Growing bumblebees on an industrial scale. Artificial bumblebee house How to make a bumblebee house

Few of the fans rural business knows about such a direction as breeding bumblebees. Since these insects are freely found in nature, few people think that they can be bred, they can be useful and they can build a business on them.

Use of bumblebees in agriculture

Bumblebees are used to pollinate various garden and vegetable crops. They are simply irreplaceable greenhouse farming, when the issue of pollination of cultivated crops is particularly acute. Moreover, compared to bees, bumblebees are non-aggressive towards humans. Thanks to their fur, they are able to regulate temperature own body, and can fly when it is cold enough, when the bees are already hibernating.

Bumblebees are used for more than just pollination. As practice has shown, they contribute to:

• increasing the yield of vegetables and fruits;
• increasing both the quality and yield of such industrial crops, such as forage grasses, alfalfa, red clover and others;
• improvement of content nutrients in fruits, preservation and presentation of the crop;
• increasing the profitability of greenhouse production;
• receiving additional profit from bumblebee wax.

A minimum of four bumblebee families must be established per hectare of cultivated land.

Where to get bumblebees

To breed bumblebees, it is necessary to find queens. There are two ways to get adults for breeding: catch them outdoors or purchase from the farm. Please note that only bumblebees of the B. Terrestris species need to be bred.

They need to be caught in the spring, when the insects begin their first flights. At the same time, care must be taken to catch queens that have not yet built nests, since they can only do this once. Queens must be raised in conditions as close to natural as possible. This is the only way to ensure offspring High Quality, on what your business will depend.

To reassure the insects, they can be purchased from domestic or foreign farms. Then the price of one insect will be about 5 euros.

Criteria for evaluating purchased bumblebees

If you decide to start your own business ordering insects from farms, remember that the supplier is responsible for the safety of the insects during transportation. But even if the insects were delivered safely, it is important to evaluate their quality - your future business largely depends on this. They must be assessed according to the following parameters:

1. Package. The cardboard box must be intact, without smudges or stains, and have a temperature of approximately 18-22 o C
2. Insects. When hit daylight, they should start moving, buzzing, some of them fly up to the lid of the box. Remember that no more than 60% of individuals remain visible, the rest is inside the nest and appears from there over time.
3. Purity. There should not be many dead larvae and adults inside. A characteristic honey aroma should emanate from the box. The food should be mostly eaten.

Organization of insect breeding

When the queen is ready to lay eggs, she is placed in a special structure where she will build her nest. This design must be manufactured in accordance with the following requirements:

• the material from which it is made must be harmless, lightweight, and withstand frequent washing and disinfection;
• there should be holes or other opportunity to observe the development of the family;
• convenient feeders that are easy to replenish with food;
• the structure must be equipped with a ventilation system.

When the queen lays a nest, it is necessary to ensure that the proper temperature, humidity, and sterility are maintained inside. It is important that the insect is not disturbed by anything. In addition, you need to make sure that there is enough carbohydrate and protein food inside, as well as material from which the insect will construct honey bags and pots.

At one time, the queen lays approximately 8 eggs, from which larvae emerge over time. When a family reaches a population of 50-60 working bumblebees, it is placed in a so-called bumblebee - an analogue of a hive, but focused on bumblebees.

Pairing

In order for the business to grow, individuals must be mated on time. When males appear in the nest, young females appear within a week. They mate in special containers measuring 70x70x70 cm. Moreover, females can mate with more than one male. Breeding bumblebees has its advantages: after mating, the males do not die, as happens with honey bees.

After this, the males are removed, and the queens are well fed, preparing for wintering. To do this, gradually reduce the temperature from 20 o C to 5 o C. A piece of disinfected peat is placed inside the container, where the queen hides during the cold period. Then the container is placed in the refrigerator for three months, maintaining a temperature of 1 o C.

Shmelevik

As already mentioned, insect breeding is carried out in a special structure - a bumblebee. It is significantly different from the usual bee hive. Since bumblebees build their nests by building them up and out in layers, the bumblebee nest has not only a removable roof, but also a removable bottom. Thus, as the nest grows, it can be carefully removed and placed in another, more spacious bumblebee nest.

