Bumblebees - diligeers of flower pollen, while they are well pollinated by flowers visited. Biologists calculated that one field bumblebee during the flight, lasting 100 minutes, visits 2634 flower. Therefore, the bumblebees are very important for gardeners and fields.
Making hives for bumblebees
Especially productive use of bumblebees in greenhouses. Pollination by bumblebees of closed soil crops gives an increase from 5 to 25%, according to some farms of Russia it is 50%. In addition, the fruits obtained as a result of pollination by insects have a higher quality and more natural taste.
Thanks to the thick hair, the bumblebees are able to pollery flowers and during cooling, which can no bees. If honey bees fly out of the hive in search of nectar and pollen only at air temperature 12 °, then bumblebees - at 4-6 °. But the famous
but that due to the lowest air temperature in spring days And the lack of insects many flowers of gooseberry, currant, plums, cherries, apple trees are just unpleasant. That is why I advise dacms to breed bumblebees. This is not such a difficult matter as it may seem. The most important thing is to make a hive for bumblebees. Here, for example, as I did.
Skolly from old unwitted boards with a thickness of 25-30 mm box 150x150x150 mm. The bottom and the cover drank from a 12-millimeter plywood (you can use 10 mm).
The bottom nodded to the housing tightly, the lid should be molded. For this, on its perimeter from the bottom side, four slabs with a cross section of 15 × 15 mm arrived.
In the middle of the top of the front wall, the shlelev-Nick drilled near 2 holes with a diameter of 8 mm. One closed with a wooden plug, and the other left
open. This is a pilot. As a warming material, the pass (you can moss) - approximately half the height of the drawer.
Bumblebee Bumblebee put 25-35 cm height on peels, laying foam heat to maintain heat. By the way, it can be used and instead of wooden parts.
Bumblebee Bumblebee placed in late April - early May under apple trees. BUT the best place - Near the gooseberry bushes, currant, raspberries from the south side and be sure to the South.
In order to really get one bumblebee family, in the first years you have to arrange 5-8 of the Blots at a distance of 3-4 m one from the other.
I note: the end of the tube inserted into the pilot hole (entrance to the tube) is cut off at an angle, it helps the bumblebee to find the flyer.
So that the rain drops did not drop through the tube, it is slightly tilted with a flying end down. The outer end of the tube, as well as the inner channel to a depth of 50 mm with wood coal, so that it looks like a dark hole that looks like a mouse hole.
Two or three bumblebees can be installed underground. In this case, there are 80-90 cm long pipes from wooden plates with a thickness of 10 mm. Four rails are narrowing so that the size of the opening was 18 × 18 mm. The wooden tube is tightly attached to the fly.
To install the hive, the shovel cut out a piece of turf and lay aside. They dig a hole of a cubic shape, hive are placed in it. Also cut through the turf for a lazium tube with a pilot fossa
value with an apple. After attaching the tube to the isle, all the gaps are shred to clay so that the ants penetrate inside. All the structure falls asleep with a latter layer of the Earth and disintegrate.
If there are few females, they are caught in other places and bring in match boxes. Each female conclude in a separate box.
Cut bumblebees are immediately imparted in the hive and closed the pilot, which is open only at 22-23 hours. It is useful to grasp the hive inside mint, Melissa. However, if the hive does not like it, in the morning the female can fly away. Then another founder of the bumblebee of the family is planted into the bumblebee.
"Bumblebee cottage plot? Yes, they eat us all, especially children! " - Can say the reader. Yes, the sting of the bumblebees is the same as the bees and the OS, but they are stupid only if the danger threatens the mog itself or his nest.
Bite bite is usually local irritation and swelling. In this case, it is recommended to apply ice to the place of bite ice, as well as take an antihistamine preparation (suprastine, diphrolol) or 2 aspirin tablets.
But if after the bitter, shortness of breath appears, the frequency of heartbeat is disturbed or pressure drops, you must immediately consult a doctor.
Take yourself to pollinate the vegetable crops of local bumblebees instead of procurement of imported. By purchasing imported bumblebees, it is necessary to remember that you buy bells of excellent genotype, which is not very good for the population of local bumblebees. With imported bumblebees, diseases and pests of whose bumblebees were not previously in this area. In addition, creating your own petack bumblebees, you save a lot of financial resources.
It is completely easy to tame bumblebees. When the bumblebees are looking for nesting, make it the easiest. Choosing a place for a hive, pay attention to whether the bumblebees fly there. If the females do not circle over the ground in search of the future nest, put the house does not make sense. In nature, bumblebees are usually looking for ready-made mouse holes, deepening between stones and plants, in a heap of compost, as well as trees, among branches of old newspapers or clothes. Refinished place, build a wooden box with sides of 15 cm and the wall thickness of at least 2 cm (better of the wood of hardwood, weathered in a dry place at least a year). In the side wall, drill a hole for the Laza. It will be the usual steel pipe with a diameter of 1.3 - 1.5 cm and a length of at least 1 m.
