SYSTEMATIC TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE THE PRODUCTION

AND QUALITY OF BEE HONEY AND ROYAL JELLY

Senior engineer Liu jinzu and Wu zhonggao
Beijing Apiculture and Silk Worm Administrative Centre
No.8 Yumin Zhonglu Rd.Beijing, 100029, China.
Phone: 86-10-62034232, Fax: 86-10-62032558, E-mail: bee-king@sohu.com

Introduction
According to beekeeping production status quo and climate character in Beijing area, bee pasture, plant,
distributing and excreting orderliness, we sum up some synthesis and high-grade technologies which can
make Beijing honey and royal jelly produce more. That is, strong colony of bees can hibernate safely;
accelerate colony of bees breed in spring; choose well-breed bee and foster high grade queen; foster strong
colony of bees, strive for high yield of royal jelly; understand bee plant, make use of bee plant; prevent and
control bee spreading around, keeping strong colour of bees fettle, etc.
Beijing is located in the north of the North China Plain which plain occupy 38% areas, the others are
mountain area .The average height above sea level is from 800 to 1000 meters, the highest is 2303 meters.
It is a typical region of warm, semi-humid and monsoon climate, the average temperature is 10 to 20 degrees
centigrade and the average rainfall is 600 mm a year. The major nectariferous plants in the city are jujube,
achaste and locust, etc. And there are jujube, apricot, etc. in suburban districts. The major pollen plants are
corn and chestnut. There are more than 1000 supplementary pollen and honey plants. Sedentary and short
distance migration beekeeping can be conducted here because of the full major and supplementary nectar
plants both in city and in suburb districts, the difference of topography and temperature and the different
period of bloom. Since these years, many apiaries have had high economic returns, increasing production of
farm crops and more wide social benefits because of the pollination. However, some apiaries pay no
attention to the utilization of apicultural science and technology and have small economic returns.
After studying and practicing over a long period of time, the scientists in Beijing apicultural circle sum up a
set of complete and comprehensive technology to get high quality and high yield of royal jelly and honey. The
technology spread progressively in the city, which not only brought about great social and economic results,
but also won the Second Prize of Agricultural Technology Spreading in Beijing.

Wintering Safely with Strong Colonies

Wintering with strong colonies can save feed and prolong the life spans of honeybees. Bees gather in the
combs around the queen in winter. When there are no larvae, the temperature is usually from 8 to 10
degrees centigrade, the highest is 14 degrees centigrade in the central part of colonies. This helps keeping
the colonies quiet, reduced food and weaken metabolism. Bees rely on the feed and the thermal energy of
rubbing each other to adjust and keep the temperature. If there are 5 to 6 full frames of bees in one colony,
about five kilograms of food is needed for a wintering period of about 4 months. One kilogram of honey is
needed for one full frames to live to April or May of the following year. However, 1.5 to 2 kilograms of forage
is consumed for no more than 3 full frames to live to March of the following year. So, the stronger is colony,
the more forage is saved; the longer lifespan is wintering bees, the safer is wintering bees.
Proceedings of the 37th International Apicultural Congress, 28 October 1 November 2001, Durban, South Africa
To be referenced as: Proc. 37th Int. Apic. Congr., 28 Oct 1 Nov 2001, Durban, South Africa
Produced by: Document Transformation Technologies Organised by: Conference Planners

