serbian beekeeper

Editing Boardprof. PhD Mi}a Mladenovi} (president), prof. PhD Bosiljka Djuri~i}, prof. PhD Desimir Jevti},

prof. PhD Slobodan Miloradovi}, prof. PhD Miloje Brajkovi}, @arko @ivanovi}

Editorial staffDr. Vet. Med. Nada Plav{a; graduate journalist Milanka Vorgi}; prof. PhD Milan ]irovi};

Slavomir Popovi}, PhD; Neboj{a Nedi}, M.S.; Vladimir Hunjadi; Robert Past, Eng.; Dejan Kreculj; Milutin Petrovi}; Branislav Karleu{a

2005

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Family Miri}'s queen-mating station

Photographer: Rodoljub @ivadinovi}

APIMONDIA Foundation

APISLAVIA

^̂aassooppiiss zzaa pp~~eellaarrssttvvooIzdava~: Savez p~elarskih organizacija Srbije, ul. Molerova 13, 11000 Beograd

phone&fax: ++381 11/2458-640 www.spos.info [email protected] [email protected] internet diskussion group: [email protected]

EditorMed. Dr. Rodoljub @ivadinovi}

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P^ELAR

Publisher: The Serbian Federation of Beekeeping Organizations, Molerova 13, Belgrade, SerbiaThe Magazine of Serbian Beekeeping BEEKEEPER

Our dear friends beekeepers,

I have the great honor of adressing you on behalf of the Serbian beekeepersthrough this special issue of the Serbian beekeeping magazine called "P~elar"("Beekeeper"). You are just reading the issue published on the occasion of theApimondia Congress in Ireland. The idea was to introduce the Serbian beekeep-ing to all the beekeepers of the world. Serbia has a very long beekeeping tradi-tion. In the ancient Serbian state, beekeepers were favored and even exemptedfrom military service. In the new age, Serbian beekeeping has been intensivelydeveloping. The number of beekeepers and bee colonies has been progressivelygrowing. This is all followed by the development of beekeeping industry, thus,today, Serbia can be proud of companies producing beekeeping equipment uponworld standards, but more competitive prices.

With this introduction of ours, our intention is to get to know you better, bymaking new friends that we will maintain by more frequent meetings and gather-ings. The idea is to invite you to visit us, to meet our beekeeping potentials, tobecome familiar with Serbia, the country with ideal conditions for the develop-ment of beekeeping, with unpolluted nature, with immense meadows full of honeyplants.

But the idea is also that you can count on us. We would like you to know thatwe plan to run for the host of one of the next Apimondia Congresses, but of anyother beekeeping gathering, as well. In 1985, in Japan, the former Yugoslaviamissed only one voice to win the organization of the 31st Apimondia Congress.Nevertheless, at the Warsaw Congress, Yugoslavia won the organization of the33rd Apimondia Congress 1991. Due to an unfortunate combination of circum-stances, this Apimondia Congress has not been held in our country.

We would like to spend time together in our country, as well, to give you a touraround our apiaries, to introduce you to good people giving all their love to bees,

which has turned their apiaries into the oasis of peaceand beauty.

Remember that the bee buzzing is specific inSerbia. If you don't believe it, visit us and hear foryourself. We will be good hosts.

SERBIAN BEEKEEPER, august 2005. 3

A worA word frd from the editorom the editor

WWelcome elcome totoBeekeeping SerbiaBeekeeping Serbia

4 SERBIAN BEEKEEPER, august 2005.

WWelcome to Beekeeping Serbiaelcome to Beekeeping Serbia

Spinner First, Then the Colony?Spinner First, Then the Colony?

Honey PHoney Prroductionoduction

Complex Beekeeping TComplex Beekeeping Technique with Fechnique with Farar rar's Hive inrar's Hive inthe Fthe Function of Fighting Vunction of Fighting Varar rroa and Other Bee Diseases oa and Other Bee Diseases

MysterMyster y of Swary of Swarming ming frfrom Unknown Depths of Beehive om Unknown Depths of Beehive

Learn about Serbia to love it more. It is a country ofgood and educated beekeepers with ideal conditions forthe development of beekeeping. We are inviting you tovisit us and see for yourself.

There are more and more beekeepers thinkingthat it is sufficient to acquire good qualityequipment to become a good beekeepers.Nevertheless, a good beekeeper must knowthe biology of the bee colony to details.

Although there have been many researches, swarming hasnever been fully explained. We believe that it will be usefulfor you to read this modern tale of swarming.

Many beekeepers believe that only strong colonies can pro-duce a lot of honey. The author of this article is trying toconvince us that this is not true and that, by an appropriatekeeping of bees, we can get a satisfactory crop even from apoor colony. It is another proof that only highly educatedbeekeepers can bee good beekeepers.

In Serbia, there are more and more hivesbuilt upon Farrar's measures. Here youcan read about one way of beekeepingwith this hive, providing a satisfactorycrop and, at the same time, taking care ofthe health of bees.

Mileta Markovi}

Branislav Karleu{a

Rodoljub @ivadinovi}

Milan Mati}

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What is WWhat is Wood to Firood to Fire that is the Big We that is the Big Wax Moth to Wax Moth to Wax ax

TTrroyan Toyan Tragedy of Bee Colonyragedy of Bee Colony

ChildrChildren as Consumers, the Right Opportunity en as Consumers, the Right Opportunity

Life StorLife Stor y of the Beekeeper Vy of the Beekeeper Vereroljub Umelji}oljub Umelji}

StrStress and Bee Colonyess and Bee Colony

Although a medicine for biological fightingwax moth has finally been found recently, itstill causes a lot of economic damage to manybeekeepers.

Learn about a new hypothesis about Varroa spreading anddevelopment. You will be surprised by the authors way of think-ing, which is actually a synthesis of the findings about Varroathus far, but in a new and interesting way.

Recently, there has been much talk about stress. Haveyou ever wandered what is stress to bees? And whetherbeekeepers cause it by their ignorance?

Beekeepers often neglect the fact that children can be thebiggest honey consumers. Nevertheless, an appropriatemarketing approach is needed for that, adjusted to the tar-get group.Find out what you need to reach a good qualityapproach to this sensitive category of consumers.

Meet Veroljub Umelji}, a long-standing beekeeper. At theApimondia Congress in Ljubljana, his two-volume book Atlas ofHoney Plants won the bronze medal.

Rodoljub @ivadinovi}

Ivan Brndu{i}

Milan Jovanovi}

Jovan Kulin~evi}

Vlastimir Spasi}

3300

3322

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WWelcome to Serbiaelcome to Serbia

Natural conditions, moderate continentalclimate and the richness of its flora provideexcellent conditions for keeping bees in Serbia.In the area of 88,361 square kilometres, with 9.8million inhabitants, there are nearly 430,000 beehives. Honey potential enables a significantlybigger number of hives, according to experts,even over 1,200,000.

The spring development nectar flow consistsof: willow tree, wood plants, fruits and oil rape.

In some years, these plants also give honey to beextracted. The main nectar flows from whichbeekeepers extract honey are black locust, lime-tree, sunflower and meadow flow. Due to thedifference in the altitude and blossoming time,the black locust nectar flow can be used throughtwo flows, in lower and in higher areas.

For the good usage of a nectar flow, it isneeded to move the hives. Beekeepers moreand more use trucks, buses and trails with

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installed hives for moving or they move them bycranes and hives on pallets. In Serbia, there aremore than 800 vehicles with installed hives. Inmoving with pallets, there are usually five hiveson a pallet, which are easily and quickly loadedor unloaded with an elevator. In order toimprove the flow, more and more beekeepersbreed honey plants such as phacelia.

Big beekeepers with morethan a hundred hives and bee-keepers doing the pallet bee-keeping mostly have LR hives.Beekeepers with smaller num-ber of hives and stationed bee-keepers have DB hives, whilebeekeepers with hives installedon transportation vehicleshave A@ hives. Other types ofhives are not so common.Yearly honey production inSerbia ranges about 5–6thousand tones and is distrib-uted in the domestic market.

Yearly consumption of honey per capita is 0.7kg. Considering the export of honey, not soonerthan in the last several months have the condi-tions been provided in respect to the EU stan-dards.

In Serbia, there are lots of domestic carnica,the Apis mellifera carnica race. Her most

important features areextreme calmness, fast springdevelopment, long life, goodwintering with relatively lowfood consumption andextremely hygienic behaviour(Nosema and Acarosis). Foryears now, the "Apicentar"queen rearing centre inBelgrade (managed by the

worldwide famous Prof. Jovan Kulin~evi}, PhD)has been doing the selection for higher crops,resistance to diseases and other features. Theselection lines, some of which originate from asearly as 1982, are in 14th or 15th selection gener-ation. During 2005, started the exporting ofqueens to Jordan. At the moment, the capacityof the Centre is 10,000 queens a year. The priceof a queen is equal to the retail value of 2 kg ofhoney. The demand for queens in Serbia is farbeyond this, therefore new centres have startedopening under the supervision of the Faculty ofAgriculture from Belgrade (managed by Prof.Mi}a Mladenovi}, PhD). These are "Timomed"from Knja`evac, "Medoprodukt" from Vranje,"P~elica" from Kraljevo and "Zadruga med"



Miljko [ljivi},president of the

SerbianFederation ofBeekeeping

Organizations

Jovan Kulin~evi}



from Vr{ac. The insufficientnumber of queens in the mar-ket is misused by unregisteredqueen producers, who sellqueens without any kind ofselection.

The increased unemploy-ment in the country has influ-enced more and more peopleto go in for beekeeping, either

as the main or additional occupation. Thedevelopment of beekeeping has resulted in big-ger and bigger demand for colonies in the mar-ket (packed bees or on frames, usually 5 frames,3 of which are with brood).

The demand for packed bees is also presentin the areas of late nectar flows for the strength-ening of production colonies. These coloniesare acquired from the areas where the climate ismore favourable and where there are early nec-tar flows. Adjusting to the market demands, acertain number of beekeepers have becomefocused only on the production of colonies. Forprofessional beekeeping in Serbia, it is neces-sary to have more than 200 hives, and the num-

ber of this kind of beekeepers grows from yearto year.

Out of 30,000 beekeepers in Serbia, about9,000 are the members of 173 beekeepingorganizations making the Serbian Federation ofBeekeeping Organizations (SPOS). They paythe membership subscription equal to the valueof 3 kg of honey, and as the members, they getthe "Beekeeper", the Federations's magazineissued every month. The Federation influences

Mi}a Mladenovi}



the education of its members regarding breed-ing bees and the citizens regarding the impor-tance of bee products to people's health. Inorder to inform the consumers, the Federationstarts up promotional campaigns. The mostrecent example is the issuance of two popularbrochures, distributed to consumers for free:"Honey, miraculous food and medicine forhealthier life", and "Ice-Honey" (summer pastrywith honey).

A great attention is paid to the education ofbeekeepers, as a significant activity of the

Federation. At the Faculty of Agriculture inBelgrade, there is a Beekeeping Department,and in schools of agriculture, beekeeping is anoptional subject. Some of the schools of agricul-ture have their own apiaries. In order to con-duct educational activities within the Fede-ration, there is an active team of lecturers andtrainers comprised of eminent experts in thearea of beekeeping, as well as prominent bee-keeping practitioners.

During winter, lecturing cycles are organ-ized, and especially good results have beenachieved by the debate clubs. There is not a bee-keeping institute in Serbia. Through 96 local TVstations and 120 radio stations in Serbia, manybeekeeping associations have their regular andoccasional broadcasts. Considering cooperationand meetings, the Federation organizes varioustrips, excursions, visits to reputable apiaries,fairs and exhibitions.

Searching for nectar flows, beekeepersmove their hives and that way perform the pol-lination for free. Big farms have their own api-aries for the pollination of crops, while a certainnumber of producers of apple and seed sun-flower pay for the pollination. Apitherapy as the



type of treatments with bee products is inSerbia considered to be an alternativemedicine. It is not officially used in treat-ments, but certain doctors, upon theirown initiative, suggest the appliance ofbee products, first of all for prevention.Frequent exhibitions and education ofcitizens cause an increased demand forcurative preparations and cosmetic prod-ucts based on honey and bee products.This results in the occurrence of compa-nies dealing with production and trade ofmedical and cosmetic products based onhoney and bee products. There are 12veterinary institutes situated throughoutSerbia that participate in the diagnosticsof bee diseases. The current Ministry ofAgriculture has issued regulations wherebee diseases become equal with otheranimal diseases, therefore we expectmore help from veterinary services.Considering medicines for bee diseases,Serbia has several producers, the capaci-ties of which surpass the demand in thecountry for several times, thus a big partof the products are exported.

A stormy development of beekeepingis followed by the development of equip-ment. There are more and more equip-ment producers exporting a significantpart of their production.

A special place in the Serbian bee-keeping belongs to beekeeping exhibi-tions, held once a year in every biggertown and lasting for 2 to 3 days. At thebeekeeping exhibitions, bee products aresold, as well as beekeeping equipment.Additional activities of the exhibitionsare lectures for beekeepers and visitors,round tables, visits to apiaries, press con-ferences.

The biggest beekeeping exhibition in Serbia.The Park of Ta{majdan, Belgrade.



Regional beekeeping organizationsThere are other two big beekeeping organ-

izations working through SPOS. These areVojvodina Federation of BeekeepingOrganizations (SPOV) and Southeast SerbiaRegional Association of BeekeepingOrganizations (RAPOJS).



