Parting

What are bumblebees called that do not collect honey. Bumblebee honey. Elixir of Health. Male power. Useful and medicinal properties

Bumblebees, like bees, can produce honey. But it turns out liquid, similar to sugar syrup. There are others more important features: low diastase number, long period of sugaring, etc.

During the season, one bee family can prepare 100 kg of honey and even 150. But the bumblebee hive looks more modest, and the family size is 150-200 individuals, not one hundred thousand. Insects store honey in honeycombs, only bumblebee honey is not expelled in a centrifuge, but is pumped out with an eye dropper. One or two hundred milliliters of honey can be obtained from one bumblebee hive - it tastes more like nectar.

Differences between nectar and honey

Moisture content of flower nectar depends on different conditions. Bees do not collect nectar if it is thick, and also if it contains a lot of water - 80-85%.

bumblebee hive

The same can be said about bumblebees, but with an amendment: a low moisture concentration of 20% and a little lower will be acceptable for them. In bumblebees, the proboscis for collecting nectar is more powerful, and it is 2-3 times longer than that of bees.

On average, the moisture concentration in nectars is 50-55%.

Many people think that honey is dehydrated nectar. The humidity of honey in accordance with GOST is 17-21%, and the meaning of the work of bees is to reduce humidity from 50% to 20%. The nectars also contain starch. It differs from potato starch in structure. And the enzymes contained in the saliva of the bees break down the “flower starch” into dextrins and maltose.

About the honey product obtained by bumblebees, we can confidently say the following:

Its moisture will be higher than that of real bee honey (more than 21%);
Perhaps not all the “flower starch” breaks down in bumblebee honey.

Starch from potatoes, cereals and flowers are three different foods. A certain Phillips fed his bees with starch of the first two kinds. And the individuals in the test group died in the same amount of time as those in the starvation group!

About storage

Honey with high humidity is characterized by a long period of sugaring. But when candied, such a product is divided into fractions. The downside is that fermentation can begin.

Fractions of honey

The best thing to do is to keep the bee product at a constant temperature. It should be 5-10 or 15-20 C. Under such conditions, glucose does not crystallize for a long time, and this is exactly what is needed.

Period and numbers

If buckwheat honey is stored under the specified conditions, it will not be candied. more than a year. The moisture content of buckwheat honey is 21%. And bumblebee honey, apparently, should be stored in the same conditions. But preference is better give the range 5-10 °C.

Under other conditions, honey will not deteriorate, but it will sugar faster. And then because of the increased humidity, fractions will appear.

According to GOST, best temperature for storage - from +5 to +20 °C. Suitable packaging will be glass jars, and the lids must be lapped, but they cannot be made of iron.

Tricks and subtleties

Honey of any kind should not be touched with iron. The higher the humidity, the stronger this rule is.

You can buy enamel lids suitable for threaded jars. This option is the best.

The higher the temperature, the worse. In general, bee products cannot be heated to 60 ° C - honey begins to release carcinogens. But loss useful properties starts at 50 °C.

Honeycombs underground

When preparing medicines, in order to obtain a high-quality mixture, honey is heated to 45-50 ° C. But for bumblebee honey, the temperature should be lower:

Heating is then carried out so that the consistency becomes liquid. It changes a lot with temperature.
The product about which in question- it's so fluid. At 20 °C, for example, the consistency resembles olive oil.

Traditional medicine uses honey in different recipes. And the above variety is useful for male ailments.

Properties of the bumblebee product

In bees, honey is very dense - up to 1.5 kg per 1 liter. Bumblebees produce a product with a lower density - it is close to the density of water. The reason has been mentioned above. But the honey that bumblebees make is better in many ways.

Some biologists, but not beekeepers, advise storing the product in question at +1 - +2 ° C! Then all bacteria are blocked.

The temperature lethal for bacteria is +2.7 °C and below.

Diastase number of honey from acacia nectar - 10;
The buckwheat variety is characterized by a different value - 44.

