Bort is the name given to a hollow in a tree if bees live in it. It forms naturally or is hollowed out by beekeepers. In order to secure the honeycombs, 2 snoses are placed in the side - poles that cross each other, and to collect honey they make dolzhei (narrow holes) and borteviki (long sticks with holes). Typically the size of the bead is one meter in length and 50 centimeters in width.
One tree can have up to three hollows, which does not harm it at all. The lowest edge should be at least four meters high to protect the bees from predators. In addition, it is believed that honey collected from high sides tastes better. The highest hollows were located at a height of 14 meters.
Bortis serve for 300 years. On average, 2 buckets of honey were obtained from one hollow, and with generous flowering of honey plants - up to 50 kilograms.
Origin story
The first beekeepers extracted honey from accidentally discovered hollows in which forest bees lived. Gradually, they learned to purposefully search for insect homes in order to obtain tasty and healthy prey.
In Ancient Rus', beekeeping became especially widespread in the 10th-17th centuries, occupying an important role among sectors of the economy.
At this time, the volumes of honey and wax were quite large. Gall, who traveled around Russia in the 11th century, noted in his notes the abundance of honey and wax. Beekeeping was especially developed in forest areas on the banks of the Oka and Desna, in the Dnieper region and near Voronezh.
The first beekeepers were, in a way, poachers. While collecting honey in the fall, they left the bee colony without food supplies, which led to the death of insects. Therefore, in the spring, beekeepers had to populate the hollows with new bee colonies, for which they often went to another area.
This method had several advantages. Thanks to the annual renewal of honeycombs, the rotting of the honeycombs was significantly slowed down, and the bees were rarely exposed to diseases and did not become smaller.
Decline of beekeeping
The first signs of the decline of beekeeping became noticeable in the 18th century. At this time, Tsar Peter brought vodka and wine to Russia, replacing the traditional mead. Wax was replaced by kerosene.
In addition, they began to cut down forests, freeing up land for arable land, which led to a reduction in the habitat of bees. To save their charges from destruction, beekeepers cut logs with hollows from fallen trees and transported them to another area.
The resulting structure was fixed to the tree, which turned out to be quite a labor-intensive task. To simplify the work, people found a clearing in which sparse cut trees grew (this is where the word “apiary” comes from) and installed the sides on the ground. As a result, insect monitoring and honey collection were facilitated.
In addition, the beekeepers began to leave part of the honey for their wards, which ensured the preservation of the bee colony in the winter. Thanks to such transformations, an apiary system emerged in the mid-19th century, which laid the foundation for modern beekeeping. At this time, log beekeeping replaced beekeeping.
Modern beekeeping
Nowadays, beekeeping and log beekeeping has been preserved in a single place - in the Shulgan-Tash nature reserve (previously called Burzyansky), located in Bashkiria.
It serves as a national symbol of the country, preserving its historical roots, promoting respect for nature, earnings and health. Each family has its own secrets that are passed on to their children.
The preservation of live beekeeping in Bashkortostan is explained by the fact that the local population did not build houses for a long time and led a nomadic lifestyle. Another prerequisite for the development of beekeeping is the presence of forests untouched by human hands. In addition, linden and maple trees, known as excellent honey plants, are common in the country.
Beekeeping is the oldest craft in Rus'
Beekeeping, the oldest craft and the original form of cultural beekeeping, is based on keeping and breeding bees in bees, specially hollowed out artificial hollows in growing trees such as pine, linden, oak, and aspen, adapted for this purpose. This industry developed from the so-called wild beekeeping, in which all the honey was often taken from a nest accidentally found in a hollow tree, or even just on the ground, after having previously destroyed a family of winged workers with fire and smoke.
Later, the search for forest bees became a more focused and conscious act of human activity. If earlier he was content with the honey he found by chance, now he followed it into the forest, as if on a hunt. He no longer wandered blindly among the gigantic trees, looking to see if bees were circling somewhere in their edges. Now it was enough to detect bees flying from flower to flower to determine the direction of the search. A piece of comb honey in a small birch bark container was placed on the ground. The bees, as a rule, soon discovered the bait and, dragging the honey into their home, brought the hunter to it. As you can see, the real elements of hunting are present here - the use of bait and tracking.
Wild beekeeping was most likely a concomitant activity of nomadic tribes who did not stay in one place for long. Having exhausted the hunting and food resources of one area, they moved to another. Naturally, this way of life was not conducive to either the emergence of beekeeping, as an established form of forestry, or the carrying out of systematic observations, without which no generalization is possible.
Nevertheless, some experience was accumulated, and one day a man realized that if he did not ruin the bees, and, moreover, did not take all the honey from them, he could, with much less time and labor, obtain honey from one hollow for several years. This discovery became the starting point for the history of beekeeping and the beginning of the transformation of a honey hunter into a conscious beekeeper - a beekeeper.
The final transition to classical beekeeping, as it became during its heyday (X-XII centuries) took place in the early Iron Age (7-6 centuries BC - 4 centuries AD).
Without iron tools, it was hardly possible to hollow out a bead in the trunk of a pine tree, much less an oak tree. The stone ax and adze were suitable only for adapting natural hollows, clearing them, and removing wood dust. N. Vitvitsky’s assumption that the “invention of the borti” preceded the plow sounds convincing.
Over time, more advanced techniques for making beads, methods of attracting bees and caring for them were developed, and specialized bead tools and devices arose. The on-board instruments known in the 10th century have survived to this day without significant design changes.
The centuries-old practice of keeping bees allowed the Slavs, much earlier than Western Europeans, to reveal some of the mysteries of the bee swarm and develop a number of rational beekeeping techniques.
Artificial breeding of queens was known to the Slavs, even judging only from written sources, in the first half of the 15th century.
Bortniks were pioneers in the development of uninhabited lands. In search of suitable places for beekeeping, they always went ahead of farmers. History has preserved the names of the villages - Bortniki, Bortnitsy, Good Bees, Borti, Bortyaki, Borteli, etc.
