Today I Made

[Lesgold]

After 24 hours, the pollen trap was emptied. I didn?t expect to get very much at all due to the conditions at the moment. I was pleasantly surprised at the pollen collected. When conditions improve, I?m sure that a good quantity would accumulate in a short period of time. The pollen was very clean which supports Michael?s comments about the use of a top entry trap. It appears as though the majority of the pollen was collected towards the rear of the trap. When the lid was lifted, bees were uniformly spread over the top level. They were obviously looking for a path down towards the brood. There were no congestion point which means they were able to pass through with relative ease. A lot of bees were exiting via the cone escapes. This section of the trap worked very well. I did see about half a dozen drones on the top layer. It would be almost impossible for them to enter the hive.

[Lesgold]

The entry was changed to allow all bees to enter directly into the hive. The transition to the new entry was immediate due to the small distance involved. If the bypass works as it should, the trap will be roved tomorrow for painting.

[Ben Framed]

Another well done, proven, and shared project on "Today I Made". You are a gifted person! Thanks for bringing us along on this Les!

Phillip

[Lesgold]

Thanks Phillip. Hopefully it will give people some ideas so that they can improve this design or come up with something completely different.

[animal]

Yep .. you do really nice work .. methinks I shall steal your design for next year    if I still have bees

[Terri Yaki]

I find homemade projects like this interesting. Forgive my ignorance but I plead a legitimate excuse as I don't even have any bees yet but what is the reason to trap the pollen in this way?

[The15thMember]

A pollen trap is used to collect pollen for the beekeeper's use or for sale.  Here is a thread where we were discussing this topic recently.  It was actually split off from this thread.
https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=56794.0

[Ben Framed]

Les, did you pull more pollen from your pollen trap today?

[Lesgold]

Hi Phillip. No I didn?t. I switched to trap to by pass mode yesterday to see how the bees transitioned to the lower entrance. The other reason was that high winds and a temperature of 35 C was forecast for today. I was at the markets all morning so I didn?t want to continue with the test during my absence. I may switch it back again tomorrow when conditions improve.

[Terri Yaki]

What downsides are there to trapping pollen and moving it around? Any diseases of any sorts in there that could be spread?

[The15thMember]

What downsides are there to trapping pollen and moving it around? Any diseases of any sorts in there that could be spread?

You should always be careful moving anything around between colonies, but most people I know who have a pollen trap aren't harvesting it to feed back to bees, they are harvesting the pollen for human consumption.  I have pollen coming in all season long, so I've never fed pollen or pollen substitute to my bees, but if I wanted to, I would probably just store some pollen in the comb to give back to them.     

[Ben Framed]

"The15thMember"
"most people I know who have a pollen trap aren't harvesting it to feed back to bees, they are harvesting the pollen for human consumption."

I agree. For more see:  https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=56794.msg520708#msg520708

[Lesgold]

When I first started beekeeping, I looked to see what other beekeepers were doing around the world. One idea that always impressed me was the gable roof that many people put on top of their hives. This is obviously not convenient for migratory beekeepers but as my bees rarely move location the idea of an extra lid on top of the hive made a lot of sense to me. A gable roof has many advantages when placed on a hive. It provides extra protection for the lid and box as water runs off the roof and keeps a lot of brood boxes and supers dry. This cuts down on maintenance (especially painting) and also removes the need for a metal cap on the lid. It provides an extra air space that helps to keep the hive warm in winter and cool in summer and keeps more of those harmful UV rays off the hive body. I make the roof so that it just sit on top of the hive and overlaps the existing lid. Nothing holds them down and they rarely blow off. At the moment we are getting gusts of wind just over 50 km per hour and the lids still remain in place. When we were away on holidays for three and a half months, I returned home to find that one had blown off. It was just a matter of picking it up and sitting it back on the hive. To make the gable roof, I use whatever second hand material I can. Flat galvanised iron, sheet metal off the sides of old refrigerators and even stainless sheeting have been used in the past. These days I?ve started using aluminium composite sheeting as a mate gave me quite a bit a couple of years ago. 4x1 timber is also used for the sides of the gable. I need to make a few new gable lids as a couple of the early ones were made of pine and over time they just rotted away. A weather resistant timber such as cypress pine is a good choice for this part of the project. The first step is to cut the sheeting to the required size. Allowance needs to be made for the timber sides and also overhang in all directions. With the aluminium composite I make a shallow cut with the portable circular saw in the centre of the sheet to allow the material to bend. If I am using thin sheet material it is bent by hand over the end of the work bench. Screw hole locations are marked and drilled. Timber sides are then cut from the 4x1 to the length of the hive lid. The compound mitre saw is set to 15 degrees an a stop is cramped in place. The gables can then be cut quickly with no further measuring required.