Vojvodina Federation of BeekeepingOrganization (SPOV)

SPOV acts in the territoryof the Vojvodina province, sit-uated in the far north ofSerbia. Vojvodina's beekeep-ing has a long tradition and thefounder of modern beekeep-ing in this area was professorJovan @ivanovi} (1814–1916), a philologist of theKarlovac Classic Program andTheological School. In 1896,he started the "SerbianBeekeeper" magazine, whichhad been issued until WorldWar II. As a professor of the

Karlovac theological school, he opened the firstbeekeeping department in Sremski Karlovci,one of the rare in Europe. It soon became thenursery of beekeeping science and practice. Bytheir personal example and work in apiaries, thepriests disseminated the secrets of beekeeping,bee colony and popularized bee productsamong their parishioners.

His idea "honey produced on an axle" directsbeekeepers to migratory beekeeping in search-ing for a richer nectar flow, which is today alsothe basis of modern beekeeping. As early asthen, @ivanovi} encouraged beekeepers to worktogether and founded the first beekeepingorganization in Vojvodina.

A big contributor to beekeeping was also theacademician Jovan Tucakov, our best connois-seur of medical plants. Examining the medicalplants of Vojvodina, he put a special accent onhoney species – especially those characteristicfor Deliblat sandy desert and Fru{ka gora.

In 1982, the Faculty of Agriculture in NoviSad opened its door to the first BeekeepingCounselling, which had the educational, exhibi-tion and sale character. It was and remained theunique and the biggest exhibition of beekeepingby its contents and number of visitors. The sta-tistics read that, in the last 23 years, theCounselling has been attended by about 25,000beekeepers, scientists and businessmen fromthe country and abroad.

There are good conditions for beekeeping inVojvodina, both climatic and land. At about 2million hectares (about 5 million acres), thereare optimal conditions for breeding one-yearand several-year crops. This potential ofVojvodina has been used minimally andrequires a better organization. Therefore, bee-keeping, as an economy branch, has entered thelong-term agrarian development of Vojvodina.

The first step of the Vojvodina ExecutiveBoard has been directed toward the protectionof the geographical origin and creation of abrand for the lime tree honey from Fru{ka gora,since Fru{ka gora is the biggest habitat of thehoney lime tree in the Balkans. "The Best ofVojvodina - Lime Tree Honey" anticipates a cer-tificate guaranteeing the geographical originand appropriate quality. Scientific researcheshave shown that in the lime tree honey fromFru{ka gora there is up to 90% of lime treepollen, which gives the priority to this type ofhoney compared to others to which beekeepersmove their colonies. In the near future, the goalis to protect the sunflower honey, as well. Everyyear, more than 250 thousand hectares (625thousand acres) of sunflower are sowed on thefield of Vojvodina. The areas under this crop arebecoming bigger and bigger, because domesticselection experts produce hybrids resistant to

Mom~ilo Kon~ar,president of the

VojvodinaFederation ofBeekeeping

Organizations

Du{an Vorgi}, secretary of SPOV

Erich Shieferstein, PhD, in Serbia with Miljko [ljivi}



many diseases. Daily intake of nectar can beabout 8, and the total even more than 50 kg. Thesandy deserts of Deliblat and Subotica are richin black locust woods.

The Vojvodina Federation of BeekeepingOrganizations has 55 member beekeeping asso-ciations, with about 2,400 beekeepers and70,000 hives. The most common types of hivesused for beekeeping are LR (more than 60%),A@, Farrar and long hives.

Southeast Serbia Regional Association ofBeekeeping Organizations (RAPOJS)RAPOJS is a relatively young, but very

ambitious beekeeping organization, with theseat in Ni{. It has 20 member beekeeping asso-ciations. It covers the territory of the districts ofNi{ava, Pirot, Toplica, Jablanica and P~inj at thefar south and east of Serbia. The estimate isthat, at this territory, there are about 7, 500 bee-keepers with about 112,500 colonies. TheAssociation strictly deals with planned and sys-tematic education of beekeepers, health care ofbees and marketing activities.

Contrary to the major part of Europe andBalkans, the area of Southeast Serbia is still oneof relatively unpolluted areas, which gives a sig-nificant advantage to food products. Agri-cultural production is still in its traditional formand has not been significantly affected by indus-trialization and chemicalization of the land.First of all, due to environmental reasons, in thelast years (nineties), the appliance of chemicalsubstances (fertilizers and for crop protection)has been decreased for about 70%, which has,truly, influenced the decrease in the yield, butfrom environmental aspect, it has contributed to85% of the land be protected for the productionof health appropriate food.

The biggest successes of the Association inthe past period: regular yearly seminars on

fighting bee diseases and prepar-ing colonies for good qualitywintering; courses about bee-keeping techniques in the func-tion of fighting Varroa and otherbee diseases, with awarding cer-tificates on the completedcourse for bee examiners by theFaculty of Veterinary Medicinefrom Belgrade; favourable year-ly diagnostic examinations ofbees and brood at the VeterinarySpecialized Institute in Ni{; rec-ommendation for one-timetreatment of bee coloniesagainst Varroa in the territory ofthe Association; practicaldemonstration and training forthe application of oxalic andformic acid against Varroa; FirstInternational ProfessionalSeminar with lecturers fromGermany (Ralph Buchler, PhD;Klaus Wallner, PhD) in 2002 (incooperation with GTZ Gmbh);Second International Profe-ssional Seminar with lecturersfrom Russia (Prof. V. I. Lebedev,PhD; Prof. N. I. Krivcov, PhD)in 2004; Third InternationalProfessional Seminar with lec-turers from Slovenia (Vlado Au-gu{tin, Franc Prezelj) in 2005;Practical Queen Rearing Coursein cooperation with the Apicentre fromBelgrade and Veterinary Specialized Institutefrom Ni{, with awarding certificates.

The Association has become so popular inthe Serbian beekeeping public, that in manyareas the idea of regional organizing hasappeared. In few days, the Regional Associationof Western Serbia is to be organized, and thereis the initiative in [umadija and Banat, as well.They are all supported by the leadership of thisassociation with a motto: "We confess, we startedfirst!".Authors:

Miljko [ljivi}, graduate economist, president of theSerbian Federation of Beekeeping OrganizationsDu{an Vorgi}, graduate engineer, secretary of the

Vojvodina Federation of Beekeeping OrganizationsVlastimir Spasi}, engineer, president of Southeast

Serbia Regional Association of Beekeeping Organizations

Med. Dr. Rodoljub @ivadinovi}, editor of the "Beekeeper" magazine

Klaus Wallner (left), Vlastimir Spasi}, president ofRAPOJS (middle), Ralph Büchler (right)

V. I. Lebedev

N. I. Krivcov

Vlado Augu{tin

Franc Prezelj


Beekeeping TBeekeeping Techniqueechnique

I will always remember a conversation withnow the late grandpa Mihailo Kulin~evi} fromRa|evo Selo near Valjevo. He was a veryrespected man. His endless faith in God, ethics,courage, wisdom and unselfishness always madehim a desirable adviser and man to talk to.Grandpa Mihailo lived for 98 years and died onChristmas 2000. In a moment of the conversa-tion, this great optimist and enthusiast seemedas if he had become suspicious. To my questionwhether young beekeepers still address him forhelp and advices, he said with wistfulness: "Son,today many children start to breed bees, someof them love them, and the other buy a spinnerand honey pots first, and then acquire a colony.It is not likely that they will become good bee-keepers. This, my son, does not relate to you, formy Jova (Prof. Jovan Kulin~evi}, PhD.) says youare a very hard working person and if you keeplearning and endure, you can achieve a lot inbeekeeping".

I was very flattered. The words of grandpaMihailo still live inside of me. I have been trying

to work both more and better. Whenever I wishto write an article about beekeeping, I think ofhow nobody will need my findings, of course youshould have a "spinner and honey pots". I hopethat there are much more those who are inter-ested in knowledge and experiences, becauseonly through holding an abundance of informa-tion, and by your own selection, you can build apersonal attitude and approach, because thereare no many occupations as individual as bee-keeping. I always have in mind that faith andlove in any kind of job open the door of success.

How to achieve a success in the blacklocust and the following nectar flows?The main prerequisite for considering this

topic is certainly in previously provided condi-tions for good wintering, and therewith a suc-cessful wintering of all bee colonies. It wouldnot be sufficient to once more remind of theseconditions; although we are maybe late for thiswinter, we are certainly on time for the next one.Well, which are the requirements that need tobe met:

– to have at least 20–25 thousand healthylong-lived bees in the winter cluster;

– to have a young, favourable selected,queen in the cluster;

– to have provided and correctly arrangedreserve of about 20 kg of good quality honey;

– to have at least one kilo of stored pollenin the hive;

– to have a correct warming and ventila-tion of beehives provided;

– to have the apiary protected against coldwinds, and still have it moderately aired;

– to fence the apiary in order to preventthe access of domestic and wild animals;

Mileta Markovi} was born on October 7th, 1947. He has been in beekeeping since 1982,and currently has 300 LR and 50 DB hives. He is one of the biggest producers of queens forApicentre and Professor Kulin~evi}. He has 1500 LR nucleuses and, thus far, has rearedmore than 50,000 queens. He produces royal jelly, as well.

Spinner first, Spinner first, then the Colony?then the Colony?

Mileta Markovi} 14226 Jabu~jeTel: +381 14 74 581Cell: +381 64 1917 333 [email protected]



– to protect the hive entrances againstmice and shrews;

– to have other conditions provided thatcould be specific for the locality at the which theapiary is situated.

If any of these requirements has not beenmet, you can not calmly and peacefully wait forthe spring and the approaching beekeeping sea-son. It is certain that the majority of profession-al, conscientious, experienced and responsiblebeekeepers have provided all these conditionson time, thus let's see what kind of spring devel-opment can be expected with them and withwhat kind of bee colonies we will enter theblack-locust, but also all the following nectarflows. For the estimate of possible spring devel-opment in 2005, we will use data from 2004, col-lected at the Apicentre.

The size of brood was determined in 87 beecolonies in LR hives. The date of the first meas-uring was April 1st, 2004. The average totalbrood surface per a colony was approximately80.5 dm2, or 4.6 frames completely full withbrood on both sides, meaning that from March11th to April 1st (21 days) the queen laidapproximately (32,200 cells laid in 21 days)about 1,533 eggs a day. On the day of the meas-uring, there were about 6.6 frames in the hivesthickly occupied by bees, plus forages, whichmakes nearly 18,000 bees.

The date of the second measuring was May1st, 2004. The average brood surface per onecolony was approximately 129.5 dm2, translatedinto frames, 7.4 fully laid frames on both sides.The conclusion is that (129.5 dm2 of brood ×400 cells = 51,800 laid cells) from April 10th toMay 1st (21 days) the queen approximately laid(51,800 brood cells : 21 days) about 2,466 eggs aday. On the day of the measuring, the hives hadapproximately 10 frames thick with bees, plusforagers on the outside, which makes nearly30,000 of bees in total.

The average intake made for 3 days of blacklocust nectar flow measured in the period fromMay 12th to May 15th was 21.5 kg, remindingthat in 2004 the majority of beekeepers did notmake this kind of intake even in two black locustnectar flows. We should especially emphasizethe fact that none of these bee coloniesswarmed. It is interesting to state the data thatin 44 colonies the queens were from 2003, andthe rest of them from 2002, and that an insignif-icantly higher crop was achieved in the colonieswhich were in the second testing year, while inthe previous years it was a much more common

occurrence. We can approximately estimate orcalculate with what number of bees thesecolonies participated in the black locust forage.If on May 1st, these colonies had the average of30 thousand bees and over 50 thousand broodcells, then every next day we could expect theadditional 1,500 bees. These are the bees laidafter April 10th, when the average laying abilityof the queen was about 2,000 eggs a day. At thesame time, we can expect that the mortality isnearly 500 bees a day, and these are bees laid inthe period from February 20th till March 10th,when the average laying ability of the queen wasapproximately the same.

With this kind of colony growth, by May 6th,(St George's day), there will be about 40,000bees in a hive. In that period, in the large areaof Serbia, the opening of first black locust blos-soms start, but there are still about 7 more daystill the full blossoming and nectar flow. If aboutMay 6th, when both of brood supers of the LRhive are full with bees, we reverse the broodsupers (due to arches of honey that will now bein the lower super) and add a honey supper, wehave completely freed the passage for bees fromthe brood to the honey super. By this activity,without extracting the frames from the broodsuper into the honey super, we enabled the beesnot overcrowd in the brood super and undis-turbedly store the honey above it. Now wealready have an expanded space of the hive,which will be filled with bees the number ofwhich will by the full black locust flow beincreased for about 10 thousand (7 days × 1,500= 10,500). By blocking the brood gradually, dueto intensive inflow of nectar, the comb surfacewith the young brood will become smaller, dueto what several thousand bees will become free,thus the power of the bee colony will reach theabsolute biological maximum of nearly 60,000bees, and with timely adding of bee supers, it ispossible to achieve maximum crops allowed bynatural conditions in that period. After theblack-locust forage and removal of honeysupers, in the brood super, in addition to theremaining frames with brood, we will leaveenough honey and empty frames for the queento lay in order to maintain the biological powerof the colony and successful forage for the fol-lowing intensive nectar flows (linden and sun-flower).

By the linden and sunflower nectar flow, aqueen excluder and a honey super should be puton the brood super, because there is always thepossibility of a not-so-intensive forage, and this



kind of forages can provide conditions for the queen laying in thehoney super, which would be quite irrational.

In the linden nectar flow, and especially sunflower nectarflow, queen excluders can decrease the intake even for 20%, andat the same time provide enough space for the queen laying,which could influence the weakening of the bee colonies and theinability to breed enough bees, the main job of which would be to,after the return from the forage in the late summer, raise the suf-ficient number of long-lived bees with which the bee colony willenter the approaching winter. At the end of this article, I wouldlike to thank Prof. Jovan Kulin~evi}, PhD, and his associates fordata about the performed measuring that I presented in this text.

