The thermal model of winter aggregation of bees

Abstract

For successful competition of the Russian beekeepers in the world honey market it is necessary to concentrate their attention on production of separate grades of this product. The most expensive honey is produced in spring and therefore it is necessary that the bees were successful in winter. The use of electric heating of bee hives does not always have a positive effect on the safety of bees in winter. In this regard, it is necessary to study more carefully the complex biological formation - winter bee hives. There were the basic equations for determining the physical parameters of the bee family in winter, including the energy characteristic. The established equations were included in the mathematical models describing the parameters of the microclimate. Mathematical processing of the obtained thermophysical model was carried out in the Comsol software product, which confirmed the validity of the use of the main functional dependencies and allowed to see the critical zones of the hive in temperature and humidity. Despite the large temperature changes outside the hive, it is maintained a fairly stable positive temperature at the level of +25C to + 32C inside. Such temperatures are not dangerous for bees. The images of temperature fields obtained in the course of mathematical processing confirm the assumptions that the lowest temperatures are in the lower part of the hive, and the higher ones are in the upper part. The results of the simulation will be used to determine the optimal power supply to electric heaters and to the place of their installation.