By the 18th century, the first signs of the decline of beekeeping as a forestry industry began to appear, and in the first quarter of the 19th century it lost its former economic importance. On one portage (21.3 hectares), as N. Vitvitsky, who visited Polesie at that time, notes, “there were several boarders with bees, but about fifty empty ones.” In conversations with beekeepers, he established that in 1775 they were operational.
One of the main reasons for the sharp decline in beekeeping was the increasing anthropogenic impact on nature. Predatory destruction of forests had a particularly negative impact. Forest for farmers, especially large feudal lords, was one of the tangible sources of income.
Without regard for anything other than their own personal interests, they literally sold it off at the grassroots. The best varieties of timber in the form of construction, ship and cooperage materials were exported to almost all countries of Western Europe.
In addition, in the 18th century, wood-chemical industries became widespread: the production of potash, tar racing, the preparation of resin - oleoresin, charcoal, turpentine, etc. Forest areas were catastrophically reduced, clearings were overgrown with tree species - aspen, birch, and shrubs.
To imagine how much forestry production cost, let’s consider only the production of potash. For the normal functioning of the potash plant alone, it is necessary to use wood from 82 hectares of forest. Buda is a forestry enterprise for wood processing: “in our forests the sovereign will distribute robiti to us” (Document of 1527).
In Belarus, more than two hundred potash houses operated for almost three centuries. Imagine how much forest was destroyed if during this period the forest alone “digested” it from an area of 24,600 hectares.
The construction of housing roads was also accompanied by fairly intensive deforestation.
The final blow to bee farming was dealt by the import of so-called colonial goods - sugar, wine, vodka, which undermined the monopoly position of honey as a natural sweetness and raw material for the production of intoxicating drinks.
Due to the advent of kerosene, the importance of wax as a common means of lighting decreased. It has become less profitable to produce honey because prices have fallen. They were so low that they did not justify the labor and costs of caring for and maintaining bees.
The crisis of beekeeping covered the entire territory of settlement of the Eastern Slavs. Thus, the governor of Belgorod reported to Tsar Alexy Mikhailovich: “the bees that were in those berm lands suffered greatly, and the price of honey went up.” A decree immediately followed, categorically prohibiting the governors from allocating areas of forest suitable for beekeeping to limit everyday camps. Regardless of ranks and titles, he briefly and quite convincingly showed the future of the disobedient governors: “for this they will be in disgrace and in cruel punishment and eternal ruin.” According to modern standards of criminal law, this meant dismissal from work, a long-term sentence with confiscation of property.
However, the beekeeping crisis has spread to new areas of the country. They gradually absorbed the prosperous lands and lands of the Mordvins, Cheremis, Voteks from time immemorial - the assembly materials of 1685 are bitterly distinguished.
In Western Europe this process began much earlier. In Germany, for example, already in the first half of the 17th century, beekeeping “completely lost its former meaning.” As we can see, the trends in the decline of on-board beekeeping were of a pan-European nature and were due to the same reasons: a change in the environmental situation as a result of the emergence and development of new industries based on the intensive exploitation of forests and wood products.
To revive domestic beekeeping in the 18th century, an attempt was made to use the experience of the best foreign beekeepers. In 1771, “for science related to the keeping of bees”, Afanasy Kaverziev, a student of the Smolensk Theological Seminary, was sent to Germany at the expense of the treasury. He completed an internship with the then famous beekeeper Pastor Shirach. There were no changes in beekeeping upon his return. The author of the famous work “Chronicle of Russian beekeeping for a thousand years” V.V. Popov was skeptical about the results of the trip. In his opinion, the only benefit of the trip was that in 1775 Kaverziev translated Schirach’s book about his method of keeping bees into Russian.
The next attempt to bring life back to the dying beekeeping should be considered the abolition of taxes by Catherine II on everyone who kept bees. The manifesto dated March 14, 1775 said: “We refuse... where there is a collection from bee and bee land, and we command that in future it should not be collected or paid.”
However, no one could stop the slow but steady decline of the ship's former glory. Once the main exporter of wax, in 1835 Russia was able to export only as much wax as it had sent through the Polotsk wax lump in the 16th century.
Having become acquainted with these reviews of foreign trade, a passionate admirer of domestic beekeeping, N. Vitvitsky, bitterly remarked: “Trouble and that’s all!” Soon, in order to satisfy all the country's needs for wax, it had to be imported from abroad.
4. Noble and ancient profession
Side trees, like silent monuments of an ancient noble craft, which our grandfathers, great-grandfathers, “ancestors” were engaged in for more than a thousand years, can still be found in the forests today...
In the beekeeping literature, from time to time there are reports that interpret beekeeping as a primitive activity that anyone could do without any preparation. All you had to do, they say, was to hollow out the side, catch and settle a swarm in it, and everything would go by itself: come in the fall and rake up the honey with a shovel. And some equate the concepts of “onboard beekeeping” and “primitive beekeeping.”
Forgetting the principle of historicism always leads to incorrect assessments and conclusions. Somehow it turns out that in relation to the past, we all have one common feature: to perceive the past as something more primitive than it really was.
The work of a beekeeper was not simple; it required a variety of knowledge, practical skills, observation, great dexterity, dexterity, endurance and remarkable physical strength. It’s not for nothing that our ancestors called beekeepers squirrels.
The work of beekeepers was fraught with danger - the slightest carelessness, an unfortunate accident, ended in injury, or even death: “Like my father and brother are tree climbers, in the forests they eat honey from the ancients... If anyone snatches it, he will die.”
And you never know what could happen to a person in a dense forest.
Historian S.M. Soloviev, in his work “History of Russia from Ancient Times,” referring to foreigners’ description of the natural conditions in the Moscow state during the reign of Vasily III, writes:
“The pines in the Moscow forests are incredible in size, the oak and maple are much better than in Western Europe, the bees lay honey on the trees without any supervision. They told how one peasant, having fallen into the hollow of a huge tree, got stuck in honey up to his throat. He waited in vain for help for two days, ate only honey, and was finally brought out of this desperate situation by a bear, which descended with its hind legs into the same hollow: the peasant grabbed it with his hands and screamed so loudly that the frightened animal jumped out of the hollow and I pulled him out with me."