Today on the market you can find designs of both domestic and foreign production. Among the imported ones, the most popular are bumblebees produced in Belgium and Israel. In addition, designs are divided into several types, depending on the goals of your business, as well as the areas in which the bumblebee family will work.

To start your business, you can purchase:

• standard design, which is installed on protected ground;
• a medium-sized bumblebee in which a family will live, pollinating plants with short period flowering;
• minihive, which is suitable for small areas (from 300 sq. m and less);
• multihive – three bumblebees covered in one waterproof package (placed on berry plantations, orchards, when growing forage grasses).

Income

The bumblebee breeding business generates income from the sale of insect families. One family consists of 150 heads and costs on average $80-95. However, there are players on the market who sell families at dumping prices of $70. In any case, to make your business profitable, monitor the quality of the bumblebees you reproduce.

Not only bees, but also bumblebees can collect nectar and receive honey; this is what they feed their offspring with, however, bumblebees do not store honey for the winter. After all, bumblebees live only one summer; only one queen can survive the winter. In the spring, she wakes up and examines the surroundings in search of a suitable nest. It can be located anywhere: in an old woodpecker or squirrel hollow, in a mouse or hedgehog hole. The main thing is that the “room” must be closed so that a certain temperature is maintained inside.

Research has shown that bumblebees play a huge role in pollination. various plants when promoting Agriculture on North. The fact is that bumblebees are one of the most cold-resistant insects, well adapted to life in harsh conditions north, where other pollinators either cannot live or fly a short time. Bumblebees reach as far north as Greenland, Novaya Zemlya, Chukotka and Alaska. Such unusual cold resistance of these insects is associated with the peculiarities of thermoregulation of their body. It is generally accepted that insects are cold-blooded animals, whose body temperature does not differ from the temperature environment. But when they began to measure the body temperature of various insects on Elbrus and in the Khibiny Mountains, it turned out that the body temperature of bumblebees is on average 40°C and can exceed the ambient temperature by 20 - 30°. This heating is caused by the work of the pectoral muscles. As soon as the insect stops moving, it begins to cool down. However, if it begins to “hum,” that is, quickly contract the chest muscles without moving the wings, then the decrease in temperature stops or it begins to slowly rise. Thanks to this feature, bumblebees maintain a temperature in the nest of about 30-35°C. It has long been noticed that a “trumpeter” appears in bumblebee nests before dawn, which, as it was believed, raises his fellow tribesmen to work with his hum. But it turned out that he was simply shivering from the cold. Indeed, in the pre-dawn hours the temperature at the soil surface drops significantly (the humming was observed at 3-4 o’clock in the morning, and as you know, these are the coldest hours). The nest cools down and, in order to warm it, bumblebees have to work hard with their pectoral muscles. On hot days you can see a bumblebee at the entrance to the nest, fluttering its wings. He is ventilating the nest. In addition to the constant state of vibration (muscle tension and relaxation), the hairs covering its head, neck and abdomen help the bumblebee maintain its body temperature. Ability to support high temperature bodies allowed bumblebees to penetrate far to the North. But she doesn’t allow them to live in the tropics. About 300 species of bumblebees live in Northern Eurasia, in North America and in the mountains. And only two species are found in tropical regions of Brazil.

Bumblebees are excellent pollinators. Thanks to their long proboscis, they can extract nectar even from flowers with narrow corollas, thereby collecting pollen from plants inaccessible to other insects. When did Europeans move to South Australia and New Zealand, whose climate resembles that of Europe, they began to try to grow red clover for livestock. It produced rich crops and bloomed beautifully, but there were no seeds. It turned out that neither Australia nor New Zealand has bumblebees, which pollinate this plant in Europe and North America. When two species of bumblebees were brought here from Europe and they acclimatized, clover began to produce rich harvests of seeds. Now bumblebees are rightfully considered the best pollinators of this valuable food plant. For this purpose, they are artificially bred and settled on clover trees. Great successes in artificial breeding of bumblebees were achieved in Russia thanks to the work of amateur entomologist G. S. Voveikov. Tests of the “bumblebee growers” ​​he created on an experimental plot showed that the yield of red clover seeds increased by 71% compared to the control. Bumblebees collect not only nectar, but also pollen from plants. Bumblebees help bring this delicacy to the nest special devices, which are located on the hind legs. This is a paired apparatus consisting of “brushes” and “baskets”. But pollen ends up not only in special recesses on the paws. Sometimes dust particles linger on the abdomen and are then transferred to another flower. Bumblebees can collect pollen and nectar from plants very, very quickly. Biologists have calculated that just one field bumblebee visits 2,634 flowers during a flight lasting 100 minutes.