The fact is that the queens, the selection and testing of whichare done at the "Apicentre", are reared upon the same technolo-gy and conditions as all the queens from the Apicentre meant forthe market. Due to that, in the majority of the bee colonies wherethe queens from this program has been installed, should achieveapproximately the same result, but it obviously is not like that.The causes should certainly bee looked for in the reasons such as:

– beekeeping with insufficiently functional beehives, inwhich the brood space cannot be expanded, if needed, and there-with create conditions for a full biological development of the beecolony;

– the unnatural and complicated technology of beekeeping;– bad quality, insufficient or too abundant nutrition of the

bee colony;– unprofessional diagnostics of the diseases in bees and

brood, and therewith the inadequate usage of medicines;– insufficient care, omitting of needed actions and dishar-

mony with the time, nectar flow and other environmental condi-tions, and similar.

As many other, for several years I have been looking for themost optimal and most profitable way of beekeeping. During allthis time, I have done the beekeeping with various types of hives:LR, DB, DB of ten and long hives. I have applied almost all bee-keeping techniques I have heard about at lectures or found inbeekeeping literature. I dealt with double, two-queen, or bee-keeping with several queens and with all other activities aimingthe creation of some kind of phantom colonies that were sup-posed to bring tones and tones of honey. Finally, when I becamethe member of the "Apicentre" and gained some insight in theirtechnology, I became aware of the uselessness of making theseunnatural, disorganized and unstable artificial colonies that werethe result of imagination, but with very weak backup of naturallaws upon which bees behave and have been surviving for cen-turies. Finally, I realized that bees "do not read books" and makethe beekeeper's wishes true, but behave upon their own instincts.

Many of us have had to pass a very long way in order to final-ly find what has been found a long time ago. I guess this is normalfor people who do not know how much they know, but now, whenwe know how much we do not know, we can finally by the spinnerand many more honey pots.



IntroductionThe planned actions we conduct with a previ-

ously determined goal are called methods. A seriesof interrelated actions a beekeeper applies in thework with a bee colony, aiming to obtain a honeycrop higher than those the bees would make them-selves, can bee called the honey production meth-ods.

In accordance with the knowledge about thenature of bee being, certain actions through historyhave gained, i.e. lost their popularity in the wideappliance in beekeeping practices. The creation anddevelopment of honey production methods, as wellas basic ideas that lead the beekeepers, will beaddressed in the first part of this text.

Numerous experiences of peer beekeepers andmy personal experience made me form a somewhatdifferent way of thinking about the secret of honeyproduction. I will be happy to share it with you in thelast part of the text.

Methods of clear space in the brood super The simple finding that more bees bring more

honey, i.e. that good laying ability of the queenresults in numerously stronger colony that will col-lect larger food reserves, completely changes theway of thinking of the beekeepers from the end ofXIX century. In accordance with new opinions, thespace of the beehive is expanded for several times,ways of rearing queens become more professional,and natural swarming gains the status of the unwant-ed urge of bees. New methods of honey productionappear. Some of them, made by collecting the expe-riences of beekeepers of his time, were defined by

Branislav Karleu{a was born on February 11th, 1956 in Belgrade. By occupation, a super-visor at the national air company. The first meeting with bees experienced at his grandfather's,and decided to start up his own apiary in 1977. Has 60 LR beehives. In the last twenty yearshas been trying to apply the gained experience in the work with about thirty colonies in hivesmade upon Farrar's measures.

Honey Honey PPrroductionoduction

Branislav Karleu{a11000 Beograd \or|a Jovanovi}a St. No. 7Tel: +381 64 20 40 60 [email protected]

You have an opportunity to peek into the reflections of Branislav Karleu{a, the man who was the firstin this area to dare say that a weak colony can produce honey as well. You can be certain that it is a priv-ilege many beekeepers of the world would be envious of. The editor is kindly asking you to read the textat least twice, and then come to conclusions. Naturally, you should read the beekeeping elementary read-er first.

Beekeeping Elementary ReaderConsidered through history, honey is

the strongest stimulus for man's interestin the honey bee. Due to the lack of basicknowledge about the bee being, over thelong period of nearly 8,000 years, the pro-cedure of honey production anticipatedpatient watching over bee colony work inits natural habitat or primitively madebeehive and, usually brutal, taking awayof the stored food. Not earlier than XIXcentury did the progress in natural sci-ences, bringing a series of discoveriesabout the way honey bees live in a com-munity, and trade development, forcingthe interest in bigger production of honeyand wax, create the preconditions for adifferent attitude of man toward thisunusual insect. In spite of all these strongencouragements, bees would probablyremain the angry and hostile inhabitantsof dark cavities, hadn't it been for the wis-dom of a hobby beekeeper, LorenzoLangstroth, who gave the world of bee-keeping the precise measures of theirhabitat. The "discovery" of the, so-called,bee space and the make of beehives withremovable comb that started then,enabled the large number of beekeepersbecome familiar with the life of beecolony through practice. The findings thatcertain actions can have effect on the waybees behave, and some of them contribute



Eduard Lloyd Sechrist under the title of ClearBrood Nest Systems.

The successful management of a bee colony isgenerally based on the resolving of three problems:a) completely develop the colony before the begin-ning of the main nectar flow on the selected loca-tion; b) maintain the number of bees through thewhole period of nectar flow without letting the for-aging stimulus be suppressed by the swarming urge;v) preserve the vigour of bees during all other partsof the season in a way that will allow the colonybecome strong again at the right moment for thenectar flow. Eduard Lloyd Sechrist has found thesolution for all the three problems in the undis-turbed activity of the queen. Laying eggs, as one ofthe basic activities of the queen, will be supported bythe bees as long as the colony has available sourcesof appropriate food and water. Under these condi-tions, only the swarming urge can affect the changesin behaviour of all the colony members toward thisactivity.

Behaviour of bees related to the storing of foodis a stereotype. They will place the pollen as near aspossible to the nest, and the unripe honey in everyempty comb cell occupied by the colony, includingthose with open brood. The processing of polleninto stored pollen is performed in the cell where the

to the production of larger food storages,resulted in the creation of the first honeyproduction methods. The findings of thePole Dzierzon that bees fill a major partof the comb cells they occupy with honeyin case, in the period of an abundant nec-tar flow, they are left without a queen,lead to the emerging of one of the firstbeekeeping "rules". Regardless the sim-plicity, the fact that the procedure wasused upon a plan (in terms of time andgoal), makes it a honey productionmethod. Being such, it was quickly accept-ed by the European beekeepers, andaccording to the available resources now(Srpski p~elar, 1896, volume 3), we cometo the conclusion that the professor Jovan@ivanovi} named it the "DiamondBeekeeping Rule".

In order to understand the big popu-larity that the Dzierzon's method of honeyproduction had in the beekeepers of ourcountry, we need to, for a moment, goback to eighties of the nineteenth century,and remind of the used beehives. One ofthe most advertised in the magazines ofthat time was the "American" constructedby Aca @ivanovi}. It had narrow and highframes 20 × 40 cm, warmly situated inrelation to the entrance. Two models weremade, with 12 and 16 frames.

The basic problem for beekeepersworking with the hives of this kind ofsmall volume was the fact that its space isalmost entirely turned into the brood ofan averagely fertile queen. Bees are leftwith only a few lines of top cells for stor-ing honey, on which the "arches of honey"are formed and two to three frames onthe side of beehive opposite to theentrance. By applying the "diamond rule"in working with this hive, the beekeeperchanges the ratio between the size of thebrood and honey super space. In a queen-less colony, by the emerging of bees, thebrood area becomes smaller and smaller,which increases the number of empty cellsfor storing honey. Bees are less active incollecting nectar, because there have nopheromone stimulus from the queen oropen brood, but at the end of the forage,there is still more honey to be extracted.

Dzierzon's method of honey produc-tion has experienced many modifications,



storing started, while the unripe honey will be"rearranged" to the very edge of the nest. When thecrop surpasses the free space for storing or when theripe honey around the nest is capped, every newcrop larger than daily needs of the colony will bestored in the nest itself. The lack of free cells forstoring pollen or nectar, within the space occupiedby the colony, has the inevitable consequence of"queen blockage".

The method of clear space in the brood superanticipates the beekeeping ways in which the queenalways have available number of worker comb cellswhich allows her lay freely, undisturbedly, as long asit is useful for the beekeeper.

Applied in practice, this basic idea posts therequests for a space of specific size in which thequeen - brood will remain during the entire season.It needs to contain a sufficient number of cells, sothat the queen lays as many eggs as needed for acolony of a standard power to develop and reach thedesirable honey-production strength at the momentof the beginning of the main nectar flow in earlyspring. On the other hand, the size of the broodsuper needs to be such that, at the moment of thebeginning of the nectar flow, the brood cells arearranged from one end of the super to the other,from the bottom bar to the top bar of the frame,thus they do not leave space in which bees wouldstore ripe honey. For storing honey, the colonyneeds to have available honey super. Its positionrelated to the brood needs to enable bees follow thenatural urge for storing food above the top row ofbrood cells, and its size needs to be in accordancewith the intake of nectar. With the honey area cre-ated this way, the colony maintains the sufficientnumber of empty cells in the brood space during theentire nectar flow, and the queen lays eggs undis-turbedly.

One very simple way of producing honey uponthe method of clear space in brood area is using onesuper of the LR hive for the activity of the queen(where the queen either remains in it for the entireseason, or the colony develops in two, and duringthe nectar flow in only one brood super). It is inter-esting to look at how bees in seemingly small spaceestablish a balance between the brood and food.The central frames of the brood super are always"clear" for the queen activity, ending frames are fullof pollen, and honey can be spotted only in theshape of drops of a fresh forage. The balance canonly be disturbed by a strong forage from abundantpollen flow or unskilful intervention of the beekeep-er. The replacement of any of the frames in thebrood super carries the danger of "introducing" the

thus it remained in use also after the bee-keepers have increased the volume ofbeehives for several times. Some of theknown methods, applied even today, arebased on the Dzierzon's way of thinking.As an example, I will mention the methodof honey production presented by JosipBel~i}.

In order to have beehives full of beesfor the forage, two or three weeks earlier,Josip Bel~i} builds the power of thecolony by adding brood frames (in longhives up to eight, and in LR multiple-storey hives up to 12 frames). The frameon which he finds the queen is put in thesection of 5 frames (i.e. the third super inmultiple-storey hives). The newly formedbrood area is divided from the rest of thebrood frames with a queen excluder. Thequeen undisturbedly continues with layingeggs into the cells of the empty comb,while in the other part the brood matures.In the beginning of the forage, he installsa net and opens the entrance of the sec-tion the queen is in, in order to have allthe foragers come back through theentrance to the newly made honey sec-tion. This method of honey productionwas very popular in our areas in the sev-enties of the last century. The reasons forthat are possible to find in the simple waysof building colonies strong and relativelyeasy establishment of very favourablerelation between the size of the brood andhoney space. The main disadvantage ofthe method is the way of resolving theproblem of the swarming urge. Theswarming urge during the nectar flow pro-duces at least two negative consequences:significant decline in the activity of bees incollecting and processing of nectar andthe declined power of the colony afterswarming. With this method, swarming issuccessfully prevented by removing theforagers from the brood section, but dueto the lack of the pheromone of the queenand open brood, the honey crop is notproportional to the size of the colony. Theauthors' opinion that the bees in thehoney section "feel" the queen throughthe wire net, is easily proved wrong if youadd to this section a frame with combfoundation and larvae favourable forbreeding queen cells.



colony into the swarming stage, unless you use theframe with a comb foundation.

If you do the beekeeping with some other type ofbeehive, the effect of clear space for queen activitycan be reached with 18 frames of Farrar's height, i.e.9 DB frames.