APIMONDIA 2001
ISBN: 0-620-27768-8

Raising strong over- wintering bee of the right age is the key to raising strong colonies. The broods had no
experience in collecting and nursing but had flied for excreting are the most suitable for over wintering. The death
ratio (from November to March the following year) of over-wintering bees in Beijing is usually from 35% to 50%.
* These beekeeping technologies take the videotape and VCD for appraise through
comparison.
Therefore, it is the right time to raise the over- wintering bees between the middle 10 days of August and the
last 10 days of September. The worker bees will die in winter if they are raised untimely and participated in
collecting or nursing. After the last 10 days of September, the weather become cold, the raised bees will
have no time to be taken out to excrete. Excrement and urine accumulated in belly will lead to uneasy.
Meanwhile, cold weather and no pollen plants will result in sharp decrease of the queen egg-production. The
young bees nursing will shorten their lifespan. Raising over- wintering bees of the right age should be ended
in advanced before Sep.20 if 8 frames are wanted in last summer. From the middle 10 days of August to
Sep.20, the right time to raising the over-wintering bees, some relevant measures should be taken:
1. No fewer than 10 frames in one breeding colony of the over-wintering bees. Otherwise, bees should be
taken from other colonies. 8 to 9 combs in one colony are suitable.
2. Replace the old queens and low quality queens with weak egg-productive capabilities .The queens raised
in Chaste flow is best.
3. Conducting stimulative feeding: Feeding the bee colonies continued with little honey in many times.
Selecting the high quality feed to ensure the autumn built-up and the safe of over-wintering. Pollen or mixed
feed should be fed when there is no pollen in fields after September to supplement protein, vitamin and
micro-element, and to promote the gee-production of the queens and supplement the nutrition of larvae.
4. Deal with bee mites seriously: Bee mites should be killed when breeding in autumn. In late autumn,
queens stop laying eggs, kill bee mites thoroughly again. The drugs are avoided to use in producing period.
So, it is an effective way to raise the quality and the production of honey and royal jelly. The slice of Manpu
and Manpulin are used with some other drugs to decrease the bee mites and to ensure the health of the
over-wintering bees.
Between the last 10 days of September and the first 10 days of October in Beijing, the queens are shut in
specially built bamboo cages to stop ovipositing. The advantage of this method lies in the following: the
queens lighten the burden of nurse work and prolong the life of many bees. After there are no brood combs,
kill the mites for one or two times by spraying drugs to ensure there are no mites in the following year. The
bees colonies are fed with high quality sugar and no polluted honey to prepare for over-wintering when the
queen is shut.

Speed up the Spring Built-up

The first major nectar resource in Beijing is locust. In order to get locust nectar, the bees must be propagated
before 45 days of locust bloom. The time of locust bloom is from the first 10 days of May to the second 10
days of May. Only the bees bred before the last 10 days of March can collect the locust nectar. There is a
phase that new bees replace the old ones and the new bees accumulate straightly. So the time of spring
built-up in Beijing is elected in later February or early March. At the time, the temperature is low; no bloom in
nature, some efficacious measures should be taken to accelerate the propagation of the bees:

1. Spot-check the bees colonies and feed them when necessary (with honey or sugar, pollen or cooking
starch and water). In early March, make a spot-check, feed with honey when little of honey is stored or with
thick honey or syrup when there are no honey- combs and semi-honey combs. Meanwhile, the colonies are
fed with proper amount of protein feed (pollen or mixed feed) until the pollen plants come into bloom and the
pollen is enough. When the temperature descends and cold current often appear, bees can not go out to
gather water and so they should be fed with water at the entrances of hives housing. With the temperature
raising, bees fly normally, water can be placed in the public place of an apiary.
2. Checking overall and improving the preservation of heat. An overall checking is conducted to improve the
conditions in side of the hives when elm is in bloom. It will provide a good condition for the ovipositing of
queens and hatching larvae: Opening the shut queens and taking the unnecessary combs out to make more
bees than combs in the colonies; Packing inside of the hives well, some materials of preserving heat should be
put into the hives; Narrow the entrance of hives properly; The old bees have a long life and the young ones
have good health when the temperature controlled well. The replace of old bees and new ones will not come
apart.
3. Adjusting bee combs to having more bees than combs. Keeping more bees than combs is the key
measure to Spring built-up. The size of brood combs is large and the speed of breeding is quick. Such as
three same full frames bees in one colony: three combs a group, the size of brood combs occupies 60% to
70%; five combs in the other, the size of brood combs occupies 40% to 50%. This result indicated that the
first groups breeding speed is quicker than the other. The supers are added in the first group in advance
from 10 days to half a month than the other group.
4. Adding combs timely at the blooming period of willow tree. The weather turns warm in April and
nectariferous plants such as mountain peach and fruit trees bloom one after another. The broods emerge
one after another and number of bees rise again. Especially in the bloom period of willow tree, pollen and
honey are plentiful, take away the heat preservation frames and other heat preservation materials, add
combs timely and expand the honey combs in order not to effect the speed of breeding .The entrance of
hives must be enlarged properly when there are drones. Add combs in accordance with the strength of
colony, temperature and the state of nectar resources. Before Tomb-sweeping Day, the colony is still weak;
adding combs to the centre of colony is unsuitable. But if there is a pollen-honey comb aside, the empty
comb can be taken to the side of second one .The new comb can be taken to the side when there are
broods, eggs or pupas in the side one and remove it to the centre after the eggs are breed on it and then add
another comb aside .Use the old combs first then the news in order to preserve the heat of bees combs. With
weather becoming warm, temperature rising gradually, the number of bees increasing, combs can be put into
the centre of hives. But the best way is taking one comb once a time instead of 2 to 3 combs .The second
comb are added after the first one was full of broods in order to get concentrated eggs and large size brood
comb and so as to enhance the colonies propagation when the hive is full of bees with eight frames, two
thirds of brood combs are sealed, some supers are added and the ratio will gradually become 7:10 between
the hives and the super.