The external end of the tube, exposed in the flyer, as well as its inner channel to a depth of 4 - 5 cm. Color in black: dark hole better attracts bumblebees. Long Lases are made to fully imitate rodent holes. And from the main enemies, ants, it will be a reliable defense: farther than 0.5 m they do not penetrate. Ants are not averse to taste bumblebees, as well as to eat with fattened larvae. Therefore, so that they do not accidentally stumble upon the nest, the bumblebees are cleaned around all the blasting and twigs.
To rainwater I didn't get into the hive through the tube, it is slightly tilted with a lightly ending down or slightly bend "hump up" (see Figure No. 1).
Bumblebees attracts mouse smell. Therefore, a two-third beehive fill with a dry bedding from mouse nests (anyone is suitable: a pack, straw on which rodents lived). You can use gray wool from old blankets and fufes.
Draw in the ground with a horizontal laser. Cover hive bold turf. The pipe should go to the twin hole in the well located next to the nest. And watch it not filled with rainwater.
A lodge for bumblebees can serve as a piece of asbotic pipe, closed on both sides, with a hole as a flyer, a flower pot (see Figure No. 2) and even a birdhouse.
If the bumblebee house will not fall on until the end of July, remove it in the barn to the next season.
The bumblebee pollines flowers in mode close to natural conditions, therefore the results gives the best. Features of color shades, stamens cones, as well as specific wilderness-ashtanda, which are highlighted by floral pollen, tell him about the readiness of the flower to pollination. This allows insect to choose the optimal time to visit the flower.
Biologists counted that in 100 minutes the flight Bumblebee visits 2.634 flower.
Best plants for bees and bumblebees: heather, daffodil, primrose, crocus, white and red clover, oregano, lion zev, Lupine, Vika, St. John's wort, gravel, dubrovka, plantain, clarity ("Deaf nettle"), Yarrow, Osay, Tmin , Faselius, buckwheat, sunflower, dill, onion, cucumber grass (Borago), goat Iva, currants, blueberries, raspberries, Irga, carrot seeds, parsley, celery and many other umbrella and complex plants.
If the bumblebees wipe your greenhouse as an apiary, even a single blowset will not be on the heat on tomatoes or cucumber. At dawn, insects will begin to collect nectar and pollen, poling the flowers before the onset of 32 - 36-degree heat, when pollination is already useless. Bumblebees, unlike bees, better oriented in the greenhouse and do not fight about film and glass.
Without pollination of flowers, the plants will not be given fruit. Not a strawberry, nor an apple tree and a pear and no juicy and fragrant cucumbers and tomatoes. For this you need insects in the garden. Children know this, they are taught in school. But in the adulthood, only gardeners are mainly thinking about it.
Skmel Garden (young uterus)
However, the bees disappear in nature, so the environmentalists try to explain that keeping wild bees-loners near the housing is not a problem, and even more benefit. However, there are no insect pollinators in the garden. But some bees will not be able to pollinate everything around, because they, for example, do not fly in the rain.
Ground bumblebee male
Bumblebees are pollinated in the rain and in cold weather.
Maybe you will be surprised, but sort of bee "bear" - bumblebees, more efficient pollinators than bees. They will cope with long narrow colors, in which the bees will not reach their trot. And also, unlike bees, fly from a flower on a flower and in the rain and cool spring weatherWhen the bees from the hive still do not want. But it is the spring that the crop of fruit trees is laid.
Garden bumblebee uterus
I don't need to be afraid. These are kinds that do not attack themselves. And about 300 species live in the world. Approximately half of the species can live in the hive, which in his garden, in a meadow or on the edge of the forest will put a person. Bey, of course, should answer the needs of the bumblebee and must imitate its natural housing. Unfortunately, natural places suitable for bumblebee nests are becoming less and less.
Nest of the young queen bumblebee
Empty bumblebee nest
How to take care of the bumblebees.
Queen-uterus.
The females of the bumblebee winter in the ground, and in the summer, already as young queen-uterus, create their own nest. Compared to the bumblebee, the female is characterized by its size and color, it will also see a non-specialist. It is assumed that the winter will survive only every tenth, fatal for stemmalem stems is spring burning grass and fires.
Bumblebee is looking for a suitable location for the nest.