Describing side beekeeping, N. Vitvitsky wrote: “I have more than once compared honey and wax obtained from ten hives and ten bees in one year, and every time the advantage was on the side of the latter.” Among the positive aspects of beekeeping, N. Vitvitsky considered the beekeeping to be very consistent with the natural habitat of the bee colony. The high-altitude location of the bee nest provided the bees with drier air than below, and there was a stable temperature regime in the area; forest bees were less predisposed to various diseases.
In many respects, the swarming queen of forest bees is superior to the artificial queen bred by beekeepers to replace old queens and form layering. Care and maintenance of boletus did not require significant expenditure of labor and time if ready-made beads were available.
According to modern scientific observations, bees on board begin to work earlier than those on the ground. Forest bees have a working day that is 1 hour 30 minutes longer than domestic bees. They fly out of the hive at lower temperatures and even when it rains.
The profession of beekeeper was usually gradually mastered from childhood, the secrets were learned from the father or grandfather, gradually, day by day, helping the elders. The most important secrets, including various acts of witchcraft and conspiracies, which entangled beekeeping like a web, were passed on to sons and grandsons before death.
LIFE OF BEES
1. About bees.
Bees are social insects. They live in large families. Each hive contains one bee colony: one queen, several hundred drones (male bees) and several tens of thousands of worker bees.
The queen bee is almost twice as long and three times as heavy as the worker bee. The biological function of the queen bee is reproduction; She lays 1000-2000 fertilized eggs or more in honeycomb cells every day. From these eggs, depending on the composition of the food and the size of the wax cell, worker bees or queen bees develop. In addition, the queen lays unfertilized eggs, from which only drones develop.
Under certain conditions (the death of the queen bee and the absence of larvae from which the bees could hatch a new queen, an excess of nurses and a lack of larvae), worker bees lay eggs in honeycomb cells, from which drones develop. Such bees are called polypores. One worker bee can lay approximately 28 eggs in its life. Having lost the queen, the bee colony of thousands becomes restless, the bees buzz and run around the entire hive in alarm. Bees cannot live for a long time without a queen bee; they select one or several eggs from a three- to four-day clutch and begin to hatch a new queen. The larva that emerges from the egg is fed with a special milk. It develops in a waxy acorn-shaped queen cell. After 16 days, the queen bee hatches. A family of bees in which there is no queen is doomed to death, since in this case only the number of drones in the hive will constantly increase.
The uterus has a sting that serves as an ovipositor and a defense organ. It never stings a person. Even in cases where he causes her severe pain (for example, when a beekeeper cuts off her wings), she makes no attempt to show her sting. But when she meets a rival queen, she furiously uses it. The queen bee lives 5-6 years, but her fertility decreases with age; therefore, in the apiary it is changed after two summer seasons.
The drone's only purpose is to fertilize the queen bee. They don’t work, they only fly to play in good weather, in the middle of the day. In flight, they chase young queens and mate with them. The drone has very well developed vision, which is important during the mating flight, when it must follow the fast-flying queen bee.
It takes an average of 24 days for a drone to develop from an egg. The drone's genitals are very well developed. Sperm maturation occurs in the drone 8-14 days after it leaves the cell; from 10 to 200 million sperm are formed in the testes.
The drone lacks “baskets” on its legs for collecting pollen, and its mouthparts are not adapted to collecting nectar from flowers. Like the queen bee, he cannot get his own food and is completely dependent on the worker bees. In spring and summer, drones feed on honey prepared by bees. They live for about 3 months. In the fall, the drones are expelled from the hive and they die from cold and hunger.
A worker bee spends its entire short life (30-35) days in tireless work. Young bees, already from three to four days of age, perform the responsible duty of feeding the larvae. During 6 days of feeding their future sisters, they visit each larva about 8000 times. Working bees very carefully look after the queen bee, who does not fly out of the hive after the mating flight. They wash her, comb her hairs, remove her feces from the hive, and feed her high-calorie and highly nutritious milk.
Working bees go on reconnaissance in search of sources of nectar, pollen and water. They collect pollen, moisten it with saliva mixed with nectar, and put it in special recesses on the back, called baskets. Two pollen pollen, i.e. two baskets filled with this valuable cargo weigh on average 20 mg and contain about 4 million pollen grains. The bees bring pollen to the hive and place it in honeycomb cells. Pollen drenched in honey turns into bee bread - bee bread. Observations have shown that during intensive work in summer, on average, 58% of worker bees are busy collecting nectar, 25% are busy collecting pollen, and 17% are very successful in collecting nectar and pollen at the same time.
Working bees secrete wax and build honeycombs from it - hexagonal cells that serve as very convenient bins for honey, storage areas for beebread and cozy cradles for bee offspring. The secretion of wax depends on the structure and function of the cells of the wax glands, as well as on the consumption of bee bread and honey. Bees build honeycombs only in colonies with queens. During the summer season, a bee colony secretes two to three kilograms of wax or more. The most amazing thing in the life of bees is the construction of honeycombs.
Working bees keep the hive perfectly clean. They very skillfully cover up cracks and polish the walls of their home with propolis - bee glue. If a mouse enters the hive and wants to feast on honey, the working bees immediately kill it with their poison and, in order to get rid of the harmful effects of decomposition, quickly wall it up in an airtight propolis crypt.
The air in the hive is always clean and fresh; Working bees not only ventilate their home, but also maintain an optimal temperature in it. On a hot summer day, you can see orderly rows of bees standing at the entrance, their heads turned in one direction and vigorously flapping their wings. These are fan bees, which, flapping their wings, drive cooled air into the hive with a strong jet. Inside the hive, other bees do the same work. When the outside temperature drops, the bees gather more tightly on the frames, thereby reducing heat transfer.
Working bees guard the entrance and at the first alarm they enter into battle.
2. Swarming
As noted above, the only reason for the existence of drones is to inseminate the uterus. And this is very important, because only a fertilized queen is able to reign safely in the bee family.
