3.9. Biotechnology, cell and genetic engineering, cloning. The role of cell theory in the formation and development of biotechnology. The importance of biotechnology for the development of breeding, agriculture, microbiological industry, preservation of the planet's gene pool. Ethical

Composition of the bee colony Advice No. 5Each normal bee colony in the period of active activity consists of three species: one fully developed fetal female queen, several hundred (sometimes thousands) male drones and from 10 to 100 thousand underdeveloped females - worker bees. except

The Strength of the Bee Colony Tip # 35 The size, or strength, of the colony is critical to the honey harvest and survival of the bee colony. The more bees there are in the family, the higher the honey yield and the lower the consumption of supporting feed per unit of live weight. Correlation coefficient between

Bee family nest Tip # 58 A nest is a space in a honey bee dwelling occupied by combs with brood, honey and bee bread. In the nest, bees raise young animals, drones and queens, store food supplies and hibernate. In vivo, whether it is a hollow tree or

Predators of the bee family Advice number 474Butterfly "dead head" got this name for its characteristic pattern, similar to a skull with bones. It is a large butterfly 50 mm long with a wingspan of 120–140 mm. Flies late in the evening and at night. At night, it enters the hive through the notch

Composition of a bee colony A bee colony is a complex organism consisting of several thousand worker bees, several hundred drones and a queen, linked into a single whole by metabolism. Thanks to such a community, the bee colony can collect large amounts of honey and

Bee family nest In natural conditions, bees settle in tree hollows, crevices or other sheltered places. The base of the nest is made up of parallel hanging wax honeycombs, fixed at a distance of 9–13 mm from each other. Each honeycomb consists of cells,

Life activity of a bee colony in different periods of the year Spring-summer period In spring and summer, bees are most active. During this period, they do a lot of work, and in a certain sequence. The transition of bees from one type of work to another takes place in

So, we already understand that a large number of fresh clean combs gives room for the development of a bee colony, their absence slows down and completely stops it. As a result, a natural cycle of development of a bee colony is formed, the duration of which depends on the size of the dwelling in its possession and on the vitality of the colony itself.
Understanding the natural cycle is perhaps the most important in the natural approach to "keeping bees". After all, only based on this understanding, we will be able to decide how to deal with our charges, and develop those few operations that need to be carried out in the hive during the year.
This understanding will allow us to understand why the owner of a multi-hive hive has to constantly struggle with swarming, and how to make sure that in our hives the bees work quietly all summer, collecting honey and getting ready for winter.

So attention! The most important honeycomb information:

• Bees spend a lot of effort on building combs. It is estimated that by pulling one gram of combs, bees eat less than eight grams of honey. Over the summer, a strong family is able to "delay" up to 15 Dadanov (or 10 one and a half) frames. And fill with honey - several times more!
• Honeycombs are used by bees many times, that is, more than one generation of bees is hatched in one cell and stocks of honey and bee bread are added more than once.
• Gradually, the combs, on which the brood hatch, darken and eventually become completely black. The walls of the cells thicken and the diameter decreases.
• Bees do not use old (black) combs, leaving them for fresh ones.
• Bees cannot gnaw through black combs in order to build new ones in their place. Or do they not want to? In general, they don't.
• The old (last year's) stocks of honey are rarely used by the bee colony, in the presence of a bribe, preferring nectar, or fresh, this season, honey. Old, often already candied, honey accumulates in the hive and lies "dead weight", being a bait for all sorts of living creatures.

That is, the general picture of the life of bees in a hollow is as follows: bees are constantly building new combs, mastering the empty space at their disposal. The uterus starts working from old combs to new ones, and black, spent combs with stocks of old honey remain without use. What does this lead to?
In addition, a strong family will build up a small hollow in a season and, after wintering, will tune in to swarming. This is understandable: with the beginning of honey collection, all free cells are quickly filled with nectar, the queen has nowhere to sow, the young bee has nowhere to build, besides, the nest overheats due to overpopulation.