The males, called like bees - drones (drums), always less than the queen-uterus of this species, but larger than the workers. Often, the female and workers are distinguished by a brighter color or fluffyness. Shortly after birth, forever leave their nest or hive.
Peter is kind, bumblebees for which they became vital hobbies and work, chooses for the new Ulya it is these young bumblebees that are now looking for a place for the attachment of a new nest. You can find them out because the bumblebee fears low above the ground and examines each hole in the ground to create a new nest for this year.
"The female or herself will find a prepared hive or you can send it there," says Peter. "This means carefully to move it to a prepared hive, placed at a suitable place in the shade. Wait half an hour, then open the hole for the fly so that the female has the opportunity to fly if she did not like it there." - Pyotr advises how to properly act while lubricating the bumblebees in a new hive. "This is a free living and protected appearance, it is impossible to enslave it. Bumblebee himself must decide where he will live."
Ceramic bumblebee
If after the female flew out of the hive, she began to circle over it, it's a good sign. "This means that she studies his location to return to him. From my practice, every fourth attempt to settle the hive is successful," says Peter.
Spacious wooden bumblebee hive. On the left below the input, on the left above - a hole for ventilation, from within a closed grid.
You can make such a hive on your own, but you can buy ready-made in specialized stores. In fact, it is a wooden box with a hole for the entrance, which leads the Corroduc Curve, simulating the entrance to a mouse mink. It is necessary to open a hole for ventilation, which can be opened in a large heat. In the finished hives there is a protection of the entrance that protects the hive from the penetration of the pests of the bumblebee.
The tube imitates the natural entrance to the abandoned mouse noura
Inside the hive should be laid out suitable natural material, for example, raw cotton, wool or slices of cotton fabric mixed with dry moss.
"Bumblebees use this material for the construction of the nest, they bite pieces and chew, which is impossible if artificial materials are in the hive." - explains Peter.
Actually, nothing more needs, all the rest of the bumblebee will find themselves. In the fall, the queen-female hive leaves, workers and drifts will die. Only the queen-female will survive the winter, smoking in the ground. And we need to clean the hive and prepare it for the future year.
Bumblebees are very useful insects. But unfortunately, they are becoming less and less. Bumblebees should be preserved and create them the necessary conditions so that in your garden from the earliest spring these workers flew - excellent pollinators of plants. Nature awarded these bright, beautiful insects longer truth than the bees, so they are able to pollinate plants that cannot pollinate honey bees, for example, red clover.
The red clover nectar is located in the flowers at such a depth, to which the shortest trumps of the Central Russian bee takes place, so the bees red clover are practically not pollinated, and the only pollinator is bumblebee. Two types of bumblebees even specifically brought to Australia and New Zealand to pollinate the fields in the clover. After all, clover did not give seed without pollination.
Bumblebees, collecting nectar and pollen, at the same time pollinated plants, like bees. They collect pollen, as well as the bees shifting it with brushes on the legs in a certain place and stinging special baskets from hairs on the legs. Such an apparatus is only among individuals collecting pollen, the males are absent.
Bumblebee nest
In the spring, it can be seen in its area how the female sewing is looking for a suitable place for the nest, examining various minks in the ground and holes in human buildings. Bumblebee nest is the right ball from the twigs, moss, herbs and other similar materials serving for the insulation of the nest. It is done in shelters - in wide cracks, birdhouses, abandoned by rodents abandoned, may be anywhere that seemed a female suitable for the nest device.
A young female in the nest makes several cells, on the bottom of one posts 5-6 eggs. Bumblebees feed all the larvae together in the same cell, in other cells folding the stocks of honey and Perg, so that there is food in bad weather. Cells are built in the wrong spherical shape, the building material is wax mixed with pollen.
Bumblebees on the trouser, like the bees, there are wax glands that excrete the wax from which they build cells to remove the offspring and storage of honey and Perg. As the larvae grows the wall of the cell, the female, and then the workers of the individual, are repaired all the time. When time comes, the larvae roll cocoons and pound. After a while, the female threatens the cocoons and adult small bumblebees overlook.
Small working bumblebees appear 20-30 days after the laying of eggs. The female continues to postpone the eggs, and the care of mining and repairing the cells for juveniles take on workers. The nest is growing rapidly, food reserves are replenished, old cells are used for storage after the larvae is output. For each laying of eggs, pending female, new cells are built directly on the old, that is, the twice cell is not used to eliminate the juvenile. With each new brood, working bumblebees become the largest, almost comparing the size of the female. Interestingly, females can change in the nest, the old female can replace young.
