Comparison of Traps Collecting Propolis by Honey Bees

Abstract

The last few years numerous publications have been published about the properties and plant origin of propolis, the glue-like resinous product collected by honeybees. Although, only one scientific experiment has been previously conducted on propolis collection techniques by honey bees, making the relative literature extremely limited in this area. The present study scopes to evaluate the effect of the trap types on the quantity of propolis collected by honeybees. For this reason, at two different locations, five different types of propolis collection traps, applied on Langstroth bee hives, were tested: 3 hand-cut screens plus one commercial screen on the top bars, as well as a lateral side modification of a Langstroth hive. Results show that two hand-cut screens with smaller openings (1 × 1 mm and 2 × 2 mm) as well as the commercial screen collected significantly more propolis than the others (F 4,41 = 43.21, P < 0.0001). Furthermore, the two hand-cut screens filled faster with propolis.

Some Modified Methods for Bee Propolis Production in Honeybee Colonies (Hymenoptera, Apis mellifera L.) under Egyptian Condition

“…The data indicated that Summer season significantly had the highest amount of bee propolis produced, followed by spring season, then winter season, meanwhile the autumn season had the lowest amount of propolis produced (Table ,4 The four propolis traps can be arranged in the following descending order of Type 2 > 1 > 3 > traditional method. This finding was supported by those by Tsagkarakis et al, (2017) who evaluated the effect of the trap types on the quantity of propolis collected by honeybees, Results show that two hand-cut screens with smaller openings (1 × 1 mm and 2 × 2 mm) collected significantly more.…”

Effects of Hive Sizes and Mesh Materials on the Productivity of Propolis Produced by Tetragonula Laeviceps

“…The highest productivity of propolis was from the colonies in the large MOTIVE with a nylon mesh at 2.52 ± 0.37 g/colony/week. According to Tsakgarakis et al [24], propolis production is higher with smaller mesh pore size, which has a larger total surface area. Pore sizes of the aluminum, nylon, and polyethylene meshes were 2 × 2 mm, 1 × 1 mm, and 2 × 2 mm, respectively.…”