The queen needs a representative of the “stronger sex” only once, during her first flight from the nest. It is somewhere there, on the hidden chains of the mating flight, that the young princess must meet one of the drones, so that already in the rank of queen - mother, she can safely ascend the throne in her native nest. True, for such an important event the queen needs only a few drones. Hundreds of them are raised in a nest. Here bees, as in everything related to the future, prefer reserve and reinsurance. The fact is that often, having flown out in search of the queen, the drones cannot find their way back, and in the best case, they end up in someone else’s family, where they are joyfully accepted until the time of swarming is over, and in the worst case, they die ignominiously. Drones, unlike worker bees, develop from unfertilized eggs. Therefore, it is the sad fate of a virgin or, on the contrary, a very old queen to fill the entire nest with them, which is tantamount to the death of the family.
Of course, the ruling queen does not sow drones for herself. Her ongoing reign, now a year old, speaks for itself. But there, at the top of the honeycomb, after 11-12 days, the laying of queen cells begins, where in large sealed acorn-like cradles, for the time being, her immediate successors - the young princesses - will be located. It is they who have yet to make their mating flight and everything will work out successfully, they will take the reins of their families.
The weather turned out to be warm, the May cold was fleeting, and there was plenty of maple honey. Therefore, the number of queen cells laid by bees was quite large - 14. No one could explain such cheerful extravagance. Of course, wild Burzyan bees, known for their high swarming, sometimes release 5-7 swarms, each of which is headed by the royal daughter. But nothing more! An equally excessive number of daughters, born in the rapture of spring prosperity, inevitably implies cruel sistericide in the future. The fact is that successively hatching young princesses will fly off with swarms as long as the family’s strength is enough, when the family feels that it is fading away, the swarming time will end, and the next queen (the youngest of the hatched) will take over the kingdom in her native nest . At the same time, all contenders for the throne (and these are her younger sisters) are doomed, for the queen rules alone and does not tolerate her own kind.
First of all, by the time swarming begins, the size of the family should increase significantly. After all, it is the number of worker bees that determines its strength. The size of the hollow and honeycombs, early flight and fanatical fertility of the queen (she laid about 1,500 eggs per day with a total number equal to her weight), coupled with reserves of maple honey and pollen, spent on feeding hordes of new and new larvae - all foreshadowed a powerful swarming. Meanwhile, above, in the warmest part of the nest, the growing queens were inexorably approaching the decisive moment.
It takes a queen bee five days less to develop from an egg into an adult bee than a worker bee. Caring for the royal larva is also excellent. Whether an egg develops into a worker bee or a queen depends on the nurse bees. In addition to the fact that they raise their own kind in more modest cells, the nutrition of the future queen consists exclusively of royal jelly, which the ordinary larva receives only at first. But this is not enough! The milk on which the princesses grow has a different composition. There are approximately 10 times more biologically active substances in it than in the milk that worker bee larvae receive!
Usually the old queen strives to leave the hollow six days before the hatching of the first of her daughters, for two queens cannot exist in a nest under any guise, even if they are mother and daughter. Otherwise, discord in the royal family is inevitable. However, the departure of the first swarm may be delayed, say, due to unfavorable weather. In this case, the young queens are careful not to leave the safe walls of their cell and only stick their proboscis through small holes in the wax caps, thus receiving food from the worker bees, and from time to time they remind themselves with sounds similar to; to a muffled “kva-kva”. “By-bye,” replies the queen walking around the honeycombs, forestalling the premature exit of her daughters. The royal duet, which marks the time of swarming, is so loud that it can be heard even if you are outside the bee abode. Worker bees, on the other hand, monitor the situation most carefully. Therefore, as the most mature queens thin the wax cap from the inside, the workers thicken it from the outside with new layers of wax.
The peak of egg laying, which occurs at the end of the maple honey harvest at the end of May, gives, accordingly, a peak birth rate three weeks later. Therefore, at the beginning of June, the number of young, newly born bees in the family significantly exceeded the number of brood. No bribe yet either. And young, non-flying bees, for the most part, found themselves without work, with their ever-increasing numbers threatening the capacity of the hollow - it’s time to swarm!
“But the real signal has not yet been given. There is unimaginable confusion and disorder in the nest... In ordinary times, the bees, returning to the hollow, forget that they have wings, and each one remains almost motionless, but not inactive, on the honeycomb, in the place that is assigned to it by the nature of its work. Now, maddened, they move in closed circles from top to bottom of the vertical walls, like agitated dough moved by an invisible hand. The internal temperature of the nest rises rapidly, sometimes to such an extent that the wax of the buildings softens and becomes deformed. The queen, who usually never leaves the central honeycomb, runs excited, panting across the surface of the heated, constantly moving crowd...
True, a certain number of workers peacefully, as if nothing should happen, go to the meadows, return from there, clean the nest, go up to the rooms where the eggs are hatched, without succumbing to general intoxication. These are those who will not accompany the queen, but will remain in the old home to guard it, take care of it and feed the nine or ten thousand eggs, eighteen thousand larvae, thirty-six thousand pupae and seven or eight princesses left here... They remain faithful to their duties calmly and adamantly,” writes M. Maeterlinck.
But now an invisible signal for departure is given and the entire crowd of bees, intoxicated with jubilation, rushes to the honeycombs in order to fill their honey craws before the long journey. The bees, loaded with precious supplies, rush to the entrance, bursting out with a simultaneous sudden and insane pressure. At these moments, the old Kush-Elga-Bash oak seems to beat with a tense, vibrating and continuous stream, which first falls vertically down to the ground. But, having flown three or four meters, as if having come to his senses, he rushes upward, where a thick bee “storm” is already circling over the forest.
Usually the departure of swarms begins about an hour before noon and continues until three or four o'clock in the afternoon. And only on days preceded by long inclement weather do bees fly out in the morning, immediately after the fog disappears.
“The bees living in other places are constantly vigilant in order to preserve the swarms that have swarmed, and at the same time to prepare for them a comfortable dwelling near their homes. But the bees living in the interior of Bashkiria have an excellent method in this case: for all that depends on them is to prepare in the spring and autumn in their vast forests a sufficient number of standing trees, called sides, where they make a home for the bees just like an ordinary hive. Young bees, having left their former home, fly through the forests, and then they themselves enter the best of the prepared bees, where they remain for an eternal home,” wrote travelers of the century before last.