Where is the solutionThe comparative analyses of actions applied for

the nectar flow sometimes seems confusing. Fromthe above mentioned examples, we can spot a groupof honey production methods relying on minimallaying performance or total removal of the queenand open brood during the forage, while the othersinsist on its fully intensive performance (in order toreveal the essence, we should not compare themethods upon their efficiency). Regardless recentresearches showing that the intensity of intake ofnectar directly depends on the pheromone of thequeen and the brood (according to V. I. Lebedev,immediately after the queen loss, the crop declinesfor 64.4% in the presence of open brood and with-out the queen is lower for 25.6%, while lacking bothstimulus, the intensity of intake is averagely lowerfor 40.7%), we have to accept that the authors havechosen that way of beekeeping in accordance withtheir personal belief about what brings the honeyand that they have really produced in favourablequantities. Even bigger confusion in the attempt ofanalyses can be caused by certain actions within themethods themselves. As an example, we can men-tion that, immediately before the flow, a certainnumber of beekeepers intensively feed theircolonies, while the others extract the honey com-pletely. Even the opinion, a great number of bee-keepers agree with, that only (?!?) strong colonies

It is interesting to analyse this methodin line with the method of producinghoney by professor Jovan @ivanovi}, with,as stated by the author, the reconstructed"American" beehive. After the initialoverwhelming by the results of the"Dzierzon's diamond rule", irreconcilableabout the practice of killing the queenbefore the forage, professor Jovan@ivanovi} started with the reconstructionof his "American" having 16 frames of27 × 26 cm warmly placed compared tothe entrance. Instead of one frame, heinstalled a queen excluder into the hiveand that way divided the space of fiveframes for honey storage. He opened anew entrance on the longer side of thehive opposite to the queen excluder, thusa part of bees entered into the part withbrood, and partly in the "honey section".During the period of the colony develop-ment, he added new and new emptyframes into the queen section, and thelaid ones transferred behind the excluder.With the beginning of the forage, hewould stop doing this, thus (during theforage) the queen laid in accordance withthe number of available cells. It is not aproblem to develop a colony that will dur-ing the forage occupy the entire space of abeehive this small. The maintenance ofthe working mood during the forage is leftto the temperament of the bees, but inline with this, we also need to considerthat, in the time when professor @ivanovi}did his beekeeping, bee swarming was notconsidered a bee urge that needs to beeprevented. The relation between the sizeof the brood and honey space is very goodfor the nectar flow. If we compare thetwo, at first sight, very similar methods ofhoney production, we can notice that theydiffer in the basic idea they follow search-ing for big crops. Trying to improve theknown ways of beekeeping, Josip Bel~i}firmly supported the Dzierzon's theorythat the activity of the queen during theforage needs to be reduced to the mini-mum. Contrary to him, professor@ivanovi} with his opinion that the secretof honey production is hidden in the har-monized work of the queen and the bees,has stepped far ahead of his own time.



bring honey seems to be a controversy. WhileFarrar measures bees from the colony of 6 kg4% more productive than the ones from thecolony of 4 kg, Bretscko measures 44,5% (5 kgversus 3 kg), Lebedev 33 % (4.4 kg compared to3.5 kg), Lunder finds out a completely oppositeresult upon which a bee of a weaker colony of3 kg is 20.3% more productive than her relativefrom the 6 kg colony. Without intending toquestion the results of the measurement, it isinevitable to ask the question whether the regis-tered intake requires a rational explanation (ifconsidering the biological strength of individu-als, or the number of foragers, the results of themeasurement would have to be uniform evenwhen including the race differences amongbees). It seems that a strong colony keepsanother secret. The only thing we can do is lookclosely into its habitat.

A bee colony reaches the peak developmentafter seven weeks of maximal laying ability ofthe queen. In the first three weeks, areas underbrood are becoming larger and larger. Duringthe rest of the period, the size of the broodremains the same. The total comb area coveredby bees (supposing that we always consider thesame temperature) in the first three weeks is inaccordance with the existing number of bees(either those which wintered, or those the num-ber of which is the consequence of a slowerdynamics of laying eggs by the queen). Threeweeks after the queen entered the full layingability, the comb area occupied by bees becomeslarger and larger and reaches the maximum bythe end of the seventh week. If we consider therelation between the occupied (by brood andpollen) and free (in which bees can place honey)comb cells covered by the colony, we can noticethat, at this moment, it is the most favourablefor the nectar flow.

Having this in mind, we can notice that whatconnects all the successful methods of honeyproduction is basically the creation offavourable relation between the size of thebrood and honey space occupied by bees. Thesecret of the diamond rule is not in "sparing" thebees from nursing brood and "saving" food. Byremoving the queen, Dzierzon has changed thenumber of occupied and free cells in his small-in-size, beehive. By simulating the relationbetween the space in extremely strong naturalbee colony (2:1 to the benefit of honey), profes-sor Jovan @ivanovi}, with a colony of 20 thou-sand bees provided the possibility of collecting

16 kg of honey. The result worth the Masters ofbeekeeping.

At first sight, methods of clear space inbrood super make impression of a harder way ofproducing honey, but uniform dynamics of lay-ing eggs by the queen itself resolves the majorpart of the problem in practice. A strong colonyof uniform age structure easily winters anddevelops quickly, and in the early season, thequeen completely fills the brood super by brood.Its uniform laying ability during the nectar flowleaves always the same number of open broodcells which will serve the bees to put a part ofdaily crop in. With the queen's laying ability ofabout 1,200 eggs (a day), the brood super is atemporary storage of about 1 kg of unripehoney. At the end of the forage, event the lastdrop of ripe honey is placed in the honey super.The power of the colony is not crucial for theforage success even in these methods. Bees canbring as much unripe honey as can fit into freecomb cells occupied by their colony, while theintensity of their work will be in accordance withthe condition of individuals and encouragementof the colony. Tomorrow, when the researchesoffer us an ampoule of synthetic queenpheromone, open brood, pollen, we will countout a wanted number of bees from hives forreproduction and place them on a virgin combaiming to get the biggest possible yield. Tillthen, let us rely on bee instincts and habits andnatural sources of, for us (being insufficientlysensitive), mystical substances controlling theirworld.



In Serbia, there is a slow spreading of thebeehive with low supers, known as Farrar's hive.The external height of all the supers is 170 mm,while all the other measures are identical to theLR hive. It is very adjustable to all climatezones. All the actions of the beekeeping tech-nique are done easily and quickly. Nevertheless,only strong colonies are to be bred in it. Onlythat way it can give the right results.

Beekeeping principlesI am convinced that knowing the bee biolo-

gy is the basis of good beekeeping practice.There are many misconceptions among bee-keepers, at least regarding the Carniolan beebred in Serbia. The first problem is the strengthof the colony. Most of beekeepers believe thatcolonies reach the power of at least 60,000 bees,which is not correct. It happens very rarely.Researches prove differently. Friedrich Rutner

claims that, during the season, colonies number32–48 thousand bees. According to the papersof the Liebefeld Institute BeekeepingDepartment (Switzerland), signed by A. Imdorf,M. Rickli, P. Fluri and L. Gerig (1996, 1999), forthe conditions of Switzerland, the official aver-age strength of a colony is 25–40 thousandbees. Gerhard Liebig (1989-1993) claims thatthe average strength is about 30 thousand bees,while the number of 40 thousand is rarelyreached. The similar thing is with the life dura-tion of bees. Most of beekeepers believe that itranges even up to 6 weeks, thus, based on that,they plan various beekeeping techniques. A.Imdorf, M. Rickli, P. Fluri and L. Gerig (1996,1999) claim that, from May to June, the lifeduration of bees is about 20 days. GerhardLiebig (1989–1993) presents the results of hisfour-year research that bees, in the time of peakdevelopment, live for 2–3 weeks. He presents

Med. Dr. Rodoljub @ivanovi} was born on February 20th, 1973. He has been in individual beekeeping since 1992,currently with the, so-called, Farrar's hives. He is the editor of the only beekeeping magazine in Serbia. Thus far, hehas held 103 professional beekeeping lectures to the beekeepers of Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina,to about 8,800 beekeepers in total. He is the author of three beekeeping books, and the forth one is to be printed in afew months. He is the vice president of the Southeast Serbia Regional Association of Beekeeping Organizations, incharge of education and marketing.

CCoommpplleexx BBeeeekkeeeeppiinngg TTeecchhnniiqquuee wwii tthhFFaarr rraarr '' ss HHiivvee iinn tthhee FFuunncc tt iioonn ooff FFiigghhtt iinngg

VVaarr rrooaa aanndd OOtthheerr BBeeee DDiisseeaasseess

Med. Dr. Rodoljub @ivadinovi}18210 @itkovac12 Stojana Jani}ijevi}a St. Tel: +381 18 846 734Cell: +381 63 860 8510



the example of a colony that, according to thebrood size (in case we accept that bees live for 6weeks), should have 80,000 bees in the peakdevelopment, and not "only" 42,000 it has(meaning that bees live for 3 weeks in the peakdevelopment of the colony). After all this data,we see that professor Jovan Kulin~evi} (2005)justifiably claims that, in summer, Carniolanbees live for 21–35 days, averagely 25–28days. This kind of data changes some formerbeliefs from the roots, but the work in apiaries,as well. We should know that what affects thelife duration of bees the most is the nutrition inthe larvae stage (Kre{ak, 1973, Kulin~evi},2005), but also the exhaustion from breeding abig-size brood (Anna Maurizio, 1955). I wouldlike to mention another misconception, and it isthe numerousness of Carniolan colonies duringwinter. The number of wintering bees is not arelevant factor, since numerous researches haveshown that both very strong colonies and thecolonies of medium strength can come out ofthe winter with the equal number of bees. Theconclusion is that bees have to survive tillFebruary (in Serbia the beginning of moreintensive laying eggs by the queen) with theminimum of 10–12 thousand bees in order toreach the optimal development). Not soonerthan we know this can we create the beekeepingtechnique appropriate for our conditions.

Yearly cycle of single-queen beekeeping Although today bees have much more ene-

mies than several decades ago (Varroa destruc-tor, spraying plants with pesticides during blos-soming, very changable weather conditions andsimilar) and therefore, without our help,colonies rarely reach the optimal strength forearly nectar flows such as black locust flow, Ihave still decided to do the single-queen bee-

keeping. I believe that, with a correct beekeep-ing technique, colonies can be brought to thedesirable strength, with strict following andkeeping the track of the local nectar flow condi-tions (therefore I will mention them throughoutthe text).

In the Central Serbian area, where I do thebeekeeping (200 m above sea-level), the mainnectar flow is the black locust flow (Robiniapseudoacacia L.) in the beginning of May. Afterit, there is the wild blackberry flow (Rubus cae-sius L.) at the end of May and the beginning ofJune, as the continuation of the long-lasting andnot abundant meadow flow. If you move theapiary, you can use additional two nectar flowsin Serbia, the lime-tree (Tilia spp.) and sun-flower (Helianthus annuus L.) flow.

The goals of my beekeeping technique are: – replacement of 50% of the brood combs

during the year;– protection of bees against diseases by

the right beekeeping technique;– protection from Varroa mite (Varroa

destructor);– honey as the food for wintering;– honey is not the purpose for itself.I will start the description of the beekeeping

technique from the end of October. The stage Iwill describe was created by the end of the sum-mer, and how, you will learn from hereon.

At the end of October, at the bottom board,there is one super of selected honey combs witha good quality worker combs installed. Above it,there are two supers in which the brood wasbred at the end of the summer. I do not carehow much honey there is, because, above it,there is a full honey super (with honey from allthe flows during the year, always on the top ofthe hive with this kind of stationed beekeeping).The bottom board is screened and completelyopened from October till the first half ofFebruary, regardless the severity of the winter.During November or December, where there is



no brood, the colonies are treatedwith oxalic acid by the instillingmethod (3.5% oxalic acid dihy-drate).

In the beginning of February,the screened bottom is closed by adrawer. By that time, the colony

has already occupied the top honey super. Bythe end of February, a great deal of them movesinto it, while they will completely abandon thelower super of the former brood. At that time,that super is removed from the hive and takento melting. That way, the volume of the hive isreduced for 25 % (a way of keeping the hiveworm), and the old combs are removed (andwith him potentially present causes of variousbee diseases).

By the end of March, the colony is inten-sively developing in the upper two out of threeremaining supers, where there is a lot of honeyand optimal microclimate. At the end of Marchand the beginning of April, in my area, impor-tant honey plants start to blossom, blackthorn(Prunus spinosa L.) and winter-cherry (Prunuscerasifera Ehrh.). In favourable years, theintake of nectar and pollen into the hive is veryabundant and it is necessary to provide thespace for its storage. Due to changeable weath-er conditions, the reversing of supers, as a meas-ure of stimulating the development, has notprovided good results in the majority of years.

Therefore I use a simple manoeuvre. The superwith a good quality worker combs that spent theentire winter on the bottom board and served asthe protection against strong wind strikesthrough the open screened bottom, is nowmoved to the top, while the two supers in whichthe brood developed during the spring are putdown on the bottom board, without reversingthem. During the next moth, during the fruitnectar flow, the top super will serve as thehoney storage. Depending on the strength ofthe colony, the queen will move to it and layeggs. About ten days before the black locustflow, it will contain several frames with certainquantity of brood encircled with honey. At thattime, between the top and medium super, weput the queen excluder, without looking for thequeen. We will come back to the apiary in fivedays and look for the eggs. Where there areeggs, there is the queen. If it is in the lower twosupers (under the excluder), which is usually thecase, we reverse them. If the queen is in the top(third) super, we put her in the lower two andalso reverse them. By reversing the two lowersupers, the lower one, which is already partlyreleased from the brood and has lots of emptycells, comes to the upper position and the queenhas enough space for laying eggs, which influ-ences the reduced occurrence of the swarmingurge. Immediately at the beginning of the inten-sive black locust flow, just above the queenexcluder, we add an entire super of comb foun-dations. The bees won't mind it, on contrary. Inthe immediate surrounding of the brood, theywill have an opportunity to build a big numberof comb foundations, which also affects thereduction in the occurrence of the swarmingurge. During the nectar flow, if needed, we addmore honey supers from reserves with builtcomb.

I apply similar principles in the followingnectar flows. In order to have the developmentof the colony as optimal as possible, about forty



days before the expected beginning of the nextflow, I reverse the brood supers.

I the mid July, I start with preparations forwintering. I perform the last reversing of broodsupers. The super that at the beginning of theblack locust flow was placed above the superswith comb foundations, remains on the hive forthe entire year and no honey is extracted fromit. It is situated on the top of the hive. By theend of July and the beginning of August, thatsuper is the only one left above the queenexcluder and serves as the honey reserve for thewinter. In the two brood supers, the bees nursethe brood and store pollen, as well as smallersupplies of honey. I am never worried how muchhoney there is in the brood area ready for thewintering, because the super above the queenexcluder is full of honey. The goal of this kind ofwork is as much as possible quality bred broodduring August and the subsequent getting of asmany good quality winter bees as possible.According to experiences from Israel, the broodbecomes significantly enlarged also when weprovide the bees with easy access to clean waterwithin the hive during August. At the end ofJuly and the beginning of August, we again treatwith by instilling the oxalic acid solution, and bya long-term treatment with formic acid against

Varroa mites (when allowed by the air tempera-ture).