Both varieties belong to the elite. An enzyme called diastase breaks down starch. There is no starch in bee products. And the bumblebee product, due to the lack of diastase, contains less dextrins and maltose. Result - complete absence cloying.

Basically, bumblebees make a polyfloral product, reminiscent of meadow forbs in bees. The last variety, if it is dark, is considered very high-calorie - up to 400 Kcal per 100 g.

Dark meadow forbs

In bumblebees, honey is diluted with water, and it is impossible to talk about increased calorie content. The product itself is more like a syrup, but it contains pollen that is not typical for bee products:

Pollen grains of meadow clover (dominant);
Pollen of purpurea, pikulnik, black root officinalis.

Bee products mainly contain acacia and linden pollen.

There is such a type of bumblebee - Bombus Agrorum or field bumblebee. The "syrup" of these bumblebees turns out to be the most liquid, and the diastase in it is kept to a minimum.

Where could I buy

Bumblebees work more productively than bees, collecting nectar from 30 clover flowers in a minute. For bees, an indicator of 10-12 is typical. Each bumblebee works 12-14 hours a day, but the bees follow a different, more gentle schedule.

bumblebee hive

The bad thing is that it is impossible to force bumblebees to collect honey in any way. They collect it for themselves in order to use it before frost.

Many beekeepers have already tried making hives for bumblebee families. It turns out this:

The family can leave the hive at any time;
It is in the hives that bumblebees are affected by infections rarely observed in wild nature(Journal of Applied Ecology, 2013/7).

In Russia, 4 farms are engaged in the production and supply of bumblebee products. And basically, their products include the bumblebees themselves - pollinators of sweet peppers and tomatoes. Two species are considered the most suitable for commerce: Bombus Terrestris and Bombus Impatiens.

Bumblebee nests are usually found in rodent burrows, also in tree hollows and near the ground. In the latter case, the nest is hidden in the grass, and often looks like a sphere. Sometimes even a roof is built from wax. There is one way to get honey from the nest:

There is one letok in the bumblebee nest, and it is designed for two or three individuals;
Having protected the face with a mosquito net, and hands with gloves, one must try to move the structure from its place;
If it does not work out, the honeycomb will have to be removed from the nest, which is located in a hole or in a hollow tree.

What is said above is more like poaching. But we must remember that bumblebees sometimes seize other people's nests themselves. By the way, leading role females perform the capture.

What do bumblebee nests look like?

Deciduous forest, forest belt - mounds between the roots of trees;
Coniferous forest - mounds that look like mushroom caps and are almost covered with needles;
Field, meadow - a gray sphere with a round wax dome.

It makes no sense to start hunting for honey before the red clover blooms. But it blooms from May to September.

Red (meadow) clover

However, bumblebees start collecting nectar even earlier - 20-30 days after thawed patches appear in spring.

What remains in question

Bee honey serves as a breeding ground for certain types of bacteria. And this - despite the strong bactericidal properties! Lactic acid bacteria in honey do not die: just add the test product to the serum, and everything will become clear. A similar property probably has a product obtained by bumblebees ...

In bumblebees, honey turns out to be liquid, and it does not sugar for a long time. What this product looks like in a candied form is a question. The more glucose, the more the consistency and color change. This is most noticeable on raspberry honey.

A bee product from raspberry flowers

Before sugaring, it is golden, and then becomes matte and opaque.

The taste of bumblebee honey is always devoid of cloying. And this is another mystery. It has already been said above about the significant content of sucrose. Maltose is contained to a minimum, and sucrose is not at all. However, the taste is not overbearing.

All infections that develop under artificial conditions can be counted on the fingers:

Apicystis Bombi, Crithidia Bomdi - unicellular, affecting only insects;
Nosema Bombi, Nosema Apis, Nosena Ceranae - fungus. These fungi do not survive in honey.