3. Building honeycombs by bees
Usually, young bees are engaged in construction work in the family from the 10th to the 20th day of their life. At this time, the wax glands, located deep in the skin folds between the abdominal segments, reach the peak of their development. The wax, whose composition resembles fat, is secreted in the form of small thin scales. The bees remove them with their paws, crush them with their mandibles - a special device located near the mouth, then roll them into a ball and, section by section, build a honeycomb from these lumps. It is also known that bees younger than 20 days old do not leave the hollow. Nectar and pollen are brought to the colony by older bees whose wax glands have practically degenerated. Even if, succumbing to general enthusiasm, several female builders fly out with the swarm, their number will clearly not be enough to build a new nest. Meanwhile, the first swarms, having increased working energy, build up a hollow in 5-7 days and are able to secrete more than a kilogram of wax. This happens because it is not the physical condition of the bees, but the needs of the family that turn out to be the decisive condition, prompting the newly settled bees to remember their youth.
Bee nests are built from top to bottom and look like long snow-white tongues (from 7 to 12), consisting of many honeycombs. If the borti was equipped by an experienced beekeeper, the bees are guided by the direction given by the pieces of land and build the honeycombs from them. But, if they don’t like the proposed project, the bees categorically throw the workpieces to the bottom of the board and build at their own discretion. In the year of settlement, bees usually rebuild the nest by one third of the side (25 - 30 centimeters in height). Then, the structure is extended to 50 - 60 cm, so that the bottom of the honeycomb reaches the third year.
The bees build each hollow according to an individual project, taking into account the features of ventilation and heat conservation in the most careful way, taking into account the numerous cavities of the future nest, which serve for passage in the places where the honeycombs are connected to the walls and crosspieces. In natural hollows, the combs are arranged, as a rule, in a mixed pattern - sometimes across trays, sometimes obliquely, sometimes straight, sometimes wavy.
In strong colonies, bees often change the thickness of the same comb depending on their needs. They can temporarily remove the cell that is bothering them, and then restore it again. Thus, honeycombs sometimes thicken to 35-40 and even 45 millimeters. Space for them is freed up by gnawing on neighboring honeycombs. When the honey is used up, the bees again thin out these wax blocks to normal thickness, and in the freed space they can build an ordinary honeycomb and grow brood in it or lay beebread. Typically, such metamorphoses undergo the lowest combs, in which drone brood is grown before the main honey flow begins. It is this part of the honeycombs that is the beekeeper’s share; he carefully breaks them out at the end of summer with a special wooden spatula. Honey, which is left by bees for the winter, is located near the ceiling in combs 35-37 mm thick. In the middle there are ordinary honeycombs - 25-27 mm thick, in which the bees raise brood. Thus, with the onset of the main harvest, the bees, first of all, store honey in the upper part of the border, concentrating a good-quality winter supply there, and then they lengthen all the cells free from brood and also use them for honey.
The age of a bee's nest directly depends on the volume of the home. The larger the hollow, the longer the bees can live in it without updating the combs. In natural large hollows, where it is possible to lower the nest lower and lower, the family can live for more than 10 years. The honeycombs in such nests resemble fragile dark brown parchment, and the cells change from hexagonal to round. Sooner or later, such conditions lead to a reduction in brood rearing, the strength of the colony decreases, and the bees themselves become smaller. Then, through repeated nesting, the bees settle into new homes, and the old nest with reserves accumulated over many years remains an abandoned honey treasure.
4. Wintering of bees in the sides.
During the entire period of winter dormancy, in the center of the bee club there is a small space with a temperature of about 300. This area is called the temperature center of the club. At the beginning of wintering, it is small, in one street, and in the second half of wintering, with the beginning of the scarring of the uterus, the area of the temperature center increases, and the temperature in it rises to +340C.
There is no single temperature for a bee club in a beehive, just as in a frame hive. Points with the same temperatures form isotherms, which are located concentrically, with a gradual decrease in temperature towards the outer boundary of the club. The bulk of the bee club surrounding the temperature center has a temperature before the appearance of brood ranging up to 220, and in the presence of brood - up to 270, towards the periphery the temperature drops to 8-100. We adopted an isotherm of 80 as the boundary for the location of the club. The temperature of the club shell ranges from 80 to 120 degrees Celsius. In cold times, especially at subzero temperatures, in parts of the nest unoccupied by bees it drops to -2-40.
In the center of the club of bees wintering in the sides, the temperature fluctuates in the first half of wintering from 220 to 260 (less often up to 290) and in the second - from 270 to 320.
The temperature in the center of the bee club fluctuates periodically, but does not drop to “critical” (13-140). In the center of the club, temperature fluctuations are observed within only 5.60, in the main mass of the club - 6.70, in its shell - 8.00. The temperature of the air space surrounding the club of bees inside the bees is almost the same as in the open air. An increase or decrease in the internal temperature, compared to the external one, occurs with a delay of only 2-3 hours. In addition, temperature fluctuations at the measured points show that the volume of the wintering club in the walls also changes all the time, but very slowly. The club either becomes denser, decreasing in volume, or loosens and takes up more space. Thus, the club pulsates, which allows the bee colony to actively resist sudden and sharp changes in outside air temperature. The expansion of the club in the sides during the winter occurs only in the upper part. Thanks to this, the bees gradually master the honey located above the bee club for nutrition.
The peripheral layer of bees in a beehive, just like in a frame hive, is like a compacted shell 4-6 cm thick. This shell of outer bees allows the colony to retain the heat generated in the center. With sharp drops in external temperature, when the club contracts and its surface decreases, the protective shell becomes thicker, and this reduces heat loss. In addition, with a decrease in air temperature in the center of the nest, a large number of bees are connected to generate heat, which entails greater food consumption.
In weak colonies wintering in the sides, the club is looser, the bees are more dispersed on the combs than is the case in strong colonies forming a dense club. This phenomenon looks strange: it would seem that a weak family with better heat savings is compressed into a particularly dense club, rather than dispersed. It is so difficult for a weak colony to maintain the necessary heat that more and more bees are drawn into the active temperature center. With the onset of severe frosts, almost the entire family comes into an active state to generate the necessary heat. Therefore, under the shell the club becomes very loose and takes up a large space. Of course, this entails increased consumption of honey and wear and tear on the bees. By the way, this can also explain the fact that in winter weak families cover relatively more honeycombs than strong families.