Breeding of Honeybee of Fine Strain by Selection, Rearing High-- Quality Queen

The strain of honeybee is an important factor to get high yield of honey and royal jelly. It is very difficult to get
high yield both there are nectariferous resource and not if only with the high-quality queen selected in local
apiary. Therefore, it is a simple, effective and quick way to get the high yield of honey and royal jelly. The
Jingha bee and the bee with high yield of royal jelly were imported in Beijing several rears ago. And the fact
indicated that the effect of the importing is perfect.
Beekeepers can select the proper strain according to the requirement of the market, situation of
nectariferous resource and the advantage of themselves. The bees with strong foraging and little consume
should be particularly raised to collect nectar, such as Black Carpathian bee; Italian bees with high yield of
royal jelly should be particularly used to produce royal jelly, such as ZND-strain A of Italian and other jelly
bees. There is high heterosis in the hybridisation of Jingka honeybee. Experiment demonstrated that the
output of honey of the hybrid bees is 29.5% higher than that of local Italian bees.
The hybrids are not only bee bread-saving, but being able to use scattered nectar plants, resistant to low
temperature, highly adaptable to local climate in Beijing. Moreover, they can quickly restrain to breed when
there are no nectar plants in fields and have high resistance to disease. The strain with high yield of honey is
suitable to be raised in Beijing.
If Ha queen and jelly queen are raised in one hive, high yield both of honey and of royal jelly can be
obtained. Pay attention to rearing high quality queens when the fine strain is imported. The queens are
reared when there are plenty of nectar and pollen resources in nature, many drones in colony, a lot of nurse
bees and feed. Queens ovipositing is limited in this period. The best way is using the implement of
controlling the queens ovipositing to control the queens and no place for ovipositing in 10 days to get big
and heavy eggs. And rear queens from the larvae brood from these eggs. Removing brood in double entry
and broods are no more than 6 hours age. There should be enough bees in the nucleus to ensure stable
temperature in the later stage of new queens growth.

Raising strong bee colonies, getting high yield of honey and royal jelly.
More bees in strong colonies can keep the hive temperature. The bees bred from strong colonies have great
physique, long life and high foraging ability. Meanwhile, in nectar flow, strong colonies adjust the humidity to
lower than weak ones and so as to evaporating the water in collected honey. So the honey is high quality
and mature quickly.
The supers are added in well over-wintering colonies after spring built-up in the area of Beijing Plain to achieve
the honey standard of strong colonies. Two or three weak colonies of over-wintering bees in some mountain
areas should be combined to a strong colony before locust flow to get high yield of honey and royal jelly.
Strong colonies can be breed by raising two-queen colonies. Because two queens in the same colony can
raise colony reproductive capacity and it is easy to form a strong colony and beneficial to produce honey and
royal jelly. Someone worried that the honey production of two-queen colonies are fewer than that of
one-queen ones, so they take the measure of breeding by two-queen and producing by one-queen. In fact,
the honey production of two-queen colonies is more than of the one-queen colonies so long as to deal with
the relationship between nursing and collecting well. First, raising plenty of foraging bees of the right age