Microorganisms Apicystis Bombi are a huge danger to bees! So, deciding to become a bumblebee breeder, you need to think twice. Local beekeepers are unlikely to be grateful.

Bumblebee hive - on video

They belong to the bee family and have a similar lifestyle with bees. They also live big families and collect nectar from flowering plants. They are difficult, so every student knows what they look like. But not many people can say with certainty whether bumblebees make honey.

On a note!
Furry relatives of bees are able to process the nectar they collect with the help of special enzymes into a sweet and nutritious product called honey. They feed the larvae and feed on adults. The dessert created by bumblebees is no less healthy and tasty than bee dessert, and is of great value to people.

Collection of nectar by insects

The furry family has a strict hierarchy. The main female lays eggs and is responsible for increasing the offspring. She doesn't fly out of the nest. Working females make up the majority of the bumblebee family. They must use their long proboscises to collect nectar from plants and bring it to the hive. Worker bumblebees process their prey into honey. The life and well-being of the entire bumblebee nest depends on the performance of these family members.

Females, unable to reproduce, bring another benefit. They are able to collect nectar from 30 flowers in one minute. For this reason, they are deservedly considered the most effective plant pollinators. Bees during the same time manage to fly around only 10-12 inflorescences. And the working day of the bees is much shorter than that of their opponents.

Interesting!
The good vision of hairy insects allows them to collect flower fluid in rainy weather and even at dusk. Bees cannot boast of such abilities.

Male drones do not collect nectar. They build honeycombs in the form of deep cells, similar to closed water lilies. In some cells there are eggs and larvae, in others food supplies, including bee bread and pollen. With them they feed the growing larvae, so in need of nutritious and wholesome food. Bumblebee honey meets all these requirements and is the main feeding for offspring.

Features of the bumblebee product

The taste and texture of bumblebee delicacy are significantly different from the usual bee product. The bumblebee produces its honey from liquid nectar, in which there is more water in percentage terms. This is due to the fact that bumblebees prefer to pollinate plants whose flower juice is more liquid:

meadow clover;
pikulnik;
medicinal black root;
Lavender purple and others.

The floral fluid of these plants contains a large number of water - up to 80%. Bees do not collect such nectar, preferring acacia and linden flowers, in which it is thicker. The density of a substance also depends on the density.

On a note!
The specific gravity of bumblebee products is low, and its calorie content does not exceed 300 kcal per 100 grams. Such a dessert will delight even those who follow their figure. Bumblebee syrup contains particles of pollen, which is also not typical for beekeepers' goods.

How much honey can bumblebees collect

Despite the high productivity of hairy insects, their reserves are significantly inferior to the number of honey bees. Bee families live in huge colonies of several thousand individuals, in order to feed their offspring, they need a lot of sweet product. In addition, bee families live for several seasons and every winter they need to hibernate, having enough food supplies. Their next of kin do not have such a need.

The bumblebee nest has an average of 400 - 500 individuals, most of which are working females. The life span of a family is only a few months. They live for one season from April to September. But do bumblebees have honey in reserve? To make it happen, interested beekeepers create special hives for bumblebee families and contribute to their favorable development. From one such hive, you can collect only 200 ml of a valuable product.

Due to such a small amount of healthy delicacy, breeding these insects for honey has not become popular. But they are bred for another equally important mission - to pollinate greenhouse crops on an industrial scale.

Natural bee honey is a unique gift of nature with excellent taste and nutritional qualities. This is a high-calorie product - a valuable source of carbohydrates, contains almost all micro and macro elements, enzymes, vitamins, hormones, essential oils. The listed substances are in it in a balanced ratio, which makes their properties highly effective and beneficial to human health.

However, not any natural honey can be of high quality, which is closely related to state of the art environmental natural environment and technology for its production. Not so long ago, in meadows, fields, and especially in forests, hundreds of species of plants grew in abundance, pollinated by insects. Now on the territory of many apiaries you can find no more than 45-50 various honey plants. This is very small, since at least 180 species should grow on the territory of one apiary. It is in this case that honey bees have a huge choice in collecting nectar and pollen, as well as propolis raw materials!