In a large hollow, the bees will from year to year finish building the combs to the sides and downward, gradually leaving the black, spent layers. In the second and, perhaps, in the third year, the bees are unlikely to swarm, building up a large strong colony (I mean the Central Russian breed), but over time, having worked out all the space of the hollow, they will begin to release one strong swarm after another.
Thus, the life of a bee colony in the hollow of a tree follows the law of cyclicity inherent in nature in general, and especially alive. At the end of the cycle, the duration of which depends on the size of the hollow, the strength of the bee swarm inhabiting it, the summer flow and other factors, the family leaves the hollow, leaving its contents to numerous lovers of bee delicacies, from wax moths to bears.
Through their efforts, in a very short time, it will be cleaned out and prepared for the introduction of a new swarm.
This, in my opinion, is the long life cycle of a bee colony. But there is also a small cycle, no less important for our practice - the one that the bee colony lives during the year. Our further speech will go about it.

Life of a bee colony throughout the year

It is known that each individual worker bee lives for a relatively short time - about 40 days. During this time, she manages to live a useful, rich and vibrant life, the stages of which are described in detail in special literature. At different periods of its existence, she has to clean the cells, feed the young, pull the combs, fly for a bribe, guard the nest, and much more to do for the benefit of her bee family.
The worker bee begins its complex and varied labor activity almost immediately after "birth". And here's what is surprising: no one teaches her, does not take final exams and does not issue a work order - at every moment she herself knows exactly what and how she needs to do.

And this question, of course, remains outside the research board. The behavior of the bee is traditionally explained by an omnipotent instinct, that is, it is not explained in any way. And this is understandable - after all, here begins the realm of the spirit, in which materialistic science is completely powerless.

But if you look closely, then the manifestations of the spirit can be easily seen in any living being, if you stop considering everything that we are accustomed to to be simple and obvious.
But this is a completely separate topic, lying aside from the path of our research. As usual, we skip the description of the life stages of an individual bee, referring the curious reader to traditional literature. And we focus on the information that can be collected only bit by bit.
The idea of ​​a hive as a box with a number of bees at the root is not correct. The bee colony is constantly in dynamics, and the number of bees in it depends on the activity of the queen and varies greatly throughout the year. In the spring there are very few of them, they behave sluggishly, and allow you to calmly conduct an audit of the nest. At this time, the winter bee still predominates in the hive, whose task is only to overwinter and grow its spring shift.
The uterus begins to sow at the end of winter, but sows very little, gradually increasing the egg-laying. However, as soon as the first flow has begun, the daily sowing increases rapidly, and after a while a mass of young bees begins to appear in the hive. This is clearly seen: every day the young go out to fly, the collecting bees with bright specks of polish on their hind legs now and then flop on the entrance, there is a friendly joyful hum in the apiary.
In central Russia, the spring build-up lasts from mid-April to mid-May, and within these terms it is necessary to meet the spring revision - the only operation of the year that requires dismantling the nest. The best time for her is the beginning of May, when a steady early inflow has already begun, but the bees have not yet reached full strength. At the end of the month, it will be more difficult to do this!
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. So, by the end of May (do not forget to make allowances for the latitude of your area), the bee colony has already gained considerable strength. Somewhere around this time, a small period with practically no bribe awaits her, when the spring honey plants have already faded, and the main ones have not yet entered into force. At this time, families that have enough space inside the hive continue to develop, and those who are in constrained circumstances can already release a swarm.
This natural mechanism can easily be used by a natural beekeeper who has decided to expand his apiary. After the spring revision of the nest, he stops putting frames in the hive and closes the gap under the partition leading to the free space (details of the structure of the hive will be below), thereby limiting the possibility of family development. After the swarm has left, you will need to open the gap, and, by moving the partition, substitute the frames.
This simple procedure allows you to get as many swarms as you need, and at the most favorable time - at the beginning of summer. Strong swarms planted at this time will not only have time to prepare well for the winter, but may also produce some honey.
If you do not need swarms, then you just have to make sure that the family always has fresh foundation for construction and room for development. In this case, with a probability of 80--90 percent, the Central Russian bee will not enter a swarming state, preferring to intensify during the summer, filling the entire volume provided to it.
That is, every spring we put the bees in a situation of a large empty hollow (as mentioned above), in which there are no old reserves of honey and old black land, but there is a lot of space and opportunities for development.
This is the intelligent use of natural mechanisms.
Our main bribes are in June and early July. Whoever visited the apiary at that time knows what a unique sight it is. The apiary is buzzing like one huge beehive. Bees in a continuous succession rapidly fly out of the entrance and, returning back with a heavy load, heavily lower themselves onto the landing board. With darkness, flights stop, but there are still fan bees on the boarding board, expelling the warm air full of an amazing honey aroma.