starts from about 45 days and controlling the ovipositing of the queens properly from 7 to 10 days before the
nectar flow. For example, in short locust flow, no conditions are offered to the queens to oviposit until
prosperous nectar flow. The oviposting of the queens are only limited properly in the apiary with short
distance migratory and two blooming period of locust; It is unfavourable to limit the ovipositing of queens for
long time in long chaste flow. Frames are added into the hive to enlarge the comb and adjust the ovipositing
of queens. Both the strength is not weakened seriously and the production of honey is raised.
Know and Use of Nectar Resources, Taking Short Distance Migration.
The blooming period of locust or chaste bloom is different in different areas of Beijing. For example, locust in
the south suburb Daxin bloom is earlier than those in Changpin and Miyun about one week. Chaste in
Xishan, Bada bloom earlier than those in Mongtougou and the remote mountains area in Huairou
about half a month. Locust in Tiangjin and the south and the east of Hebei province bloom earlier than
those in Beijing.
The best time and routes are selected according to nectar resources, feature of climate, bloom in the south
earlier than that in the north, low latitude and conduct short distance migration to collect honey and jelly. But
the factor related to nectar flow must be mastered. Such as locust, the quality of nectar is related to the plant
kind (In general, much nectar in earth which is rich and full of water), temperature (much nectar in high
temperature) and climate in nectar flow (the windstorm and rain will influence the flowing of nectar plants
directly).
Therefore, the best place and time can be mastered only the area of nectar plants, feature of climate, regular
pattern and circumstance of nectar flowing in these years are considered carefully when we select the routes
and places of migration.

Excessive swarming must be avoided and controlled, strong colonies must be kept.
The ovipositing of the queens decreased, the proportion between the larvae of different age and the adults is
imbalance in productive hives when there are more than 10 full frames in the hive with a super. In order to
keep strong colonies and keep the foraging bees in active state, the following measures are efficacious:
1. Producing Royal Jelly. Producing royal jelly in time after the supers are added stimulate the ovipositing of
the queens and the collecting of worker bees. The larvae can be fed with royal jelly secreted by nurse bees.
2. Raising of Primary and Secondary Colonies. After the supers are added to the bee colonies, a group of
new queens can be breed at first when it is nearly one or two months to major nectar resource chaste flow in
Beijing. A frame of pupa comb and bees divided from the primary colonies made up the secondary colonies
and put it aside of the primary colonies. Exchange the pupa combs of primary colonies and the larvae and
brood combs of the secondary colonies after the propagation of the secondary colony. So it can accelerate
the propagation of little colonies and prevent them from the excessive warming in the primary colonies. At
the same time, the little colonies can be merged to the primary ones before long nectar flow comes. Replace
the old queens with new queens and make up strong colonies to collect honey and jelly.
3. Replacing the old queen.

4. Taking efficacious measure to deal with the excessive warming.

Separating the bees artificially and falsely.
Put a hive with 6 combs and 4 frames aside of the hive with excessive warming and unfold canvas in the
front of the entrance of hive, then shake the queen and bees off on the canvas. They will enter the hive
slowly. The circumstances inside are changed and the excessive swarming are controlled.

Changing the place between the old queen and new queen.
The old queen is prevented by the implement for introduction from the bite of worker bees. The new queen
colony is supplemented to strong colony some days later. The measure does not only deal with the
excessive swarming but also do not decrease the ability of honey foraging.

The set of Technology of the High Output of Royal Jelly.

The producing of royal jelly, based on the habitual behaviour--that is when the feed surplus the bees colony
will build natural queen-cells and rear queens, provide artificial queen cells, remove the larvae and then take
out the larvae and collect the royal jelly in queen cells when the larvae consume minimally and the remaining
of royal jelly is maximum. The essential conditions for royal jelly producing is as follows:
-

no more than eight frames healthy and illness bees in a colony.

the circumstance temperature is over 15 degrees centigrade,

bees food is sufficient.