Bumblebees work flawlessly in any weather, and thanks to additional pollination, the yield of, for example, tomatoes increases by a third. Bumblebees fly from dawn to dusk. The most intense is before lunch. They don't care about light rain. Caring for the offspring is above all else. On bad days, the female only needs one flight to provide the brood with food and keep it warm for an hour. But in May, when there are heavy, prolonged rains for 3-4 days, the brood may die. Not from the cold, but from lack of food.

Garden bumblebees do not fly to the surrounding fields and rightly take bribes from garden plants. If bumblebees choose your greenhouse as an apiary, then even in the heat there will not be a single barren flower on the tomato bushes. Also in the cucumber rows. Already at dawn, bumblebees will collect nectar and pollen, pollinating flowers until the onset of 32 - 36-degree heat, when pollination is no longer useful. Bumblebees, unlike bees, navigate better in the greenhouse and do not hit the film and glass.

Behind last years bumblebees on summer cottages became less. Perhaps one of the reasons is that in April-May, in search of nesting sites, they penetrate through cracks inside buildings, from which they cannot find way back, and die near closed windows after 2-3 days, not having the necessary food reserves in the body after wintering. So it turns out that bright, but leaky country houses turn into traps for these noble insects.

Another reason for the death of bumblebees is the improper use of pesticides. Do not spray insecticides on flowering plants, as well as during the day, especially during hot hours, without isolating flowering crops with film. It is better to carry out processing late in the evening.

Despite their relatively large size, bumblebees are very peaceful and do not sting very much.. Therefore, their pupae, cocoons and larvae often become a tasty dish for foxes, badgers, voles and other rodents. Bumblebees have another terrible enemy. If you compare it with the bumblebee itself, it turns out that the offender is several times smaller, but he takes it not by force, but by quantity. It can be found in any forest, in any clearing. This is an ant. Ants are not averse to tasting bumblebee honey, as well as snacking on fattened larvae. Therefore, to prevent the ants from accidentally stumbling upon the nest, bumblebees remove all blades of grass and twigs around the nest.

Come and visit us.

Every summer resident can attract bumblebees to his plot. It is enough to insulate with inside part of the wall of the utility room, approximately 1 x 1-1.5 m in area, with straw, moss, dry leaves, cover everything with roofing felt, hardboard. Drill two holes with a diameter of 1-2.5 cm from the outside for the tap hole, build a canopy over it, nailing a plank.

Sometimes a piece of asbestos-cement pipe, closed on both sides, with a hole as a hole, can serve as a house for bumblebees; a flower pot and even a birdhouse. The inside of the nest is half filled with soft tow or cotton wool. The entrance hole in the bumblebee nest is covered from rain by a piece of wooden plank placed on the stones along the edges. Also place a stone or brick on top so that neither wind nor animals can move the plank.

Beehive house from flower pot- this is the simplest nesting site for bumblebees and you should not despair if bumblebees do not populate it. Even the entomologist V. Grebennikov, who was professionally involved in bumblebee breeding, had them populate no more than half of the artificial nests, which is considered very successful. You will need patience. If the house has not been occupied until the end of July, put it in the shed for storage until the next season. The hive house for bumblebees should be left in the garden from April to the end of July every year until a bumblebee colony appears in it.

For targeted artificial breeding bumblebees, there is an option for a plastic two-room nesting house-hive from the Oxford Bee Company (Oxford Bee Company).

Comment: To preserve heat, you can put more cotton wool there.

The location of the hive house for bumblebees will be suggested by female bumblebees looking for a place to nest in April-May-June. This can be any cozy, not damp corner of the garden. Bumblebees are not aggressive and get used to the close proximity of humans. The only thing is that you need to protect the hive from ants, which can enter the house not through the tunnel, but through the cracks in the walls.