During August, the activity of the colony gradually decreases, the number of bees in the hive decreases. And the curious researcher is again faced with the question: how does the uterus, in the midst of an abundant bribe, know that the honey harvest will soon begin to decline? After all, she needs to reduce her productivity in advance (three weeks in advance)! Science claims that bees, by conspiring among themselves, give her less food. But after all, a worker bee lives a little over a month, how does she know the annual natural cycles? Moreover, they can move for a couple of weeks from year to year?

According to my feelings, a bee family, living from generation to generation in a particular area, is a part of the local Nature, and because of this it simply "knows" the weather for at least six months in advance. And this is not surprising - after all, many plants, as discovered by scientists, prepare for winter in different ways, depending on whether it is mild or harsh.
This remark directly refers to the chapter in which we will talk about bee breeds, as well as some recommendations that can be found in beekeeping publications.
One of them is to "help" the bees to grow their families for the main honey collection. To do this, it is proposed to insert electric heaters into the hives in early spring or give incentive feeding in the spring, and so on ... There are a lot of techniques! What this leads to is sometimes described by practicing beekeepers who do not hesitate to talk about their mistakes.
For example, they artificially increased the mass of bees. And then a protracted spring, or the rains have charged! The main honey harvest has been postponed for two weeks, the bees have problems, and there is controversy in the magazines: what did they do wrong? It was necessary to increase, but a little later and in a different way! Beekeepers read and experiment again ... Do you think I'm exaggerating? Not at all. Read the old files of the Pchelovodstvo magazine - it's all there.
So, by the end of August - mid-September (always at different times!) The uterus stops laying eggs, and three weeks after that the last brood comes out.
The bees "born" in the fall are no longer involved in the work. Their task is to survive the winter and raise the spring brood. They live many times longer than a summer bee, moving little and, accordingly, not wearing out at work.
When outside the daytime temperature drops to 10 degrees, the bees practically stop flying and gradually begin to gather in the club. The most difficult time is ahead - winter.

In order to achieve an excellent result when breeding bees, you need to create ideal conditions for their life. Bee larvae (or, in other words, brood) must be provided with the necessary amount of nutrition, which will allow them to fully develop.

What exactly comes out of the egg is directly related to which cell of the honeycomb they were placed in. Bees and queens will develop from fertilized eggs placed in different honeycomb cells, while drone larvae hatch from unfertilized eggs placed in drone honeycomb cells.

The brood of drones and worker bees, which was placed in the cells of the honeycomb, feeds on royal jelly for three days, after which the bees supply them with a honey mixture with the addition of bee bread as feed. The larvae constantly feed only on royal jelly.

It is worth knowing that the process of feeding the larvae takes away too much energy from the nurse bees, since the entire brood can quickly die (in just a few minutes) if it is not fed in time. Therefore, the nurse has to produce about 1300 doses of milk per day.

Throughout the life of a bee, several stages of development can be distinguished:

1. egg;
2. larva;
3. chrysalis;
4. an adult.

The development of the egg in the hive is the embryonic stage, and the formation of the larva and pupa is the postembryonic phase. Transitions from one state to another are called metamorphoses.
Most of the developmental stages of drones, queens and worker bees have certain characteristics, as well as their own duration of the process.

The uterus glues the egg (only laid) to the bottom of any cell of the honeycomb, placing it in a vertical manner. Gradually developing, the egg will begin to deviate to the side and lie on the bottom of the nest for 3-4 days. The laid egg of the uterus, which is approximately 1.6 mm long, is characterized by a whitish color and a rather dense shell.