If we talk about natural bumblebee honey, then this product is little known to a simple man in the street and therefore, in more, incomprehensible. Not everyone can say exactly what bumblebees eat and, therefore, know the physical and chemical composition of this product.

Usually, honey bees put the nectar brought into the hive into the cells of the honeycombs. Bumblebees, unlike them, collect food in a kind of honeycomb jugs, which differ from bee cells both in volume and shape, as well as in design. The capacity of each jug is on average 0.84 g of honey with a volume of 0.6 ml, for bees, respectively, 0.25 g and 0.35 ml.

Bees have a well-defined instinct for collecting honey. They, under certain conditions, can collect it as long as there are still free combs and bribes have not ended, which cannot be said about bumblebees. They collect nectar only in case of adverse weather, and then in small quantities, so they can never make marketable honey. The bumblebees spend all the collected food on maintaining their livelihoods and feeding their own larvae.

However, such data currently exist. For determining chemical composition bumblebee feeds have been subjected to special studies.

On the same site with such nectar-pollen plants as raspberry, phacelia, motherwort, linden, bruise and others, two bee and three bumblebee families were placed. The bees belonged to the Central Russian breed, and the bumblebees belonged to two species: two families of Bombus hypnorum and one family of Bombus agrorum.

After the honey collection, 34 kg of honey was pumped out from two bee colonies, and bumblebee food was selected in a special technological way. Then the honey samples were sent to the laboratory for chemical analysis. The research results are presented in the table.

Physical and chemical composition of honeys different origin

Indicators
	bee	bumblebee food
	bee
	light yellow
	pleasant fragrant	fragrant	weakly expressed
		sweetish	less sweet
Consistency		syrupy	syrupy

Sucrose, %
Reduced sugars, %
Protein compounds, %
Minerals, %
Diastase number, units Goethe
Specific gravity, g/cm
Pollen composition (number of plant species)

As can be seen from the data in the table, bumblebee food is liquid, has a low specific gravity (especially in Bombus agrorum) and is similar to sugar syrup. In him more content protein, sucrose and minerals, the amount of which is 1.7-2 times higher than in bee honey. It has a rich pollen composition. If bee honey is dominated by pollen from linden, then pollen grains from red clover clearly dominate in bumblebee honey. There is absolutely no pollen from such plants as pikulnik, purple lamb, black root medicinal, since the flowers of these plants are difficult to access for bees.

It should also be noted that bumblebee honey is characterized by high biological activity, causing distinctive qualities its healing properties in comparison with bee honey, which is associated with the polyfloral nature of these insects in the work. Bumblebees pollinate everything flowering plants, growing within a radius of up to 1 km from their nest, it was not for nothing that our ancestors said: “The bumblebee works for the owner, the bee works for the neighbor!”.

Bumblebees, like bees, bring honey to the hive.

Usually, honey bees put the nectar brought into the hive into the cells of the honeycombs. Bumblebees, unlike them, collect honey in a kind of honeycomb jugs, which differ from bee cells both in volume and shape, as well as in design. The capacity of each jug is on average 0.84 g of honey with a volume of 0.6 ml, for bees, respectively, 0.25 g and 0.35 ml.

On the same site with such honey plants as raspberry, phacelia, motherwort, linden, bruise and others, two bee and three bumblebee families were placed. The bees belonged to the Central Russian breed, and the bumblebees belonged to two species: two families B. Hipnorum and one family B. Agrorum.

After the honey collection, 34 kg were pumped out of two bee colonies. honey, and bumblebee honey was selected using an eye dropper (48 g). After that, on the IRF-454B refractometer, the content of water and protein compounds in honey was determined in the Kjeldal apparatus, diastase number (Gothe method), and specific gravity. The presence of invert sugars was determined on a circular polarimeter SM-3, and the pollen composition under a microscope (x600).