All the above-mentioned features of the biology of the winter bee club are also inherent in other populations of this species. But there is reason to believe that they are most pronounced in Bashkir bees, adapted to the conditions of the harsh Ural winters. Confirmation - at - 270C, in no measured point of the family club in the side every three hours did the temperature remain unchanged. As the frost intensifies, judging by the change in the temperature of the points, the pulsation of the club intensifies, and with warming it stabilizes.
Wintering of bees in natural hollows, as well as in artificial sides, takes place in a unique way. In frame hives, the success of wintering depends on many reasons: the quantity and quality of winter food supplies, the method of assembling the nest for the winter, the temperature and air humidity in the winter hive, ventilation of both the winter hive and the hives, insulation of the nests, etc. In tree hollows, the outcome of wintering depends on only three factors - the availability of good-quality food, ventilation and protection of the home from enemies. This difference in the number of factors influencing wintering depends on the fact that in natural hollows bees are left to their own devices, while in hollows human intervention in the life of bees is very limited. Both of them make their own nest for winter.
Natural hollows with bees, as well as artificial sides, in most cases have a limited internal volume, and the thickness of the walls of the dwelling is from 3 to 20 cm. The walls from the inside have a layer of rotten (sieve) unpolished wood. Therefore, the natural homes of bees in tree hollows, as a rule, retain heat well and are always dry. Sometimes it happens that in a spacious natural hollow, honey gradually accumulates over the years due to the remnants of unspent winter food reserves of previous years.
Varieties
Depending on the types of forest dwellings for bees, several types of airborne beekeeping can be noted. But in order to subdivide them, you need to understand the principle of family formation.
Modern beekeeping involves imitation of old technologies, facilitated by modern tools.
At the very beginning of the development of such honey production, it was difficult to stop the random swarming of bees. This was due to the incomprehensibility of the structures of the dwellings of these forest honey plants.
The solution arose naturally when the deck began to be sawn. At the very top, beekeepers left a small hole through which it was convenient to collect honey. When observing the progress of swarming, it was decided to expand the honey plants’ homes, arranging them in large logs.
For the natural method, large hollows were selected, in which the honey production was more difficult than when collected in artificially created hives.
From the deck to the hives
Farming in logs was more profitable than simply collecting honey in the forests. However, beekeeping was clearly in need of technological progress. The technical revolution came only at the beginning of the 9th century.
It happened in Russia. In 1814, the Russian beekeeper Pyotr Prokopovich built and presented to the attention of his colleagues the so-called plank frame hive. This house was assembled and disassembled perfectly. Now, in order to get honey, there was no need to destroy the entire hive.
Not only Russian beekeepers liked Prokopovich’s idea. Soon the Russian hive began to be used and improved in other countries. For example, the American Lauren Langstroth made the bee house prefabricated and multi-body. The convenience of a modern hive is that if there is a large honey harvest, it can be built up using new frames. It is this improved version of Prokopovich’s invention that all beekeepers in the world use. The only exceptions to the rule are some African peoples who still breed bees in logs.
Further technical progress affected not the structure of the life of bees, but the process of pumping out honey. In 1865, a resident of Austria, Frantisek Grushka, invented a honey extractor, which helped pump out ripened honey using centrifugal forces.
Thus, through the efforts of people in many countries, honey production has become not only improved, but also automated.
Nuances of on-board beekeeping
The profession of beekeeper and its secrets, including magical spells, were passed down from generation to generation. Uninitiated people considered this profession dangerous and mysterious, and beekeepers were equated with werewolves and called squirrels.
In addition to being labor intensive, the profession also presented serious danger. It is known that the bite of one hundred medium bees (forest bees are much larger) can lead to death. And in one hollow there live over 20 thousand insects.
Therefore, in order to survive, people involved in beekeeping had to have certain knowledge about the behavior of bees and the necessary experience, as well as have good physical fitness, since they had to climb very tall trees.
To climb the tree, beekeepers used available means: lezivo (special ropes), kiram (special belt for fastening) or rope, claws, spikes, ladders. To protect themselves, they gradually improved their tools, among which a small ax with a crooked ax took center stage.
Horse hair was used to make protective masks, a ring-shaped knife, a hatchet, a chisel, a one-handed scraper and an adze were used to construct the sides, and a gun was used to protect against predators (they often returned from fishing with bear skin).
The beekeepers also had to protect the beards from bears who wanted to get a treat. For this purpose, a heavy log was tied near the entrance.
The bear, in order to penetrate the hollow, pushed away the log and received a retaliatory blow. He began to “fight” with the log to no avail until he retreated. To increase the effectiveness of protection, metal was hammered into the logs.
What is beekeeping
Beekeeping is an activity associated with the breeding of wild bees, the history of which goes back centuries. The people who dealt with it were called beekeepers or bortoviks, and the very first structures for breeding bees were called bees.
The appearance of the sides consisted of wooden logs with artificial hollows, specially hollowed out by human hands. To create them, 3 methods were used:
- They made a hollow in a selected tree in the forest and introduced a family of bees.
- They cut out a part of a tree with a ready-made hollow and a swarm of bees found in the forest, then installed it in a chosen place: on the edge of the forest, in well-lit clearings.
- They hollowed out the hollow themselves in part of the trunk and also moved it either closer to the home or to the most favorable place for this.
The sides were installed on a tree at a height of at least 6 m, so that they would not be destroyed by wild animals, in a horizontal or vertical position. Holes were made on the back side of the hollow to make it more convenient to take the honey, and they covered it with a longer lid. Devices were made inside to strengthen the honeycombs.
Beekeeping was not an easy job, it required certain skills, strength and dexterity, because the sides were located high, it was not easy to get honey from there. All sorts of devices were invented to climb trees. In his arsenal, the beekeeper always had a special hatchet, a long rope - a blade and a leather belt. In addition, it was necessary to protect them from bears and other wild animals, making all kinds of traps, scarecrows and traps.