The apiary is situated at a place rich withpollen flow throughout the year, thus the beesenter the winter physiologically prepared to amaximum degree. Varroa mites are under con-trol, and the winter treatment with oxalic acidreduce them to a minimal number.

If there is drought during August and there-fore there is no significant motivating nectarflow, the bees are fed with honey originatingfrom healthy colonies. It is mainly honeyextracted from the strongest colonies immedi-ately before the black locust flow that the beesbrought in during the fruit forage. That honey isextracted from the brood super which is, at thistime and in this kind of strong colonies, usuallyblocked with honey and pollen, and thereforenot for sale. This way, I have found a greatappliance for it, because I return it to the broodand it serves for breeding winter bees. We donot disturb the bees before October, assumingthat we have provided all the factors mentionedabove.

In case during late winter the bees happento eat almost all the honey and come to the topbar on the top ofthe hive, the hiveis expanded onthe top by anempty super, inwhich I put asmall can withblack locusthoney. On its lid,we pierce abouttwenty holes.The can isturned upsidedown, and thelid is put on thetop bars of thetop super.Through theholes, the bees eat the honey. This kind of sin-gle-queen beekeeping technique without mov-ing the hives provides the yearly crop of 20–40kg of honey, with several-year average of 25–30kg per a wintering colony. Considering theefforts put, it is not little. With a little bit moreefforts and one moving to another black-locustflow (in favourable years, in Serbia, you can useeven three black locust flows if you have enoughempty supers with built comb), the crop can beincreased for 50–70%.


SwarSwarmingming

Beekeepers familiar with my series of workscould notice that the work methods I apply inmy apiaries fit into general principles of bee-keeping, but are used in general and without arecipe upon which beekeeping "should" bedone. That is why the flexibility of my beekeep-ing methods leaves space for individual knowl-edge and intuition of each beekeeper to, inhis/her own conditions and upon his/her ownabilities, manage his/her colonies in the mostrational way. That is the point and all the charmand the key of success of a modern beekeeper.

The beekeeper is the only one knowing thebiology of the bees, who feels the "spirit" of thecolony and who can, in various situations, pre-dict their behavior and react appropriately, witha big possibility of achieving the purpose hedoes the beekeeping for. All the others expect-ing to get everything in writing or said abouthow to do a successful beekeeping, almost neverdo it. That is why I will use one more opportu-nity to, in my own way, answer the questionasked by several beekeepers from the middle ofMay till the middle of June. Why the beesswarm, although they have undertaken all themeasures for preventing swarms – in the waythe books read?

It is nice and useful for beekeepers to readand learn from other people's experience, butbeekeeping is not a read book, becauseunknown "depths" of beehive have kept thesecrets of bee colonies for centuries. One ofthem is natural swarming, which is especiallyimportant to beekeepers, therefore they doeverything they can to reveal it. Many scientistshave been examining the pre-swarming andswarming stage of colonies and have come todiverse theories. Gerstung (1891) suggested a

theory presenting a colony with maximum pop-ulation of nursing bees, which make the criticalfactor of swarms, because they produce the sur-plus of food for proportionally reduced area ofyoung brood. Demuth (1921) thought that theovercrowding of the hive's brood area by broodand bees is the main cause of swarming. ColinButler (1952) established a theory upon whichqueens produce the substance known as QueensMandibular Pheromones (Q.M.P.). When thissubstance is available for worker bees in suffi-cient quantities, the bees do not build queencells. On contrary, when they get the substancein insufficient quantities, swarming occurs. Thistheory has been proved experimentally. Iaccepted it personally and have been successful-

Milan Mati} was born on July 19th, 1943 in Varna near [abac. By occupation, he is aSerbian Language teacher, but he prefers calling himself a professional beekeeper, because,today, he keeps about 150 colonies in LR and Farrar's hives. He graduated from the schoolof beekeeping in Zagreb. He is a years-long lecturer of SPOS. He has published three bee-keeping manuals, one of which ("Directing the work of bees") has had two editions abroad.He is the winner of the SPOS Gold Badge and Apislavia's Gold Medal.

MysterMyster y of Swary of Swarmingmingfrfrom Unknown om Unknown

Depths of Beehive Depths of Beehive

Milan Mati}15000 [abac77 Vojislava Ili}a St. Tel: +381 15 323 599, +381 14 56 138Cell: +381 64 296 78 15 [email protected]


SwarSwarmingming

ly using it in the forming of nurse colonies witha queen. I limit the queen in the bottom super,above the excluder I place two honey superswith frames full of open honey. Above themthere is a rearranged brood super full of youngnurse bees. The Queen substance can not reachthem or is below the needed threshold. Theresult of that is the acceptance of grafted larvaeand the breeding of queen cells. Derek J. Gue(1998) published his new theory about causes ofbee swarming. He claims: "Pheromone of aswarm is produced by nurse bees in a numerous,healthy colony during the swarming season andthis pheromone is stronger than all the otherfactors".

Many recognized beekeeping practitionersstated their opinions about the causes of naturalbee swarming, but it still remains the mystery inthe unknown depths of beehive! In my modestopinion, bee swarming is a law of nature andbees swarm because they want to swarm! Theyswarm because the reproduction of the speciesis the most sublime goal of their existence.There is not only one cause of this ancient urge,but is necessary to, in certain circumpstances,fulfill several favorable conditions. Fist of all, itis necessary that the bee colony reaches its fulldevelopment according to its genetic features,but also in accordance with the size of the habi-tat they live in. Nature arranged that the maxi-mum development of bees fits into the period

when at certain area there are enough honeyplants blossoming, at which both the swarm andthe parent colony will provide sufficient foodreserves for their survival. The bees will notmiss this kind of concordance of conditions,since the crown of their hard work, for centuriesadjusted to many factors, are finished prepara-tions and the act of swarming itself! Behind thestage in a crowded habitat, swarming bees takethe reserve food from the comb that they willsoon leave. When this happens, there is nothingelse to wait for! With their mother queen, acrowd of bees burst out of the entrance of thehive and rush into the endless blue of a sunnyday and the beginning of a new life together.The beekeeper watches them and realizes that,in front of him, in the crowd of agitated, almostin a trans, bees, something extraordinary, some-thing sublime happens. He needs to understandtheir joy and endless happiness charming themin their circling flight, by which they end theancient wish of all the generations - to survive aslong as there is sunlight and eternity!

And how can a beekeeper hold out, if by thisfascinating swarms going out he loses his entireyearly profit from beekeeping? If you don'tmake mistakes, you don't make anything, but wecan also learn from our mistakes and theyshould not be repeated. Therefore, a beekeeperfor his future work needs to learn more aboutthe life and rules of bee colony and to use hisown and the experiences of other beekeepers.In addition to this, a modern beekeeper needsto know that corrections are necessary in bee-keeping, even in the beekeeping "truths", alwaysin accordance with the time and always change-able conditions he does the beekeeping in.Beekeeping is a craft and art in breeding beesand their management, and the channeling ofthe laws of bee nature and subjecting them tothe interests of beekeepers is not an easy job atall.

But when a beekeeper learns how to beehappy for his success and to bear bad beekeep-ing years, his omissions and disappointments,then he is already a real beekeeper, and the realbeekeeper cannot be shaken by the mystery ofswarms from the unknown depths of beehive!

A special attention needs to be paid to eachof the periods of the colony development. Theworks need to be adjusted to current circum-stances we do the beekeeping in, because everybeekeeping year is a story in itself. In the yearslike this one, when favorable time and nectarflow conditions accelerate the spring develop-


SwarSwarmingming

ment of bees and maximize it before the mainflow, for maintaining their working mood, theusual works such as expanding of the broodsuper, making young bees busy with buildingcombs and adding of honey supers, are notenough. Demaree's method can for a whilepostpone the threatening swarming urge, butthese are obviously extremely swarming yearsand it will not be a guarantee that the bees willnot start the nursing of queen larvae.

The beekeeping literature describes manymethods of using nectar flows and preventing ofnatural bee swarming. The most frequently rec-ommended is that, before the beginning of thenectar flow, the queen needs to be limited,which is supposed to provide a rational usage ofthe nectar flow and prevention of naturalswarming. In my opinion, it is completely wrongand, in modern beekeeping, irrational. My bee-keeping practice convinced me that before thebeginning of the main nectar flow (black locust,meadow, lime-tree…) the queen does not need tobe limited but provided with space!

About twenty days before the expected nec-tar flow, the first main flow, bee colonies thathave been developing successfully have almostor entirely reached the maximum in the brood.Starting from then, the surface of young broodbecomes decreased any way, without any kind ofour intervention, therefore the mass of just

emerged bees is left without employment. Thebrood super becomes too tight for them, and inthe honey super without nectar there is no morework for them. Therefore they usually stand stillin clusters in the space between the frames andthe floorboard, waiting for the maturing of thequeen cells and the call of nature to go on withthe prolongation of the species. There won't belong until a swarm appears "out of the season"!

Instead of limiting the queen and feedingthe bees with syrup (about twenty days beforethe expected nectar flow) I provide the queenwith a space for expanding the brood, and inbees I simulate the swarms they want.

On the previously modified brood super (inmy case consisting of a standard LR and oneFarrar's super), I add one additional super withwell built empty comb and one frame of youngbrood, in order to have the bees with the queenoccupy it as soon as possible. When this hap-pens, I divide the former brood super and newlyadded super in which the queen already layseggs by a queen excluder. I keep this kind ofstage for the following 5–6 days, to provide thebees in the lower part of the quenelles broodsuper with a close contact with their queen andthat the young brood they are nursing becometoo mature for the possible breeding of queencells. Then, above the former brood super, andbelow the excluder and the added super in


SwarSwarmingming

which the queen is intensively laying eggs, I adda honey super. With its volume and young combit definitely divides the two brood supers. Thecolony is practically divided, without any kind ofbarrier, except for one queen excluder. Bees inthe lower quenelles brood super cover and keepthe mature brood warm, and the young beescoming out of it are recruited for the nursing ofthe bigger and bigger young brood, with theirqueen, but in "the other house". This kind ofdirecting of the work of bees in a strong colonyactivates all the bees and keeps them in a maxi-mum working mood. In case, in swarming yearslike this one, the bees "get crazy" and decide tostart swarming and nurse queen larvae any way,they can do it only in the upper brood superwhere there is the queen and the young brood,i.e. where, upon my wish, they created the basefor the future young colony.

This kind of, most frequently, good qualityswarming queen cells in the newly-formedbrood super can be used, because, by the begin-ning of the nectar flow, I divide the newlyformed swarm from their parent colony. Ireturn the queen from the swarm to the formerbrood super of the production colony, the beesof which accept it as a savior and with incredibleworking enthusiasm they start the renovation ofthe colony and using of the nectar flow.

Beekeepers and my students familiar withmy working technique most frequently ask:How much honey will the weakened parentcolony bring after the removal of a swarm in themain nectar flow? My answer is that it can neverbe predicted for sure, because the intake of nec-tar depends, first of all, on weather conditionsduring the blossoming of honey plants. There is

the possibility of a bad summer flow, thus theremight be no enough intake even for the beesthemselves. In that case, by removing of aswarm from a strong colony before the (neversecure) nectar flow, we get something after all.In the years when the nectar flow is successful,my production colonies that have given a swarmwill bring inside somewhat less honey than theothers in full power and working mood, but thegiven swarm and the complete control overcolonies in their swarming urge are sufficientcompensation for maybe somewhat smallerhoney crop from the main flow. In addition tothat, if I later put the early swarm with a youngqueen together with the parent colony, this kindof colonies can bring extremely high crops insummer nectar flows and they enter the winterperiod very strong and with sufficient foodreserves.

This does not mean that this is the only wayit should be done. I myself always adjust myworking technique to the circumstances of anykind I do my beekeeping in, thus, I would like tosuggest everybody to adjust his/her beekeepingto the conditions and abilities. But, regardlessall the differences, the dilemma remains abouthow to use intensive nectar flows with strongcolonies in the most efficient way, and still keepthe swarms under control, because, if there is noswarm control - the beekeeping lessons will bequite expensive!


WWaxax

In the past ten years, Ihaven't found anything inthe magazine related tofighting a big wax enemy. Iam not offering an exclu-sive fight by this article,either; I would just like to,through photographs,warn of what we are toexpect in case we allow thebig wax moth an undis-turbed development.

The big wax moth –Galleria mellonella L.(photograph 1) is a night butterfly of greyish-greenish colour (the colour of ash). The devel-opment capacity of this parasite is huge. If weconsider only three generation of one butterfly,the parasites could destroy about 400 kg of wax.The butterfly lays eggs, which wait forfavourable temperature and start their develop-ment on a deserted old comb where there usedto be brood and obligatory some stored beepollen (photograph 2). Once the eggs hatch into

larvae, the unmerciful destroying of wax begins.If we are late with melting the wax from emptyframes, moths quickly invade the entire frame(photograph 3). After 30 days, the sufficientlygrown larvae turn into nymphs, sticking to theframe itself (photograph 4). If the temperatureis favourable, nymphs spin cocoons on a drawncomb on which there have never been a brood(photograph 5). For about 14 days, butterfliescome out and the process repeats. The frame

Born on September 20th, 1949 in the village of Homolj. Works and lives in Bor. Adoresnature and bees in the nature. Have taken 150 bee colonies out of tree trunks.

What is WWhat is Wood to Firood to Fire e that is the Big Wthat is the Big Waxax

Moth to WMoth to Wax ax Ivan Brndu{i}19210 Bor46/9 Dobrivoja Radosavljevi}a Street St. Tel: +381 30 435 128,+ 381 30 33 810Cell: +381 63 40 66 73 [email protected]://solair.eunet.yu/~brnda

1

2

3


WWaxax

invaded by moths turns into ash and, iftouched, it looks as in the photograph 6.