Place bumblebee houses in your garden every year and hope for the best.

bumblebees They differ from honey bees in that their colonies last only one season. Females fertilized in autumn overwinter in clearings and forest edges, buried in sand or turf, and in April - May they can already be found on flowering willows. Having refreshed themselves with nectar, the females begin to look for a nesting site. They fly slowly low above the ground, often land, and carefully examine holes and crevices on the ground, in trees and buildings. Preference is given to last year's rodent burrows, where there is some kind of fibrous insulating material.

Making a small nest, with a diameter of about 3-4 cm, the female begins to carry pollen there from spring honey plants. This pollen is called pollen briquette. At the entrance the ancestor future family builds a wax vessel - a “pot” and fills it with liquid honey. She lays several eggs on a briquette of pollen, covers them on top with wax, sits on these eggs and, pressing tightly, warms them with her warmth. Soon larvae appear in the nest.

Next portion The bumblebee places eggs on the top or side of the already sealed cells. From them emerge young working bumblebees, which differ from the first generation in being larger in size. The queen now flies into the field less and less often, and is mainly engaged in laying eggs and heating them.

The nest – the bumblebee “cone” – also grows due to the construction of new cocoons. Some of them are converted by bumblebees into honey “pots”. The bumblebee “bump” can reach quite large sizes– up to 20 cm in diameter or more.

In many species of bumblebees observed interesting phenomenon: an alien queen penetrates the nest and kills the decrepit one

ancestor. Such queen changes occur up to six times per season.

By the end of summer Young females emerge from the largest cocoons. They work in the nest for some time, carry nectar and pollen, and then fly away and mate. Pay attention in the fall to the flowers of late honey plants. You can see numerous male bumblebees on them. They can be picked up with bare hands: males do not have a stinger. But the perfume smell is clearly noticeable, attracting females.

One of the important stages choosing a location for installing underground bait hives.

It should be remembered that bumblebees choose areas that have a peculiar microrelief and microclimate - the edges of ditches, the slopes of embankments, old garbage heaps overgrown with grass, the remains of buildings, the edges of forests, slightly elevated areas of clearings. Before gaining experience, you can be guided by intuition: corners, nature, slightly and relatively long ago changed by man, cozy in appearance for us, for the most part are attractive to female bumblebees. The most reliable indicator of the most successful location for establishing a bumblebee apiary is the female bumblebees, which make search flights in April - May - June (depending on the latitude, weather, type of bumblebee). An area where at least 3-5 searching females can be found within an hour in spring in good weather can also become their nesting site.

After choosing a place, move on to constructing an underground bait hive.

Its dimensions (Fig. 1):

the thickness of the board walls (1) is 2.3-3 cm, the internal volume of the hive (2) is 1.5-3 cubic meters. dm (i.e. the side of the internal cubic cavity is 12-14 cm); the length of the manhole tube (3) is 90-100 cm, the internal hole (4) is 15-20 mm.

Making a hive from well-dried wood of any species, except highly resinous. The access tube (made of wooden slats, hard plastic, aluminum) should fit tightly into the hole drilled in the front wall. The lid is 2-2.5 cm wider than the box. Four narrow slats in the form of a square are nailed to its lower side. The lid should not be put on too tightly (2-3 mm gap), as it will be difficult to remove when it swells. The outer end of the tube and the internal channel are painted black in advance (to a depth of 4-5 cm). The darker hole attracts bumblebees. A long (up to 1 m) hole imitates a rodent burrow and prevents ants from entering the nest. Having prepared the frame of the hive, they begin to install it. In the chosen place, using a sharp spade, carefully cut out a piece of turf, thin at the edges, about half a meter in diameter, and set aside entirely. In the middle of the resulting round funnel, use a small spatula to dig out a cubic hole into which the hive would freely fit. The removed soil is placed on a piece of tarpaulin. A V-shaped groove is laid from this hole to accommodate the taphole tube. The dug out oblong piece of turf is laid aside with the grass facing down.