Beekeepers were considered respected people: strong, hardy and brave. They were well versed in herbs and knew a lot about wild bees, their behavior, the characteristics of honey collection, as well as the medicinal properties of honey and wax. They were even credited with the qualities of healers for their ability to prepare medicines based on these healing products.
Wooden decks with artificial hollows
How to make a board with your own hands?
Do-it-yourself board scheme
What you will need:
- Inventory. An ax with a sharp blade and a chainsaw are required.
- Materials. You should take a wooden deck of a suitable size. The ideal materials are ash, linden and oak. You will need clay and a piece of iron.
Before you make a fence for bees with your own hands, you need to choose a living, healthy and fairly tall tree, the diameter of which should be at least 0.8 meters.
The best trees for borti are oaks and ash trees. A hollow is cut out of the tree and the inside is emptied. The length of the sides must be at least 0.9 meters, and the depth - up to 0.3 meters.
They also make a dovjeya (window) for inspection of the border and honey collection. The height of the dovjei corresponds to the height of the side, and the width varies between 12-18 centimeters.
After finishing the work, the window is closed with wooden lids, which are secured with maple wedges. The width of the lid is equal to the width of the dovzhei, and the height is about 6 centimeters. An important nuance is that the top cap should be longer than the bottom.
After making and closing the window, another hole is made - a taphole. It should be placed slightly above the middle of the side at a right angle to the main window.
Having a drawing, modern tools in addition to traditional ones and the necessary skills, you can make a bead with your own hands in one day. But it is not enough just to make it; it is necessary to ensure its safety for many years.
Thus, in winter, increased humidity forms in the hollow, which leads to rotting of the wood and a decrease in the productivity of the bee colony. To prevent such problems, it is recommended to create a ventilation system in the form of microscopic holes.
You should also clean the honeycombs in a timely manner. Their accumulation in a hollow can cause the death of insects.
What should a good beekeeper be like?
In the modern world, almost anyone can become a beekeeper if they have a place to keep hives, some money and free time to do it all. This trade now does not require special skills and physical abilities, but in the old days it was not so.
Each beekeeper (that’s what those who raised bees were called) had to have good health, be strong, hardy and have a good understanding of plants.
As mentioned above, all types of sides were hung high above the ground, and in order to reach them, it was necessary to have dexterity and strength. After all, it was inconvenient to carry ladders with you, which meant that you had to climb trees with the help of a leather cord and devices similar in design to modern “claws” of electricians.
But on the farm of any self-respecting beekeeper, as a rule, there were dozens of bees, and each of them required attention and inspection. That is why ancient beekeepers were always famous for their strength and dexterity - there was no other way in this craft.
Another important characteristic of each specialist in this field was deep knowledge of botany. They were necessary to know where, and most importantly, when exactly to place the beads in order to obtain honey and wax of the best quality. That is why many beekeepers were also excellent herbalists. After all, they knew when plants and trees bloom and bear fruit, and how they affect the human body.
Over the centuries of beekeeping, the ancient Slavs developed several specialized tools that are still used today. In addition to a special hatchet, chisel, scrapers and knives for forming hollows of the desired shape and caring for them, already in the 10th century a protective mask woven from horsehair began to be widely used.
Advantages and disadvantages
There are several advantages of airborne beekeeping over conventional beekeeping:
- Health of the bee colony. For the winter, bees are left in the nest with a supply of honey, which has a positive effect on the immune system. The bees in the hives are usually given sugar syrup.
- Manufacturing of honeycombs. The bees themselves determine the size of the honeycombs in the hive. They usually make them larger, which has a positive effect on insects that grow larger.
- Number of bees. The sides accommodate 3 times more bees than the hive. Usually up to 20 thousand. Accordingly, they produce more honey and are less susceptible to swarming.
- Productivity. From 1 bean you can get about 2 buckets of honey, and if the honey plants are in good flowering - up to 50 kg.
- Saving. Requires less time and cost to care for bees.
But you should also pay attention to the disadvantages:
- The capriciousness of bees. If the insects do not like the material from which the fence is made, they may refuse to settle. Therefore, you need to approach the choice of wood especially responsibly.
- Probability of bees dying. During honey collection, when honeycombs are cut out and broken out, insects can be harmed.
- Independence of the bee colony. The beekeeper has virtually no control over them.
- The importance of skills. The craft requires good knowledge of beekeeping and proper training.
What type of tree is best to use for beekeeping?
Although bees are quite small creatures, they have always had their own preferences, especially regarding their habitat. That is why only certain types of trees were suitable for creating sides. By the way, these traditions were inherited by modern beekeeping, and therefore modern hives are made of pine and cedar, less often - of willow, poplar or willow.
But let's return to the ancient craft, so what kind of tree is suitable for beekeeping?
Most experts in this field agree that pine was the favorite tree. Also, in addition to the above materials used today for the manufacture of hives, in the old days the sides were placed in oak and ash trees.
It is worth remembering that in addition to the “preferences” of the bees, it was necessary to take into account the strength of the tree itself. Indeed, to protect themselves from wild animals, families settled at a height of several meters above the ground.
Features of on-board honey
The honey obtained from forest bees is unique. It is distinguished by its increased purity and great value, due to which it is widely used in alternative medicine.
It is rich in vitamins and mineral elements, which provides its nutritional value, helps strengthen the body's defenses and get rid of many diseases. Its use is especially recommended for colds, sore throat, flu, acute respiratory viral infections, and pneumonia.
Borbor honey is characterized by a dark brown color, tart taste, smoked linden aroma and excellent digestibility. It is opaque, very thick and very viscous. It is assembled by hand, without the use of mechanics.
Honey does not undergo pumping, which allows you to save all the beneficial substances and enzymes.
But in order for it to retain its properties in the future, it must be stored in containers made of natural material, for example, in clay pots or cedar barrels.
The decline of beekeeping
In the 19th century A technology for producing sugar from beets was developed. This product turned out to be a cheaper, although less useful analogue of honey, which allowed it to displace honey on the market.
During the same period, the methodology for making candles from stearin and paraffin was refined. Such products were cheaper than wax products.
Thus, the demand for the products of beekeepers began to fall, and for many of them it became unprofitable to practice their craft.