After all the incompletely explained, wecome to the question, how to protect againstthe moth?

It is very difficult to answer this question,since the wax moth attacks all wax founda-tions, drawn combs in which there have notbeen any brood, and how it looks like whereit used to be a brood, we can see from thephotographs.

We know that bees are the best protec-tion for a comb. It happens that bees die andthat we get a surplus of frames that are notfor melting. In this case, I took the frameswithout honey and stored pollen in them,and which are not for melting, and sank themin a tub with cold water, where they stay for24 hours. After that, they are taken out, thewater is shaken out of the cells and they areleft in a shade to dry. They should be turnedso that their top bar is pointed downwards.

I was forced to do this washing of framesalso due to biological fight against Varroa,because I needed smaller cells, which is thecase in an older comb. In this washingprocess, it is surprising what cold water candraw out of an old comb. In the water, youcan find even wax moth eggs laid during theprevious or the current year. Those whowant to fight moths this way, after the framesdry, please, smell the washed frames. Youwill be surprised.

4

5

6


VVarar rroa Destroa Destr uctoructor

The fall of Troy happened when Troyansbrought a wooden horse into their fortressinside of which the enemy was skilfully hidden,after which Troy was destroyed.

The key role was played by the "gate", spot-ted by the enemy as the weakness. The firstthing they did after going out of the horse was toeliminate the gate keepers and open the gate.All this would not have happen if they had nottaken the horse inside their fortress, i.e. the gatehad not been open. Maybe the bee colony expe-riences the same destiny with Varroa. You won-der how?

Black beesAccording to the findings of Taranov, con-

sidering foragers, the most important role infinding nectar is entrusted to the bees losingtheir tomentum and becoming darker in thefirst days of their forage.

He called them scouts and according to hisfindings, these bees are in charge of informingwhere and at what distance there is nectar in thenature. While waiting for the scout information,foragers are situated under or with the brood.

When a scout finds nectar and brings it inher honey sac, she goes straight in the centre ofthe foragers and among them, on the comb, per-forms signal movements, distributes a part ofthe brought nectar to them, then stops the sig-nal movements and after the delivery of theload, flies out again. Following her game, theforagers fly out toward the food source.

Taranov also states the behaviour of thescout bees when there is a lack of nectar in thenature. At that time, they are attracted by thebuzzing and the scent of nectar coming from theentrance of the neighbouring hives and they tryto go in and reach it. Nevertheless, they face thestrong resistance of the guards, which, accord-ing to him, have the ability of telling a foragerfrom a scout bee. If a scout bee comes into someother hive, it takes the honey and goes back toits colony mobilizing its foragers.

Carefully observing, we can spot black bees.They represent a type of invisible unmannedaerial vehicle informing the bombers about theweaknesses of the enemy, while the bombers(foragers) are strong and capable of carryinglots of load.

Milan Jovanovi} was born on March 23rd, 1974. He has been in beekeeping since 1994,continuing the family tradition, currently with 50 DB and 50 LR hives.

TTrroyan Toyan Tragedy ragedy of Bee Colonyof Bee ColonyMilan Jovanovi}

37/16 Radoja Krsti}a St. 37240 TrstenikTel: +381 37 713 335 Cell: +381 63 8325 970 [email protected] www.apiaryum.co.yu

The entrance is narrowed, but thefight of bees without killing and"silent" robbery still continues



Earlier, the belief was that the black beesare in fact old bees and that they lose thetomentum due to aging, but later on, it wasfound that it is not correct (Taranov) and it canbe easily determined by marking just emergedbees and observing after 19 days.

Taranov claims that the existence of scoutbees is justified, because, if every bee wouldlook for the source of nectar individually, theywould unproductively spend food and energyi.e. this would cause an increased food con-sumption. This means that when there is no nec-tar flow for a long time, and there is a subse-quent increase in the number of scout bees, theincrease in the food consumption is increased,as well. The assumption is that, due to the con-stant minus on the scale, a bigger mobilizationof the "black scout bees" is performed becausethere is more need for those that search. Lastyear, many people noticed more "black bees" inthe apiaries with bad nectar flow conditions.

The assumption is that colonies with biggerfood supplies perform the mobilization of scoutbees at much lesser intensity. This warns us thatwithout a scale there is no beekeeping. Theimportant thing is that the beekeeper knowsthat in a very short period, this way, he can losebig quantities of food. In a natural habitat, whenthe scale is in plus all the time, for a short peri-od, there is a big mobilization of bees receivingnectar. Seeley claims that the number of beesreceiving nectar, for one day only, increasedfrom 550 to 2,000 after more than 15 waggledances. This warns us that, when the flow goesweaker, the number of scout bees can alsobecome increased in this short time. It can hap-pen that in only two to three days the scale goesrapidly into minus and there is the loss of signif-icant food stores, even run out of bees in thehive, which naturally depends on the food storesand on the way our bees rob. It can happen thatin a moment we run out of both food (in casethe beekeeper does not come to the rescue) andbees.

Komarov and Avetisyan have determinedthat for one-hour flight a bee spends 100 mg offood or 1.66 mg per minute (determined bymeasuring with a special scale of high preci-sion). When flying out of the nest at the distanceof 4–4.2 km, each bee takes 6.8–7 mg of foodas a reserve and based on that they have con-cluded that if a bee flies 3 km away and does notfill the food reserve, she can not come back.How many times a scout bee needs to do thesame if the quest attempt was a failure and if

from day to day (in a period without a nectarflow) there are more and more of them? And itcan also happen that she never comes back tothe hive due to less and less food stores both inthe colony and in the honey sac.

Last year, many people found empty hivesduring the summer, repeating the claims ofexperts that it is certainly Varroa and that thecolonies left their habitats because of it, buthere's one reason pointing that it does not nec-essarily mean that it is always it. And maybe itnever has been, at least considering the summerperiod?

Castes It has been noticed that during a strong flow

bees visit weak honey plants, as well, and thisraises the question (and maybe gives theanswer) that among bees performing the forag-ing activity there are castes that even during astrong flow visit various plants, because, in casethis would be only bees from one colony, itwould have to be noticed that, in the peak of astrong forage, there is at least one colony withextremely poor performance, exactly as whenthe flow is poor. Since this is not the case, weneed to ask ourselves why during a strong flowall the colonies in an apiary collect nectar frompoor nectar plants, as well.

During a strong nectar flow, scout bees intime accept the information from other scoutbees that perform the navigation which is moredominant for a new, stronger flow. The strengthof the nectar smell reduces the ability to recog-nize bees, that is why it is easiest to put the beestogether (and reduce the fight to the minimum)during the bigger processing of nectar. Later on,when the nectar flow is ceasing and there is nobigger nectar processing, the smells are weakerand the mutual recognition of bees by all theirscents and pheromones is much easier, there-fore the putting together is made more difficult.

It can be dangerous if some scout castes aredirected to the honey stores of some othercolonies. They probably won't leave it in thebeginning of a strong nectar flow, unless theyaccept the navigation of other scout bees.Furthermore, "silent" robbery is possible evenwhen there is a strong flow, because "black scoutbees" probably do not make any differencebetween the nectar in nature and the "combnectar".

The existence of castes is spotted also whenscout bees are looking for a space for the swarm,as well as in the moving of the swarm. Thomas



D. Seeley states that when a swarm is lookingfor a new habitat, the scout bees that choose thebest place win, while the rest of the scout beesjoin the "dance" for the new "better" location.He also states that there is some kind of con-sensus, but the way he describes the behaviourduring the moving of the swarm tells somethingdifferent.

The moving of the swarm itself, which isnever in one direction, shows that castes "goeach their own way" and the question is whetherinformation about the "better place" is adoptedat all, because it is rather a web of circum-stances. According to his findings, it is morelikely that the first scout bee in quest comes,starts its dance attracting a bigger number ofbees to accept her as the guide. If no other scoutbee comes during that time, the number of beesaccepting the information becomes bigger andbigger. In case some other scout bee comes, itstarts its own dance and also allures its "caste"and so on, every next scout bee in the same way.Lindauer (1955) states that the number ofpotential places for a swarm nesting can rangefrom 13 to 34.

It can happen that there is a scout bee thathas not gone to its scouting yet, thus shereceives the same information and goes towardthat place. When she comes back, she repeatsthe same information, that way making a castefor the same place. When this swarm goes out,every caste has its own force (meaning thephysics term force in virtual sense – editor's note)and it goes its own way. The resultant of theseforces represents the direction of the swarmmoving and it changes by each part of the sec-ond depending on the jerk, i.e. the change indirection and current strength of individualforces, sometimes disturbing the compactnessof the swarm that way. That is why the swarmmakes inarticulate movements when moving.

After all the bees from the swarm fill theirhoney sacs before going out of the swarm, thiskind of moving can last only until the energy(honey) is spent. It can happen (according toSeeley) that the swarm temporary stops on abranch and waits for the final decision. But Iwould not say that it is because of some kind ofconsensus. Maybe it rather depends on thequeen because she does not have flying predis-positions as a bee and cannot endure this kindof jerks and that kind of moving because she isheavy, only few days ago she laid eggs.

In case they do not come to the place chosenby the scout bees attracting the biggest number

of bees, and the bees spend the majority of theirenergy, they won't have the strength to go onand the swarm stays where it is at the moment.Sometimes the swarm divides in two. It is prob-ably the case when two strong forces start to actin different directions.

If the Seeley's claim that the "better" place ischosen is true, and that there is some kind ofconsensus happening, we would not be the wit-nesses of some swarms inhabiting very badplaces and with a little bit "better", more idealspace nearby, more appropriate for their habi-tat.

It happens that the swarm is situated on abranch near the apiary. The assumption is thatit is the consequence of the queen's inability tofly, regardless the strong force directing to thedestination.

Considering the foraging activity, there isalso a valid justification that the nature itself isarranged in a way that in the majority of cases ithas excludes the monoflora and that the diversi-ty still prevails. This kind of bee urge for diversefood is utterly natural, because it has beennoticed that monotonous food can be harmful.

Silent robbery and horizontal transmission of Varroa

In a long nectarless period and with theincrease in the number of scout bees, the "hori-zontal transmission of Varroa" (among variouscolonies) is accelerated, which becomes verydangerous for already exhausted colonies. Therelation between the secreting of nectar and"horizontal transmission of Varroa" is spottedand has a logical explanation in the increase inthe number of scout bees and can tell us that theleast infection will happen when the flow condi-tions during the year are favourable, which tellsus that the "horizontal" transmission has farmore effects than the "vertical" one (transmis-sion to the descendants).

Let's look at the data from M. N. Kosarev.He observed the behaviour and Varroa infectionin Burzan woods of Bashkiria and compared theinfection in natural and tamed colonies in vari-ous periods of a year. He says: "In the beginningof the season, the level of infection in modernapiaries and in the woods with colonies in treeholes was similar (4–6%), in the beginning ofJune 1–3%, and in August increased to8–20% averagely. Since the appliance of med-ication in colonies in natural habitats is hard toperform, these colonies are left without anytreatment. In five years, from 1982 to 1986, only



the samples of bees were taken so that the per-centage of infection with Varroa could be deter-mined". It is interesting that in June the level ofinfection decreases, which can tell us that the"vertical" transmission has not played a signifi-cant role. On contrary, the level of infection isdecreased, although there was a "horizontal"transmission at that time, as well, but much less-er. Carefully observing, I noticed that, in a nec-tarless period, bees that participate in a silentrobbery go freely in and out from one hive toanother. A good deal of them certainly wearsVarroa mites on themselves.

I have also noticed that the guards are hos-tile toward certain bees entering the hive, butstill let them go in. It is inevitable that in bees,the same as in people, there is solidarity. Thus Ihave made the difference between the robberyand the silent robbery. Silent robbery can bepresent all the time. When foraging conditionsare favourable, it is relative whether there is asilent robbery or not, but it is certain that thesilent robbery is possible at that time, as well. I

assume that the big number of scout castes, con-sidering the foraging activity, lead toward morefrequent horizontal transmission, especiallybased on the Lindauer's data on the number ofplaces scout bees find for the swarm settling. Itis realistically to say: when the foraging condi-tions become unstable, it is possible to have thehorizontal transmission from about 30 places inthe apiary and the surrounding. The number ofplaces, as well as the frequency itself, dependson the concentration of the colonies per areaunit.

If the number of bees in a caste is small,than the occurrence is called "the silent rob-bery", and in case a bigger number of beesrespond to the "call" of scout bees, robbery,resistance and fight occur. Its seems as if thenature says: "Moderateness–yes, voracity–no".

Narrowed entrance and alighting-boardMany beekeepers keep the entrances nar-

rowed during the year explaining that there isno robbery or the damage from it is lesser whenthey are not around. Is it necessary to have alarge entrance and of which kind of shape itshould be? Is there any damage when theentrance is lesser?

Has anyone ever dared make this kind ofexperiments, when any reasoning is excludedwhen you see the "struggle" and crowd of bees atthe entrance? After all, it would be expensive totry something illogical with a bigger number ofcolonies.

Is there any harm from having a crowd atthe entrance what so ever? Maybe it is viceversa, maybe there is some harm from thecrowd, but generally speaking, it is probablysymbolical! Maybe the crop will be somewhatlesser, but something else would not be there,either. Varroa mites!

When will bees, coming back from a forage,be more likely to recognize their colony? Whenthere is a cloud of pheromone in front of thehive (due to the crowd) or when it is not there?Will they be more likely to get lost if they bymistake come across some other's cloud ofpheromone? Will they miss at all? Since the"robber bee" is accused of bringing Varroa mitesin, does it mean that there will be lesser Varroamites brought in, as well?