its upper part(Fig. 1) is cut with a knife so that when the turf is put in place there will be space for the tube. The length of the groove should exactly match the tube and extend into a neat taphole the size of a human fist. Hard tubes are laid with a slight inclination towards the tap hole, soft ones - in a slightly arched “hump up”. Before laying, the outlet hole is plugged with cotton wool so that the tube does not become clogged with earth during operation. The hive, along with the base of the tube, is wrapped in a large piece of plastic film (against ants and moisture) and lowered into a cubic-shaped pit, but in such a way that, if desired, it can be easily unfolded and the lid removed. The entrance tube is covered with an oblong piece of turf, and the hive is covered with disc-shaped turf. After this, the earth is compacted, filling large cracks, especially carefully processing the entrance hole. The soil in it should be dense and not crumble. The tube does not go to the very bottom of the hole, but 1-2 cm above. In this case, particles of crumbled or rain-washed soil will not block the entrance to the future bumblebee nest. Last year's leaves and debris are removed from the area. At the end of the work, remove the cotton swab from the tube and remove the excess soil away. The hive is buried in the ground so that it is invisible, the turf covering it protrudes as a mound, the entrance hole, on the contrary, should be clearly visible after a few more steps, and at the bottom of it the dark entrance hole should be clearly visible. Its direction in relation to the cardinal points does not affect nesting.

Underground installation diagram bait hives is shown in Figure 2.

Instead of tubes, you can make a communication passage from wooden slats nailed together. The internal size of the channel is from 15x15 to 20x20 mm. Plastic hoses made for watering the garden are acceptable, but to prevent them from flattening under the weight of the turf, they are lined with wood chips or plywood scraps. To remove the unpleasant smell for bumblebees, such hoses are kept on the roof for at least one year.

Gaps inside the hive and between the hive and the tube they cover with ordinary plasticine, which bumblebees often use to build honey cells. The hives are filled 2/3 with soft fibrous material: short-cut tow, dry moss (preferably old), gray wool. It is advisable to add to this “filling” at least a little insulating material from rodent burrows, where the female animal raised its cubs. A hive with such material is most attractive to bumblebees. If you place a whole old nest of a vole or a wood mouse in a hive, there will be an almost one hundred percent guarantee that it will be populated by bumblebees.

Hives can be installed and semi-underground, taking into account the microrelief (Fig. 3).

To avoid overheating the lids of the hives and the parts of the walls facing the sun are shaded with hay, branches, or painted bright white.

Every 2-3 During the day, the tapholes are inspected and cleaned of crumbled soil and debris blown by the wind. It is especially important to do this after rain.

Bumblebees are very accommodating and quickly get used to the close proximity of humans. They are incomparably more peaceful than honey bees. When opening a hive with bumblebees, in which a family regularly “cared for” by humans lives, you can work without a bee net, without fear of stings. A bumblebee working on a flower does not sting at all, even if you drive it away (without grabbing it with your fingers, of course).

Bumblebees populate hives for the most part unnoticed. During the first weeks they spend a long time in the nest, equipping it and incubating the offspring; it is extremely rare to notice the departure and arrival of the founder.

Check The hives can be populated 3-4 weeks after they are laid, when there are noticeably fewer searching females. They do it like this. In the morning, a light barrier is inserted into the end of the tube located in the hole - dry leaves, loosened pieces of cotton wool. If by the evening or the next day they are shifted, the test is repeated. A secondly moved barrier means that the nest is inhabited. In the second half of summer, you can open the nest - lift the turf, unroll the plastic film and remove the hive cover. Yellowish spots on the cotton wool in the hive and traces of its tugging probably mean that bumblebees are here. You can carefully disassemble it with your fingers until the buzzing of the female is heard or the inside of the nesting chamber, coated with yellow wax, appears. If the cotton wool is cold without any visible changes, it means that the hive has not yet been populated, and if it is also damp, then the hive has not been installed at all. Particular care must be taken to protect the nest from ants. They usually get inside not through a long entrance tube, but through cracks in the box itself. The presence of corpses of female bumblebees in the cotton wool at the entrance should not frighten: there is a natural change of ancestors in the family.

The hives are set up for settlement around mid-April. Bumblebees love to have a corridor adjacent to their home. In contrast to the recommended designs of hives with long tunnels, “bumblebee canopies” are placed inside, that is, no additional extensions are made to the main hives.