In addition, in 1814, a beekeeper from Ukraine Pyotr Prokopovich invented a frame hive. This device was a real breakthrough in this area, and marked the decline of both beekeeping and convict farming.
Newly designed hives made it possible to collect more honey, while requiring significantly less cost and time. Thanks to this, they quickly spread and became popular in all Slavic lands, finally “dealing with” beekeeping by the beginning of the 20th century.
Side dark forest bee
The dark forest bee Apis mellifera mellifera is a unique subspecies of the honey bee Apis mellifera, evolutionarily adapted to life in the continental climate of Northern Eurasia with long, cold winters.
At the present stage of development of beekeeping, bees of this subspecies have survived only in a few isolates in the form of small islands in Eurasia.
The most numerous tracts of dark forest bees in Eurasia are found in Russia: about 300,000 families weakly affected by spontaneous hybridization in the Republic of Bashkortostan in the Southern Urals, about 200,000 families in the Perm region in the Middle Urals [(Ilyasov et al., 2006) and about 250,000 families in the Republic of Tatarstan in the Volga region.
There is information about the conservation of significant areas of the dark forest bee in the Republic of Udmurtia, the Kirov region and the Altai Territory (Ilyasov et al. // Beekeeping—2007, Brandorf et al., 2012).
Approximately 99% of dark forest bee families in the Southern Urals are kept in frame hives and about 1% live in forests in natural and artificial (boards and logs) hollows in tree trunks, mainly in the Burzyansky region of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
The evolution of the dark forest bee here took place together with the heart-shaped linden Tilia cordata, so their main unique honey collection is formed during the flowering of the linden.
Biosphere
Burzyan bees
Currently, dark forest bees, living in the sides, logs and natural hollows, have been preserved in the Southern Urals in the Shulgan-Tash state reserve with an area of 22 thousand hectares (created in 1958), the regional natural reserve "Altyn Solok" with an area 90 thousand hectares (established in 1997) and the Bashkiria National Park with an area of 82 thousand hectares (established in 1986).
At the end of 2014, during the period of another population depression, on the territory of the reserve, wildlife sanctuary and national park there were more than 1,200 trees with sides and logs, of which about 300 artificial hollows were populated.
Approximately 4 thousand bee families of the Burzyan population in this zone are kept in apiaries with frame hives, and in natural hollows, according to extrapolation of accounting materials, 200-400 “wild ones” live.
In 2012, the listed specially protected natural areas, along with a number of others, received the status of the UNESCO complex biosphere reserve “Bashkir Ural” with a total area of 346 thousand hectares, and the regional reserve “Altyn Solok” began to be actually protected by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
Currently, in order to preserve the Burzyan bee and as part of the development of the reserve, it is planned to expand the territory of the Shulgan-Tash reserve in the north-west direction due to the undeveloped territory in the interfluve of the Nugush and Uryuk rivers.
Employees of the Shulgan-Tash Nature Reserve, the Altyn Solok Nature Reserve and the Bashkiria National Park, together with local beekeepers, constantly carry out measures to optimize the number and selection work to increase the immunity, winter hardiness and productivity of Burzyan airborne bee families, and disseminate the experience of airborne beekeeping.
This policy of state environmental institutions makes it possible to preserve a unique population of bees - an isolate of A. m. mellifera in Eurasia under new threats of spontaneous hybridization and habitat destruction.
Modern beekeeping
With the development of sugar production, beekeeping gradually lost its economic importance. This was also facilitated by an increase in deforestation. By the end of the 18th century, keeping hives in decks made according to the principle of sides became increasingly widespread. They were distinguished by the fact that they had a lid on top and were installed in a row on the ground in specially cut clearings in the forest - clearings. This word eventually began to be used in beekeeping as “apiary”.
Block beekeeping became a transitional stage to the modern system of breeding bees in collapsible hives using frames. This design is as convenient as possible and allows you to more carefully and deeply study the life of bees and manage it, taking into account their needs and habits. This also made it possible to increase the volume of beekeeping products obtained.
Honey and beekeeping in people's lives
Flower nectar processed by bees was of great importance for the inhabitants of Rus'. The significance of this or that phenomenon in people’s lives can always be judged by holidays.
Until pagan holidays were supplanted by significant dates with the names of Christian saints, the following honey holidays were celebrated in Rus':
- The beginning of the spring honey harvest. In different regions, the hives were taken out into the fresh air at different periods, but on average, the day of spring honey collection was celebrated on April 30, that is, “on Zosima.”
- Honey Spas. This is the time when the main honey harvest has already been harvested. In Christian times, on this day honey was taken to church for the ritual of illuminating fresh honey, as well as honey products. Previously, this holiday fell on August 1, but now it is celebrated on August 14.
- The third honey holiday is intended to close the circle of the annual cycle. On this day, the hives are removed for the winter.
Nowadays, all these holidays have lost their relevance, which cannot be said about the sweetest product. It remains popular, in demand and profitable.
The emergence of the fishery
Having understood the very concept of “beekeeping”, it is worth studying its history in more detail. As you know, humanity learned about the value of honey several thousand years ago. That is why in almost all ancient cultures this product and the insects that produced it were highly valued, and in Ancient India they were even deified.
Long before the beginning of our era, Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome and China managed to tame bees.
However, beekeeping was precisely a Slavic invention. This was facilitated by the presence of numerous forests. Among most eastern peoples, bee families settled in rock crevices. Although, in fairness, it is important to recognize that the inhabitants of the jungle also had a similar tradition - hanging logs with bee families near the trees.
As for beekeeping in Ancient Rus', it was during this period that it evolved from a simple hobby to a real industry. Previously, trees with bees in order to extract honey were simply set on fire, and the insects died. Gradually, the ancestors came to the conclusion that they could try to tame bee colonies rather than kill them.
What is the difference between wild bees and domestic bees?
Among the almost 20 thousand bee species existing today, wild forest honey bees occupy a rather modest place. They are becoming such rare insects that they are even listed in the Red Book.
They differ from the domestic bees we are used to:
- darker gray color without bright yellow stripes on the abdomen;
- denser hair, allowing them to better withstand low temperatures;
- larger head;
- more aggressive character;
- more caution;
- higher performance;
- greater resistance to disease.
