queen stage in the live frame beehive is clear at a glance. In addition, it is very difficult to manually separate bees for bucket beekeeping. In this regard, the live frame beehive is very simple. In addition, it is also difficult to deal with pests and diseases when bucket beekeeping occurs, and sometimes it is completely self destructive.
4、 Hurt bees while taking honey
Wooden barrel beekeeping is also a big trouble in obtaining honey. The general process of obtaining honey is to use smoke to drive bees away from the spleen and then cut the honey spleen. However, bees have the habit of storing honey and rearing insects on the same spleen, that is to say, there are both honey and larvae on a spleen, and honey is basically in the upper part of the nest spleen. To extract honey, the whole nest spleen must be cut off. As a result, half of the larvae will be killed or injured by taking honey once.
5、 Low output
The annual honey yield of barrel beekeeping is very low, because every time you take honey, it will cause great harm to the bees. Therefore, you can only take honey once a year. Taking honey for many times will not improve the yield, but will weaken the colony and even fly away. However, there is no such limit when using movable frame beekeeping. As long as there is mature honey on the comb spleen, you can cut the honey.
Conclusion: Barrel beekeeping is the inheritance of thousands of years of beekeeping history in China. The advantage is that the living environment of bee colonies is closer to nature. The disadvantage is that it is not conducive to the management of bee colonies and is easy to hurt bees when taking honey. Therefore, we suggest that we try to use live frame beehives for beekeeping when developing bee breeding.