The embryo of the bee larva continues its development inside the egg for 3 days, after which its shell bursts - as a result, a small and legless worm hatches, which is commonly called the larva. In an optimal environment, the formation of the internal organs of the embryos takes from 68 to 76 hours.

Larva

Before the larvae leave the nest, the bees spread food around it. When it reaches the egg, the shell bursts and a larva is born, which immediately begins to eat the food next to it.

Nursing bees have to constantly add new portions of food, placing them near the first portion. After some time, the larva is completely surrounded by food, which is thoroughly mixed from its circular movement in the nest.

The size of the transparent young larvae, recently born, is about 1.6 mm. At the end of 24 hours, their length is already 2.6 mm, and the color becomes slightly matte. After three days, the larva covers the bottom of the nest with its size and gradually changes its color to a white, translucent color.

In the first 72 hours of life, the larvae receive only a large amount of milk from the feeding bees as food, exceeding its weight by 4 times. From the end of this period, the "embryo" receives a new food, consisting of a mixture of honey and bee bread. This food is her diet until the closure of the cell. And it is from this moment that a noticeable increase in mass is noted.

As the brood develops and up to its sealing in the comb, the larva will molt several times. On the sixth day after the brood emerged from the egg, the bees feed it for the last time, and then close the honeycomb cell with a special wax lid with the addition of pollen. This lid is particularly porous and does not interfere with normal air exchange inside the cell.

After the larva is in the sealed cell, the brood there fully straightens, adapts to the conditions and begins to actively spin the cocoon. This period can be called the pre-pupal stage.

This process ends one day after the cell is closed by the uterus. And a maximum of 3-4 hours after that, the larva begins another molt, during which the old skin folds back to the beginning of the cell, where it mixes with the feces left by the larva after the spinning of an individual cocoon.

Chrysalis

This stage can be safely called the "Adult Stage" (it will come immediately after molting). As the pupa develops daily, its skeleton acquires a hardness and dark color, similar in shade to an adult bee. If you look through the lid located on the cell, you can see a darker matte color, which is a sign of mature broods, from which young bees will appear after a few days. Immediately after the completion of the last skin change, the bee slowly but very stubbornly gnaws through the cell lid that has “immured it” and gets out.

After the young individual leaves the nest, its cocoon will be in the cell. Since each cell in the hive is a nest for many generations of bees, the white tint of the honeycomb gradually becomes yellow, then light brown, and then completely dark. Their walls and bottom are gradually thickening, as a result of which such combs look much narrower and shorter than others. In these cells, over time, rather small and weakened bees begin to develop, having small wings and a rather short proboscis.

Unlike the old bee, the young are endowed with a chitinous skeleton and a soft body, which is covered with a thin layer of hairs, giving it a fluffy and shaggy appearance. Gradually, the chitinous membrane becomes hard, the hairs are erased against the walls of the hives, and the body of the bee becomes bald and shiny in appearance.

On average, it takes 21 days for a worker bee to develop within the walls of the hive.

Development of a queen bee from an egg

In the first days, the development of the uterus from the stage of oviposition and up to the third day of the brood stage practically does not differ from the normal and healthy development of the working individual. The main difference is only in nutrition, since the queen bee larvae receive milk in large quantities up to the "immuring" of their cells.

The moulting and cocoon-spinning process of the queen proceeds identically to that of worker bees. In this case, the weight and size of the uterine larva greatly increases after the cell is closed. This is due to the fact that the nurse bee, before sealing the cell with a lid, abundantly spills the brood with milk.

This occurs approximately 24 hours before the uterus leaves the cell.

After the uterus is fully ripe, it quickly gnaws the lid and gets out of the nest. The entire development of the uterus takes about 16 days, after which it will be able to get out of the cell on its own. The beekeeper must know this, so as not to destroy the mother plant, especially when artificially rearing it.

Development of a drone from an egg

In addition to the duration of growth and the individual characteristics of the reproductive system of the drone, the process of formation of its larva practically does not differ from the development of any bee.