In large bumblebees, there are most often 100-200 individuals, sometimes up to 500, the quantity depends on weather and feeding conditions. The female at the end of the season lays eggs from which males and females develop. They leave the nest and mate in the fall. After that, soon the males are dying, and females are looking for a shelter in which you can overweight to give life to a new generation. Workers are also closer to winter die, win only fertilized females.
Bumblebees Flammers
Bumblebees are excellent pollinators. Their special value is that they are among the most cold-resistant insects adapted to life in the harsh northern conditions. Other pollinators in cold conditions or can not live, or live a short time. Bumblebees reach north to new land, Greenland, Alaska and Chukotka, can live high in the mountains and pollinate plants at the border of eternal snow.
Where is such a cold resistance? It turns out that the body temperature of the bumblebee may exceed the temperature ambient By 20-30 degrees, constituting an average of 40 degrees, although insects are cold-blooded animals. This is achieved through the work of the breast muscles, during which a characteristic buzz is heard. If the buzz is stopped, the body temperature of the insect begins to fall, but it is worth a mud, sitting in the nest, start quickly cut the breast muscles without the movement of the wings, its body temperature rises.
If all the mass of individuals in the nest buzzes, the temperature in it rises to 30-35 degrees. In the preliminary cold clock from the bumblebee, there is always a buzz, earlier even thought that this bumblebee trumpeter raises the nest to work, and he just warmed up before the flight and he warmed the nest. In the hottest time, these useful insects, like bees, ventilate their home, fluttering with wings before entering.
Do not hurt bumblebees, because they are not stupid just like that, but only defending. If on your garden plot or near a private house there is a nest of these beautiful, useful insects, pollination of fruit and berry crops is ensured even in cold weather, when the bees and other insects do not fly.
To me in the house of this spring, 2 times the female bumblebees have already flown 2 times, I carefully caught with a jar and released - let these beauties build sockets and pollinate plants in my garden. While I carried them to the window, the bumblebees were offended in the jar, but then calmly crawled and flew up with a dense buzz.
Author Olga Bogach
Due to the threat to the disappearance of the bumblebees, people developed artificial nests in which insects, presumably, should want to equip their hives. Alas, the absolute majority of artificial houses are ignored by bumblebees.
Over the past half century, active agricultural activities strongly spoiled insect-habitat insects, among which butterfly, bees and bumblebees were. The situation with bumblebees is so serious that the Government of the UK even allocated funds for several projects to prevent the decline in the population of these insects.
Since one of the main reasons for the fall in the number of bumblebees is considered to be the disappearance of places for the nesting, it was decided to develop artificial nests, a sort of analogue of bird bunches. Said - Made: Houses were constructed, tested, recognized effectively and sent to mass production. But the "discontinuity" happened. Researchers from Sterling University for four years evaluated the attractiveness of commercial nests for bumblebees and concluded that their effectiveness tends to zero.
The story with the bumblebees began in the 1950s, and the cage for these insects was tested on the territory of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and the United States three times in the 50s, 60s and early 80s. Nearly showed high efficiency, in 30-50% of cases of bumblebee used proposed nesting facilities. But since the head of the research team Dave Gulson says, the number of bumblebees has decreased significantly. Three thirty years ago they were 10 times more, which could be the cause of such a high effectiveness of artificial housing.
Scientists have experienced 736 Nests; Some of them were a commercial product, and part was the work of gardeners. The attractiveness of houses was evaluated in the gardens and farms South England and Central Scotland. Alas, there were only 23 nests from 736. As the researchers say, it would be easier to purchase floral seeds and sear them along the plots: it would have attracted insects than nesting boxes.
Scientists tried to find out what features a ready-made bumblebee should be posted that insects approved him. The challenge was hampered by the fact that there are not much known about this side of life, therefore, some mistakes made by constructors had the reason for the lack of reliable information about the personal life of insects. Yet scientists are ready to give gardeners and farmers several advice of varying degrees of evidence. Firstly, when the bumblebee is looking for a nest, it first looks out for a suitable place from the air, then lands and inspection of holes and holes in the ground - and this means that the birdhouse with side entrance insects will be ignored. Similarly, the bumblebees will prefer terrestrial or underground sockets hanging on the tree. (A pair of types of bumblebees on the British islands favored by ordinary wooden benchmarks, but, ironically, insects prefer to nest in boxes installed for birds, and not in special "bumblebees".) In addition, it is recommended to avoid in the interior of the straw bumblebee: it is too Grust for insects. It is better to use dry moss, upholstery cotton or hair felt.
All this, of course, does not cancel the need if possible not to disturb the relief of the soil surface in the nesting places of the bumblebee: no man-made nest replaces the bumblebees of a natural home. If you continue to break the land under the agricultural culture, it may turn out to be a certain ...