[Lesgold]

It is now just a simple assembly exercise where screws are used to hold the metal cladding in place. Short roofing screws or pan head galvanised screws are a good choice. On this particular roof, I glued some polystyrene under the lid to provide extra insulation. As you can see from the photo, the insulation has seen better days. It came from an old gable roof that was about 10 years old that was retired from service. I?m sure the bees will forgive me for not making a nice, new, insulated lid. The polystyrene is normally cut from old fruit boxes or packaging. The only real issue that I have with these lids is that they attract a few spiders. The end of a hive tool normally talks them out of staying in this location.

[Lesgold]

Well I?ve finally made the decision to go to natural size cells on foundationless frames. Will it help with varroa? Time will tell. Even if it doesn?t, it will eventually reduce my workload and save a lot of wax. As I make all of my own foundation, the time spent on producing it every year really does add up. I thought I?d start on a small scale and trial it and establish methods to efficiently transition hives. I like how Michael Bush uses a frame with a shaped top bar but this would mean changing every frame in every hive and then making new top bars. In my operation, old frames are cleaned and reused through a steaming process to remove wax and soften the comb. Using a starter strip was therefore the best option in my situation. I have used foundation strips, icy pole sticks,melted wax and timber strips glued or nailed into place in the past. All methods worked quite well but I wanted to streamline a process to save as much time as possible. In one of my hives I have been testing a frame with a different type of top bar. It basically has an inbuilt cramp that grabs a starter strip of foundation for the bees to draw out. It was really quick to clip the starter strip into place but it?s downfall was the time to make the top bar. For this reason, the idea will be scrapped. Late yesterday afternoon, a box of frames was cleaned up and wires re tensioned. A piece of 90x19 pine was cut to a length that would just sit between the end bars of a frame and then strips were cut on the saw bench. Each strip was a loose fit in the groove of the top bar. Later this morning the starter strips will be fitted. I have a process in mind that should save a considerable amount of time. Each step will be photographed. (Just hope that it works out)

[Lesgold]

I put starter strips on a box of old, cleaned frames. Nailing or gluing the strips in place didn?t appeal to me as it becomes a difficult task to remove or replace the strips if needed. I decided to use some wax to hold the strips in place. The frypan had water added and then some wax chunks placed on top. When the wax melted, the strips were quickly lowered into the wax, half at a time. As very little heat was generated, the strips could be reversed and held without any burning. While still hot, they were slipped into the groove in the top bar. This was enough to temporarily hold them in place. A hot air gun was then used to melt the wax into the groove and secure the strips in place. From a time perspective, a box of strips were added and heated into place in about 5 minutes. The technique worked even better than I hoped. At a later date, if the strips need to be removed, the hot air gun gets the job done easily.

[Ben Framed]

Without these starter strips being securely glued in with a top quality glue. My concern would be on the hottest of days, the possibility of these 'wax secured' starter strips simply giving way form the weight of the honey.

[BeeMaster2]

The comb will attach to the top boards keeping it in place. Once it is attached to the frame sides it will bee stable enough especially since he did wire these frames.
Jim Altmiller

[Lesgold]

I understand what you are saying Phillip. I have made starter strips in the past from a very thin layer of wax with no wires and have not had any issues. In saying that, the comb was very soft initially (especially on hot days) and had to be handled carefully until it was attached to end and bottom bars. As Jim said, the bees will secure the comb to the top bar and the wire will provide the extra support needed. Initially these frames will go into the brood box of a hive.

[Ben Framed]

I didn?t read closely enough. Yes with wire support they should be fine.

Phillip