To achieve highly productive royal jelly, besides select or introduce high-productive strain a set of complete
technology measure must be taken:
1. Raise jelly colonies advance and improve queen cells reception. The methods is as follows: adjust
the relationship between honeybees and combs and leave more honeybees than combs, all aged combs
much sufficient and pollen is adequate so as to form swarming mean and let colonies have the tendency to
build queen cells. Separate the breed area and jelly-secret area with solid or plane board, leave bees in
jelly-secret area no queen and result in the tendency to build queen cells. According to the nectar
resource, during the period of larvae rearing, shutting the queen properly several days before the major
nectar flow comes will decrease queens matter and cause the tendency to build natural alternating queen
cells. All these will prepare for the queen cells reception.
2. Correctly master the date of removing larvae and time for taking royal jelly. The removed larvae aged from
eighteen to twenty four hours, bow shaped and which is soaked in royal jelly. The time for taking royal jelly is
after sixty-eight to seventy-two hours nursing. Because of the characteristics in bees growth, the larvae
queen cells storage reached in peak ninety-six hours after the receiving of larvae and would reduce either
the larvaes age is less or more than four days. When its age is one hundred and five hours or so, the
consumption of jelly is maximal.

3. Control the quantity of queen cells and larvae. The quantity of larvae removed must be mastered flexibly
according to the following factors: strong or weak colony, circumstance temperature and nectar resource.
Under the condition of certain colonies and in certain range, the production of royal jelly increases with the
increasing of larvae. In general, 80 to 120 larvae can be removed once a time in the colony with 10 full
frames bees, 100 to 120 larvae in 10 to 20 full frames and over one hundred and fifty in 20 full frames over.
4. Control the ovipositing of the queens, centralize nursing energy. Before the major nectar flow comes,
controlling the queens ovipositing can slighten the nurse bees burden. Gather the jelly bees of the right age
to provide jelly for larvae.
5. Conduct stimulative feeding to improve the activity of worker bees producing jelly. During the
supplementary nectar flow, it is very necessary to conduct stimulative feeding. Change the proportion of
sugar and water according to the bees foraging conditions and feed with pollen constitution or stored natural
pollen when the pollen is insufficient.
6. Correctly adjust temperature and humidity In summer, when temperature is high and humidity is low.
Beekeepers must shade the colonies and lay some soaked sponge on the covers. Which will decrease the
temperature of the hive and increase the humidity and attract lots of worker bees up to the super and
increase the royal jelly production obviously. In drought season, colonies must be watered and the entrance
be enlarged to improve the air circulation.
7 .Let colonies without queens or with old queens work first and then let strong colonies produce jelly. Let
colonies without queens or with old queens work first and then turn to strong colonies to produce jelly after
10 hours. It will obviously increase the queen cells reception. Every day and every time can be put 3 to 4 jelly
frames in colony. But sealed combs must be added to the colonies at the right time.
8. Keep continuity in producing royal jelly. Once the colonies start produce royal jelly, it will form condition
reflex gradually. Do not stop producing suddenly for sake of temperature change or other factors. When it is
necessary, stimulative feeding can be conducted.
9. During the whole produce period, the use of pesticide and antibiotics and other drugs is not permitted. To
avoid pollution, be sure to make the larvae intact while taking out the royal jelly and the collected royal jelly
must be filtered timely and stored in cold to ensure the quality.

SYSTEMATIC TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE THE PRODUCTION

AND QUALITY OF BEE HONEY AND ROYAL JELLY
Senior Engineer Liu Jinzu and Wu Zhonggao

Beijing Apiculture and Silk Worm Administrative Centre

No.8 Yumin Zhonglu Rd.Beijing, 100029,China.
Tel: 86-10-62034232, Fax: 86-10-62032558, E-mail: bee-king@sohu.com

In July.1987, Mr Liu Jinzu graduated from the Bee Science Department of Fujian Agriculture University in
Beijing, China.
He is now employed at the Beijing Apiculture Company as well as the Beijing Apiculture and Silkworm
Administrative Centre. At these companies, he manages General Managers, Directors and Senior
Engineers.