Bumblebee honey is liquid, has a low specific gravity (especially in Bombus Agrorum) and is similar to sugar syrup. It contains more protein, sucrose and minerals, the amount of which is 1.7-2 times higher than in bee honey. It has a rich pollen composition. If bee honey is dominated by pollen from linden, then pollen grains from red clover clearly dominate in bumblebee honey. There is absolutely no pollen from such plants as pikulnik, purple lamb, black root medicinal, since the flowers of these plants are difficult to access for bees.

It should be noted that bumblebee honey has a relatively low enzymatic activity. It contains diastase 3-8 times less than in bee honey. It is especially low in honey collected by the Bombus Agrorum family. This is explained by the fact that here the number of individuals did not exceed ten. In general, bumblebee honey is characterized by high biological activity. It contains a lot of microorganisms and enzymes isolated from them. It ferments even at a temperature of 8-10 gr. C. This process is especially fast under anaerobic conditions. Therefore, bumblebee honey should be stored at a lower temperature of 1-2 gr. FROM.
Alexander

Bumblebees: Spring worries. Today, about twenty thousand varieties of bees are known all over the world, of which more than three hundred and fifty species live on the territory of our country. All of them belong to seven different families. An ordinary bee first of all makes food supplies and only then begins to lay larvae, creating its offspring. It is interesting, but in wasps this process is exactly the opposite, but vice versa. Wasps lay their larvae, and then begin to catch insects, paralyzing them with their own poison. Thus, two very similar species live and reproduce in completely different ways.

Most often, wild bees do not live in flocks. They prefer a free life away from the colonies. Families, in our understanding, they do not create, but live separately. However, several species of bees are known to find mates and live together. Such bee colonies, all care for the offspring is assigned exclusively to the female, while the role of the male is limited only to her fertilization.

In a female honey bee, the stinger does not have any teeth that, during a bite, could catch on the body of the victim and provoke the death of the insect. That is why a bee can sting repeatedly. Male bees have no sting at all. Before mating, the female and male arrange mating games in the air. After the fertilization process, it flies away and dies. On the territory of our country, people consider more useful those types of bees that are closely related to clover, legumes, alfalfa or sainfoin, and less respect bees dealing with rapeseed, vegetables and fruit crops.

Interestingly, absolutely all bumblebees belong to the so-called polytrophs. They absolutely do not care what to pollinate. These insects bring invaluable benefits to anyone summer cottage, contributing to the active growth of the crop on it. Every new year, the female bumblebees begin to rebuild their own dwelling in order to create in it again new family. Moreover, their minks can be both underground and aboveground. Unlike ordinary bees, bumblebees feel great in cold weather and during rainfall. They are able to collect valuable nectar even during rain, while honey bees sit in their burrows, waiting for good weather. There is a myth that bumblebees are much more aggressive than bees - this is a lie. In fact, everything looks completely different.

The bumblebee has excellent eyesight and feels comfortable during the hours of darkness. That is why, once in a greenhouse or flying into your house, he will not knock his head on the glass, but will try to find a way out himself. In addition, these insects work up to five times faster than ordinary honey bees and produce honey that is unique in taste and benefits.

Another undoubted advantage of bumblebees is their unique color. They look very beautiful and serve as a real decoration of the fauna of our country. To date, fifteen species of bumblebees are listed in the Red Book. Most of got into it over the past few years.

It is impossible to say that the honey bee is absolutely domesticated by man, he only gives her a vacant place where she can build a house for herself and constantly takes care that in the cold season she does not freeze and does not die of hunger. Despite all this, the bees continue, to this day, to live in their homes solely based on instinct. Behind long years cohabitation human and bees, the latter could not come to terms with the killing smell of tobacco smoke or alcohol, as a result of which hundreds of thousands of citizens get into hospitals every year with numerous bee stings.