Beehives can be made made of plywood, fibreboard (fibreboard) or from off-cut boards, and corridors only of plywood or fibreboard. The drawers are covered oil paint of any color intended for outdoor use, a year before their use, so that the smell disappears. If the hive is under a canopy, then they do not paint it.

Fill the hive with cotton wool or small thin stems of dry grass from mouse nests. The hive covers are made removable.

First, they line the inside of the hive walls and its bottom with layers of cotton wool. Then, having slightly torn another portion of it into shreds, they fill the entire house without compacting it. The female will build a nest from this material herself. Do the same with hay. To attract females, one or two empty bumblebee cocoons from last year are placed in the middle of the nest. “Homestead farming” No. 2, 1990

An amazing and unique time of flowering. Everyone rejoices at this and expects that the flowering will be followed by the ovary, and then the fruits. However, in order for the branches to bend under the weight of the filled fruits, the process of pollination is necessary.

Usually this useful work various insects, especially bees and bumblebees, diligently perform. But if bees fly out of the hive in search of nectar and pollen only at an air temperature of +12 °C, then bumblebees fly out at +4...+6 °C. Bumblebees work flawlessly in any weather from dawn to dusk. The most intense is before lunch. They don't care about light rain. Biologists have calculated that just one field bumblebee visits 2,634 flowers during a flight lasting 100 minutes.
Garden bumblebees do not fly to the surrounding fields and regularly take bribes from garden plants. If bumblebees choose a greenhouse as an apiary, then even in the heat there will not be a single barren flower on the tomato bushes. The same goes for cucumber beds. Already at dawn, bumblebees will collect nectar and pollen, pollinating flowers until the onset of 32–36 degree heat, when pollination is no longer useful.
In recent years, there have been fewer bumblebees in summer cottages, but every summer resident can attract them by making a hive house for them. A box 150x150x150 mm is knocked together from old unhewn boards 25-30 mm thick. The bottom and lid can be made from 10-12 mm plywood. The bottom is nailed tightly to the body, the lid should close in a “snap-on” manner. To do this, four strips with a cross section of 15x15 mm are nailed along its perimeter from the inside. In the upper middle part of the front wall of the house, two adjacent holes with a diameter of 18 mm are drilled. One is closed with a wooden stopper, and the other is left open. As insulating material, tow, moss or material from a mouse nest is placed inside, no more than half the height of the box. Styrofoam the size of a box is placed under the houses to retain heat in the nest. By the way, you can use foam plastic instead of wooden parts. Bumblebee houses are placed at the end of April - beginning of May under apple trees or near gooseberries, currants, raspberries on the south side and always with entrances to the south, on pegs 25-35 cm high. To really have one bumblebee family, in the first years you have to place 5- 8 houses at a distance of 3-4 m from each other. Two or three “bumblebee” can be installed underground. To do this, tubes are made from wooden slats 10 mm thick. Four slats are knocked together so that the hole size is 18x18 mm. A wooden tube 80-90 cm long is tightly attached to the tap hole, to the drilled hole in the house. The end of the tube placed in the entrance hole (entrance to the tube) is cut at an angle, which helps the bumblebee find the entrance. After attaching the tube to the house, all cracks are covered with clay to prevent ants from entering the box. The outer end of the tube and its internal channel to a depth of 50 mm is smeared with charcoal so that it looks like a dark hole, similar to a mouse hole. Use a shovel to cut out a piece of turf and set it aside. Dig a cubic hole and place the hive in it. The turf is also cut out for a pipe-hole with a hole the size of an apple. To prevent rain from flowing into the hive through the tube, when installing it, it is slightly tilted with the entrance end down. The entire structure is covered with a small layer of earth and covered with turf.
If there are few female bumblebees, they are caught elsewhere and brought in matchboxes. Each female is placed in a separate box. The caught bumblebees are immediately allowed into the hive and the entrance is closed, which is opened only at 22-23 pm. If you don’t like the hive, the female may fly away in the morning. Then another “founder” is placed in the house.
It’s good when there are a lot of annual and perennial flowers on the site. Not only are they pleasing to the eye, but they are essential food for bumblebees, bees and others. beneficial insects. There should be plenty of spring primroses near bumblebee nesting sites. The presence of late-flowering plants allows females preparing for a long winter to create the necessary reserves in their bodies.