The drone brood is closed by bees using characteristic wax caps, which do not contain pollen, and the caps themselves have a rather loose base.

It takes approximately 24 days for the drone to fully develop after oviposition and before it leaves the nest.

Maintain humidity and optimal temperature

As early as February, the uterus may begin to lay eggs in the combs. It is after this that all the bees in the family begin to regularly maintain the temperature in the hive, as well as monitor the humidity in the place where the cells with the baby are located.

The optimum temperature for the development of laid eggs should be between 33-35 degrees. It is important to note that it mainly depends on the outside temperature. A sharp decrease, for example, to 31-32 degrees, leads to a deterioration in the development of future bees, as well as to some deficiencies in the quality of pupae - for example, poorly developed wings. Obviously, such an individual will die very quickly. If there is a sharp rise in temperature, at least up to 36 degrees, then all the pupae will die.

Bees are considered amazing creatures of nature. Their help to man is enormous. Optimally, each bee colony in its composition has one fetal queen, a certain number of drones, as well as worker bees. This is a unified biological education. Neither the bees, nor the queen, nor the drones are able to live separately from the family for a long time.

Worker bees are defined as certain females of the bee colony. Their difference is due to the fact that they have not fully developed genitals. They develop from fertilized eggs laid by the queen in bee cells. They do not mate with drones and therefore do not lay eggs.

At different times of the year, the number of worker bees in a family is different. The productivity of the bee colony directly depends on their number. In spring, the number ranges from 20 to 25 thousand individuals. In summer, the number can range from 80 to 100 thousand individuals. Such a family is considered to be strong. Individuals raised in a strong family live much longer.

The main producers of all products (honey, pollen, wax, propolis) are worker bees.

Specifications

1. Has a body that differs in structure from the body of the uterus and drone. It is much shorter - about 14 mm, the length of the proboscis is about 7.2 mm (may vary depending on the breed).
2. The proboscis serves to collect and process nectar. With its help, he also feeds the larvae, uterus and drones, brings water to the hive.
3. There are also wax glands. They are located on the abdomen and serve to release wax.
4. The sting helps to protect itself and the nest from external enemies.

It takes three weeks or 21 days from laying eggs by the uterus to birth. The lifespan of a worker bee is directly related to the intensity of the work performed. In summer, she lives no more than 1.5 months. In winter, much more - up to two hundred days. Each individual has its own job.

stages of development of a worker bee

This division is due to the physiological features of worker bees. Individuals up to 20 days of development are considered young. At this age, they are able to excrete large amounts of milk. After three weeks of life, wax glands begin to develop intensively on the abdomen. Then they become able to fly out to the meadows and bring nectar to the nest.

• feed the larvae in time;
• build new honeycombs;
• maintain the temperature in the hive necessary for life;
• clean and ventilate the nest;
• take nectar from flight workers and immediately process it into honey;
• insulate the walls of the hives with propolis.

After 15 - 20 days, non-flying individuals pass into the category of flying ones. Their responsibilities now include:

• collecting pollen and nectar from plants;
• hive protection;
• delivery of water to the nest;
• delivery of propolis.

After the bee is old, it only provides the nest with water. An individual that has safely endured the winter is capable of raising one young one in the spring. Young spring hatches are much larger - more than three bees.

Stages of development

The life cycle of each worker bee is short-lived, but it contains several important stages in the development of an individual. These stages can be designated:

The smell spreads from the fellow tribesmen at the entrance, it is better to paint the hives in a color that is distinguished by the working honey plants. It can be blue, yellow, or purple.

The main task of the worker bees is to ensure the livelihoods of the family. The list of works that a hard worker performs is determined by her age. But if there are problems in the family, she also performs work that is not typical of her age.

This ability of a working insect is most appreciated. Their body is perfectly adapted to perform various works - the sense of smell is well developed, anatomically, the body has all the necessary organs (long proboscis, goiter, sting, a device on legs and brushes for cleaning the body from pollen, wax abdominal glands).

Bees live according to the laws of the family, and very clearly adhere to the established hierarchy. This ensures a high level of organization.