The same question stands for the driftingdrones, although, according to the experimentsof Livenec (1949) who observed the drone drift-ing, there are data that the drifting is very rare.True, the Carniolan race was the only one he did

A black scout bee is waiting to come into the hive, whilethe guard is trying to send away a predecessor of hers

Without any fuss, the guard recognizes the scout beeand tries to send her away



not include in the experiment, but the data areas follows: in Italian drones, drone drifting toother colonies was 1.75%, with Bashkirian1.47%, with Caucasian 0.85%. Analogue datahave been provided also by Gubin andHalifman.

Many people believe that bees waste theirtime if their entrance is made more difficult.Nevertheless, maybe it is all relative? If a beewaits at the entrance for 5 seconds to go in, andthere is a crowd, is this waste relative consider-ing that the same 5 seconds will be wasted ifthere is less nectar in one flower than in anoth-er, therefore she wastes her efforts to use theflower, not knowing about its poor capacity.Since time is relative, this is relative, as well, butworth considering.

Let us ask the first question about the justi-fication of alighting-board in hives. When theman made the alighting-board, did he think whybees needed the alighting-board in the firstplace? Do you think that a bee is not able to flyup from the spot? Do you think that she needssome kind of running start (like a plane) or herperformances are more similar to a helicopter?

There is really no such a thing in nature.And it does not matter, and have you ever won-dered do we really need to have the alighting-board? Do you think that, when a tired beealights to the alighting-board, she will have abetter rest in horizontal position? Or you thinksomething else? That she has a lot of troublewith vertical position? Does she put "muchmore" efforts if she rests in vertical position (ona tree bark where there is not an alighting-boardor on the external wall of the hive)?

When a "tired" bee comes back from a for-age, she falls in front of the hive or on the alight-ing-board and rests for a while or immediatelystarts to crawl through the entrance, climbingup the internal wall of the hive, up to the topbar, and, not sooner than then, goes down to theframe. Those that do not stop and fall in front,directly fly in through the entrance. In thiscrawling bees do waste some time, but is thistime longer than the time when after the restthey directly fly in through the circle entrance,and is it easier at all for them to take a shortflight or to take a longer crawl? Who haven'tnoticed this, please measure, but I assume thatthere won't be any significant difference in timeif there should be any?

But let's ask ourselves whether sometimesthis "waste of time" can be useful? Taranov says:"When there is a lot of stored nectar in the nest, the

receiving of nectar is slowing down, 10–12 receiv-er bees take it over from the foragers, spending alot of time on taking the food over. At that time,there is a new type of signal movements of thescout bees on the comb and the informative signalto stop the foraging, although there is nectar in theflowers". Meaning, the number of nectarreceivers is increased first.

Does this increasing continue till themoment when all the bees take over the job ofreceivers, and there are no more of them avail-able, and the scout bees keep looking for them?But, what if Taranov was wrong about this?What if he has drawn a wrong conclusion thatbees by their dance request the stopping of theforage?

Maybe it was not the signal about stoppingthe collecting of nectar, but the signal that morereceivers are needed. In one moment, there willbe no more bees because they have all beenengaged in receiving. But, the signal still contin-ues, until, in one moment, the forage stopsbecause receiving is very slow.

That way maybe the struggle and crowd atthe entrance are not harmful due to the unifor-mity in the nectar delivery, because there is nouse if the entrance is large – there will be noone to take over the brought nectar.

With a small entrance on a vertical plane(either circle or some other shape) the defencesystem is much better. There is a "bee web" andthe access of intruders (scouts) is much moredifficult there than at the lower entrance. Whendemonstrators are pushing the police cordon,they will push it away depending on the thick-ness, but also the width of the cordon. The samenumber of demonstrators will have much moredifficulties to push away the same number ofpolicemen if the street is narrower, because withnarrowing of the street, the thickness of the cor-don is becoming bigger and the resistance isbecoming bigger, as well. We do not comparethe man with the bee here, but we compare theresistances.

Findings of Ivan Brndu{i}Ivan's several-years findings in nature and

claims about the advantages of using the circleentrance are very interesting. Both Seeley andBrndu{i} have noticed similar sizes of the open-ings that maybe currently exist the most in thenature. Seeley states that bees like the entranceplaced on the southern side and opening that issmaller than 7.5 cm2, which is about 3.08 cm indiameter, while in Brndu{i} it is 3.5 cm.



B r n d u { i }states that beespropolize the ci-rcle opening re-ducing it them-selves as need-ed, and we havealready foundenough reasons why they need to do that. Thecolonies he monitors in natural habitat resistVarroa. His hives have circle openings and hiscolonies have been surviving for many yearswithout using any chemicals. It happens that intime some of them die, but he also says thatwhen he once treats with chemicals, accordingto him, the colonies lose their resistance anddie. The intensity of chemical effects on thenervous system of bees is very hard to deter-mine. Do the preparations affect the ability ofrecognizing and for how long do these effectslast? Taranov says: "Guard bees have the abilityto discriminate foragers from scout bees".

With people, various forms of chemicalmedicines have various effects on the nervoussystem. When a man takes heavy drugs such asheroin, he loses the ability of recognizing hissurrounding and people around him.

We still do not now whether fluvalinat,kumafos, amitraz and other chemicals are heavydrugs for our bees, but there are some findingsthat queens suffer damages with bigger doses ofchemicals.

In his monograph "Honey Bee Ecology",Thomas D. Seeley states seven elements beestake into consideration when choosing a newhabitat. First of all, it is the volume of the cavi-ty, and secondly, the size of the opening.

What can also be favourable for Varroamites in colonies in nature are the possibilitiesfor finding appropriate habitat in nature,increasing the possibility of "horizontal" trans-mission if the choice is lesser, as well as the pres-ence of weak colonies and concentration ofcolonies per area unit.

In his apiaries, Ivan Brndu{i} keeps theentrances open, applying the system of verticaldefence and his colonies resist Varroa, but doesit work for him if the nectar flow conditionsbecome unstable and others surrounding himleave possibilities for more frequent horizontaltransmission (common entrances), that hisscout bees are going to use with his foragerswithout any sentimentality?

Is it sufficient that only one colony in his api-ary has an inadequate opening (regardless that

all the othershave a narrowedone) to have allstart going downheadfirst, andfavourable forVarroa? It's be-cause horizontal

transmission is probably reciprocal, i.e. it is pos-sible to bring Varroa mites in, but it is also pos-sible to take them out.

Ivan Brndu{i} adds to all this: "If you chosecircle entrances, you need to do this on all of thehives, because those colonies that remain withthe entrance on the bottom board can be dam-aged and die from robbery.

In case the concentration of colonies perarea unit is bigger, the frequency and speed ofVarroa transmission becomes bigger and bigger,which gives an explanation why big apiaries cansuddenly be destroyed.

And another interesting thing for the end.The massive spreading of Varroa happened justat the moment when modern hives with theirconstruction started to occupy apiaries world-wide. Has this speeded up the horizontal trans-mission, since beekeepers have been enabled tochange the century-old system of defence, tocontrol the narrowing and expanding of theentrance, interfering their own will into the jobof bees? Is it possible that Varroa had existedbefore, as well, and no one had even caredbecause it was hardly noticeable in a small con-trolled number?

A big question remains, whether Varroa willgo back to the controlled number if we would allhave maximally narrowed entrances, if we apply"vertical" system of defence and "bee web", justas it had been for centuries. True, for centuries,bee habitats had been hidden in the woods, andnot on meadows exposed to the sunshine.

Lots of things point that silent robbery kills"silently". With beekeeping conditions we havetoday, without the presence of big food supplies,with today's system of defence, big concentra-tion of colonies per area unit, conditions for thiskind of occurrences are realistic. Judge for your-self, but before you judge, go into the nature, i.e.what is left of it. Observe natural habitats,entrances, systems of defence, and many otherthings. First of all, you will notice that the alight-ing-board and standard entrance has beeninvented by someone, because, in nature, youwill not find any.



Contrary to many other animals that mod-ern man breeds for economic benefits, honeybee is much more related to natural environ-ment. In natural conditions and without a bee-keeper, she acts in the same way as in habitats(hives) made especially for them. An abscondedswarm in a natural habitat (hollow tree, recessin a rock or similar) will have no problems sur-viving if there are enough sources of nectar andpollen in the surrounding.

Due to dramatic changes brought by mod-ern civilization regarding the usage of naturalresources, it has become common that manynegative things that occur in the life of man, ani-mal, even plants, are imputed to stress.

Very often, our people, including beekeep-ers, are not clear with the term stress. It is cor-rect that it is not quite defined factor or type ofdisease, but it has definitely been determinedthat it is a stage weakening the organism of aman or some other living being. In short, vari-ous unfavourable conditions of environment arereflected as stress, which can weaken the organ-ism, or, in our case, a bee colony, thus, someother diseases can often become moreexpressed.

A bee colony should be considered a type ofreservoir in which energy flows in the form ofnectar, pollen and water in order to be turnedinto bee products (honey, wax, pollen reserves,brood and bees). Everything unfavourablyaffecting and reducing the intake of energy inthe shape of above mentioned sources can beconsidered stress.

A beekeeper is mainly interested in theusing of that energy material from the hive inthe form of bee products, and modern agricul-ture for cross-pollination through spending theenergy of worker bees. It is obvious that thebeekeeper himself, with his desire to use the beecolonies to the maximum, becomes one of thestress components.

Weather conditions may be potentially oneof the biggest sources of stress for a bee colony.Unfavourable weather conditions reduce or

He was born on September 30th, 1928 in theVillage of Ra|evo near Valjevo. He graduated fromthe Faculty of Agriculture in Belgrade, with Fruits andViticulture as his major. He went for his postgraduatestudies and won his doctor's degree at the Universityof Bon in 1965. He was an assistant at the Beekeeping

Institute in Bon until 1967. After that, he was at post-graduate studies in the USA (OhioState University, Columbus). At the same university, he was the scientific consultant andpart-time professor for the subject of beekeeping till 1981. He published several dozens of sci-entific works in the USA that are cited worldwide. From 1982 till 1984 he was a professor atthe Faculty of Biology in Belgrade till 1984, when he was elected full time professor at the

same faculty. He worked at the Agroekonomik company as a scientific consultant for beekeeping till 1995, whenApicentre was established, which he leads today, as well.


Prof. Jovan Kulin~evi}, PhDBelgrade, ApicentreTel: +381 11 397 45 [email protected]



completely stop the intake of nectar and polleninto hives. In spring, early nursing of a broodrequires a big quantity of energy in the form offood. A sudden stop in a foraging (low temper-atures, rainy days or closing of the hives becauseof moving or using insecticides on crops) causesa heavy stress in bees. It is especially manifestedif there are not enough honey and pollenreserves in the hives.

In this kind of situation, bees react to stressby stopping the queen's laying and adequatenursing of the brood. In line with this, theythrow out previously bred brood. This way, thedevelopment of the bee colony stops, which is atype of reducing the "investment" in thestrengthening and growth of the bee colony. Inthis kind of stressing conditions, a good bee-keeper provides the source of food by feedingbees. Under certain conditions, water supply fora colony can become critical. It happens in dryparts of the year, when foraging bees need tospend a lot of energy for bringing water (big dis-tances and increased number of forages). Wateris necessary for young bees for the secreting ofbrood food and dilution of honey for feedingthe brood. At extremely high temperatures, ayoung comb can start melting in the hive if thereis no water source, regardless the ventilationperformed by bees. The beekeeper needs todecrease this type of stress by providing a feed-er with clear water. On the other hand, in coldweather, humidity must not remain in the hive,because it would have the effect of stress on thewinter cluster trying to maintain certain tem-perature in the nest. Too dry air possibly causedby the artificial warming of the hive is also apotentially stressing condition. No matter howhard the bees try to maintain the brood temper-ature at 34 to 35, a fast increase or decrease inthe external temperature will reflect as a stress.Everything that has a negative effect on the beeability to regulate the brood temperature (coldand moist location) causes a bigger usage ofenergy. Chilled brood is an excellent example ofthe bee colony stress. There, we have too largebrood for the number of bees that need to warmand feed it. The consequence of this kind ofconditions is the dying of the brood along theedge of the nest. Therefore, it is necessary tospend more energy in replacing the dead larvaeand pupae, especially in removing the deadbrood from the comb and from the hive.

Any of the factors having bad effects on thebalance in activities inside a bee colony can beconsidered a stress. Some of these important

factors are: power of the bee colony, relationbetween the adult bees and the quantity ofbrood and capacity of the queen laying. All thisdetermine the need for energy in order to havethe bee colony function normally. Since larvaeare fed with small quantities and high frequen-cy, it is necessary to have a bigger population ofyoung bees in the hive. At the same time, it isnecessary to have an appropriate number ofadult bees for bringing in nectar, pollen andwater. Two factors that can radically change thebalance are swarming and insecticide poisoning.An artificial swarming a beekeeper performsunder unfavourable natural conditions has asimilar effect, especially if it is not performedprofessionally.

Too frequent and often unnecessary manip-ulation with a bee colony can have the stresseffect, especially when performing it underunfavourable nectar flow conditions. The samestands for the usage of smoke from the smokerwhen examining bee colonies. Many years ago,comparative researches in Germany deter-mined that the smoke has the stressing effect.Bee colonies in which spraying water was usedinstead of smoke had much less Nosema andbigger honey crop in the five-year period ofresearch.

The best general rule to avoid stress is tomaintain the bee colony in full power with



always present food reserves, with a young andgood quality queen. Today, considering keepingbees, an especially big problem is the parasitecalled Varroa destructor. On one hand, it is adangerous parasite of brood and adult beesthat, at certain conditions, causes a disease byacting as a direct parasite, and can also causestress, which activates the effects of viruses andother micro-organisms, causing the known dis-eases of honey bees (European Foulbrood,chronic and acute bee paralyses and similar).Varroa can also serve as the vector of causes ofthese diseases.

Recent researches have shown that a seriesof other viruses, about which we have notknown much, can contribute to the destroyingof colonies, the immunity of which has beenweakened because of the Varroa parasites. Thiscan be also said for Nosema, caused by Nosemaapis.

By removing Varroa, the colony is releasedfrom direct parasites, but also from one, maybethe main cause of stress. It is necessary to dothis timely, before the complete destructionhappens in the colony. Sometimes the numberof Varroa mites in the bee colony is not crucialfor the full effect of the infection, because otherunfavourable factors we mentioned above canadditionally contribute to the total

unfavourable effect on thecolony.

In case there are noviruses in a bee colony,although there is a bignumber of Varroa mites,the colony will survive. It isobvious that the relationsbetween viruses and Varroamites in bee colonies aremuch more complex thanthey appear to be.

On the other hand, if you use too muchchemicals and other means for fighting Varroa,there is a new stress effect that can be reflectedthrough disorientation, shortening of bee life,acute or chronic poisoning of the certain part ofbee population in the hive and a permanent lossof immunity.

Although today's society more and morerecognizes the role of stress in all the spheres ofits being, it is necessary to know much more andput much more efforts in order to remove thestressing factors from the man's environmentaffecting the life of honey bees. All the bee-keepers need to bee aware of the role of stress,regardless whether it comes from the outside, orthe beekeepers cause it by their actions andtheir big desire for profit.


MarketingMarketing

IntroductionThe basic marketing principle is the

awareness of the customers' purchasingbehaviour. A beekeeper, the immediate pro-ducer of honey and other bee products, in theconditions of unorganized distribution uponupdated principles of sale, remains the firstand only marketing manager.

Having this role, he/she needs to know hiscustomers, individual consumers, well, inorder to identify mutual and specific needs ofbuyers. Getting to know the buyers is the ini-tial position in the creation of a personal,individual marketing strategy.

The customer purchasing behaviour is thestudying of marketing environment of the

Vlastimir Spasi}, engineer, was born on June 5th, 1952 in the village of \akus, @itora|e municipality. He lives inNi{. He has been in beekeeping since 1990 with LR hives. He is the president of the Southeast Serbia RegionalAssociation of Beekeeping Organizations. He is also the president of the "Matica" ("Queen Bee") BeekeepingAssociation of Ni{, the member of the SPOS Executive Board and the president of the SPOS Marketing Board. Heis the winner of the SPOS Gold Medal. He is a years-long lecturer of SPOS.

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Vlastimir Spasi}, Eng.18000 Ni{98/12 Bulevar Nemanji}a St. Tel: +381 18 531 754Cell: +381 63 8778 [email protected]


MarketingMarketing

purchaser and generally comprisesof: political-legal, economic,technological, socio-culturaland environmental surround-ing. From analyzing the envi-ronment, we come to the find-ings about needs and wishes,attitudes and beliefs of the con-sumers and their purchasingmotifs.

The examining of the con-sumer behaviour providesbeekeepers with informationin the function of keeping thecurrent and obtaining new pur-chasers, i.e. in the function of theincreasing of honey consumption.

A deeper understanding ofcustomer purchasing behaviourcan be obtained through analyzingthe answers to the questions: how,when and where a customer buys, his/her selec-tion criterions and who is important in the pur-chasing decision making.

Answers to the question asked can be pro-vided through immediate, personal contactswith customers or through a market research. Inour country, there has not been a thorough andsystematic honey market research. Truly, a sig-nificant attempt in this field has been performedby the Beekeeping Society from Trstenik, butupon a pretty modest sample. In this article, Iwould like to draw attention to a very importantcategory of purchasers, children.

Children – great purchasersThe purchase of honey is individual. An

impulse for making the decisionabout the purchase cancome from an authori-tative individual,friend's recommenda-tion, or a group such asfamily, household,institution or similar.Economic propaganda,having a significantimpact on the purchas-ing decision making in theworld, hardly exists in ourcountry. The first move inthis area has already beendone in Serbia, by printingthe brochure entitled "Honey,miraculous food and medi-

cine" in the record volume of over650,000 copies.

The brochure aims to illu-minate a little bit yellowedpicture about honey. Honey,periodically in the shade ofseasonal raspberries, sour

cherries and water melons,needs to provide its presenceon the table throughout theyear. Therefore, we needalways new actions and ideas.

The initiators of a pur-chase can be various family

members. In our community,children are the rarest initia-

tors of honey purchases, althoughthere are the most important popu-lation; they are the present andfuture purchasers. In the purchase ofmany food products (crisps, choco-

late hazelnut cream, ice-cream, chocolate) chil-dren put a strong pressure on their parents whomake decisions about the purchase. Therefore,children are our insufficiently used opportunity.It can be used by attracting the attention of chil-dren by a free toy, special packages in the shapeof a toy or an award when buying.

The most common honey package, the 1 orhalf-a-kilo jar, is completely uninteresting tochildren. The imagination of package producersseems to be ended by the designing of the bear-shaped jar. The only purchasing motif is themotif for food, the decision of which is made byparents. The emotional impact of children hasbeen completely neglected. Children know howto start crying, be angry or silent if they do not

get the toy or the product they want. For a bigger consumption

of honey in children popu-lation, it is not sufficient tohave the traditional way ofconsumption, by spreadingit over a slice of bread.

Children would love toaccept honey if we offer it inmany other ways (with hazel-nuts, sesame, peanut), whichare at the same time greatcreams. Pastry, pancakes oryoghurt with honey, as well.For our habits, it may beunusual, but fried eggs or hotdog covered with honey havebeen well accepted (in the

Attractive packages attract children


MarketingMarketing

USA, there has been an extremely popularsauce made of a very tasty mixture of garlic andhoney for meat specialties). Furthermore,honey is used for pouring over fruit salad andice-creams. Sour cherries covered with chilledblack-locust honey are extremely delicious as asummer desert. Beekeepers should know beeproducts very well, as well as possible ways ofconsumption, and recommend them to childrenand parents in a popular and amiable way. If wewant a higher consumption, the honey marketneeds to be expanded to a variety of food prod-ucts.

Researches in developed countries haveshown that in family purchases, men make morethan a half of decisions related to the purchaseof food products such as fruit, vegetables, jams,non-alcoholic drinks and similar (D. Jobder:Principles and Practice of Marketing, Megraw-Hill Book Company, London 1995).

Children belong to the category of emotion-al purchasers, because, generally, they are notvery or are rarely interested in their parents'purchasing power, and decide to buy a productupon the influence of the environment(sellers, friends, ambient, trend, TVcommercials and similar).

Children as consumers makevarious markets: primary, when theyindividually make decisions and dothe purchasing; influential, whenthey directly or indirectly influencetheir family members; future, whenby growing up their influencebecomes stronger and strongerand leads toward their inde-pendent and more and moreactive behaviour as consumers(Jams U. McNeal, Kids asCustomers, A. Handbook ofmarketing to children,Lexington Books, New York,1992).

As consumers, childrenattract more and more attentionof marketing agents, consideringthe fact that they make a complex,dynamic and challenging market.Children have always had a stronginfluence on product purchasing,where they often independentlymake decisions when buying sweets,toys, fast food and similar.Furthermore, children have moreand more influence on mutual

decisions within the household related to theacquiring of certain types and brands of foodproducts.

According to researches in the USA, (36million boys and girls between the age of 4 and12) more than ever before, children make themain market with 24.4 billion dollars of imme-diate purchasing power and 187.7 billion dollarsof direct and indirect influence on purchase.The yearly increase rate in the children expens-es in the purchasing of goods is as high asbetween 10 and 20%. The influence of childrenon family purchases is estimated to 110 billiondollars for food products, 26 billion dollars forpurchasing toys and 22 billion dollars for thepurchase of fast food. The estimate is that, bythe beginning of the third millennium, childrenconsumers in the USA will yearly spend about35 billion dollars of "their own" money and 300billion dollars of their parents' money, for buy-ing food products.

According to the census from 2002, theSerbian market includes 7,594,000 citizens.Regarding the population's sex structure, the

participation of male (49.6%) and female(50.4%) population is nearly equal.

Children younger than 14 make 1,176,770,i.e. 16% of the population in total(Federal Institute of Statistics, StatisticalYearbook of Serbia, Belgrade, November2003). If the children of this age would

consume approximately 1 kg of honey peryear, it would make the consumption of

1,176 tons of honey, which is 19.6%of the total yearly production inSerbia.

ConclusionMarketing activities begin

and end with consumers.Whether we are ready to create

adequate personal marketing strat-egy depends on how well we know theconsumers.

Without information about theneeds and motifs of consumers, theirbehaviour in various purchasing situa-tions and various factors influencingthe purchasing process, we can notimagine a success in the distribution ofproducts, in our case honey, on ourand foreign market.

The text you have just read drawsyour attention to children as one ofimportant categories of consumers.


WWe Are Are Pe Prresentingesenting

Veroljub Umelji} originates from a familywith a long beekeeping tradition. According tomaterial and other evidences, his family has notbeen without bees since the mid 19th century.

He was bornin 1949 in the vil-lage of Oplani}near Kragujevac.His home wasabout ten metersaway from theapiary. Since earlychildhood, heassisted his fatherMiodrag in exam-ining the bee-hives.

In 1967, afterhis father's earlydeath, being agraduated high-

school student, he took over the care of the api-ary himself, therefore considered to do an inde-pendent beekeeping as early as then. Thus,there are nearly 40 years of his beekeeping prac-tice.

As a mechanical engineer, he worked at the"Crvena zastava" Institutes, doing the beekeep-ing in line with it. In 1994, he left the Institutesand since then he has been in professional bee-keeping.

He does his beekeeping with about 150 DBhives, moving them during the season to severalnectar flows. In line with that, he works inten-sively on producing colonies, as well on rearingqueens for the market.

Since 1992, he has been an official lecturerof the Serbian Federation of BeekeepingAssociations. In line with professional beekeep-

ing, he is intensively in art photography abouthoney plants and the life and work of bees ingeneral. Thus far, he has over 15,000 variousphotographs on the subjects. He has had 20individual and several mutual photographyexhibitions entitled "In the World of Bees" invarious towns of Serbia and Montenegro. Manyof his photographs of big format beautify thehomes of beekeepers and other fans of nature,as well as the premises of various institutions.

He is the winner of the international com-petition for the best beekeeping photographs(Virtual Beekeeping Gallery – www.beekeep-ing.com/goodies/images). He is the collaboratorof several domestic and foreign beekeeping

Life StorLife Story of y of the Beekeeperthe Beekeeper

VVereroljub Umelji}oljub Umelji}


WWe Are Are Pe Prresentingesenting

magazines, wherein he hashad many professional arti-cles and beekeeping photo-graphs published. His arti-cles are present in manybeekeeping symposium pro-ceedings, as well as in simi-lar specific editions.

He is the winner of manydomestic and internationalawards (APISLAVIA's goldmedal, APIMONDIA'sbronze medal).

In 1997, he published hisfirst book entitled "In theWorld of Bees". It has founda great interest among bee-keepers, therefore four edi-tions in several thousandcopies has been issued thusfar. The subject of the bookis beekeeping technique,and it is illustrated with theauthor's original photographs and drawings.

In 1999, he published the "Atlas of HoneyPlants", part 1, the book containing 333 speciesof various honey-pollen plants, illustrated withabout 1,500 original colour photographs, alsotaken by himself. Each plant is illustrated withat least 4 photographs, one of which is obligato-ry the photograph of a bee on the flower, bywhich the author shows that the plant is a honeyplant, i.e. pollen plant. Thebook, among other things,contains the botanicaldescription of each plant, itsrichness with nectar andpollen, as well as the fea-tures of the honey andpollen produced from it. Inaddition to Latin andSerbian, the names of theplants are also given in sixother languages (Russian,French, English, Hungarian,Macedonian and Slove-nian).

In 2003, he publishedthe "Atlas of Honey Plants"part 2, with additional 337species of honey plants thathad not been presented inthe part 1, also illustratedwith about 1,500 photo-graphs.

This two-volume"Atlas of Honey Plants"edition is a capital work inthis field, because, on1,440 pages, among otherthings, it contains the pres-entation of 670 mostimportant world honeyplants, illustrated withabout 3,000 originalcolour photographs, then5,600 names of the plants,given in 8 languages andclassified in separate regis-ters. There is also the glos-sary of botanical terms, aswell as the register of thenames of diseases in thetreatment of which thedescribed plants can help.The author has travelledmany areas in order topersonally take the photo-

graphs of all the plants presented in thesebooks.

The world value of these books was con-firmed at the APIMONDIA Congress 2004,held in Ljubljana, where, for the two-volume"Atlas of Honey Plants", the author was award-ed the bronze medal. Therewith, these booksentered the three most important word works inthe area of beekeeping. Considering that the

gold medal was awardedto the English book on thebee biology, and the silverone to the New Zealand'sbook on bee diseases, wecan consider the "Atlas ofHoney Plants" the mostimportant world work inthe area.

These books haveattracted the great atten-tion of domestic and worldpublic. They have beentranslated in Bulgarianand Croatian, and there isa great interest for thetranslation in other lan-guages, as well.

Veroljub Umelji} livesand works in Kragujevac,v u m e l j i c @ p t t . y u ,Telephone:

+381 34 362 879


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