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  • Bee Hive building & a place to share howto's on equipment
Bee Hive building & a place to share howto's on equipment
 #6551  by NigelP
 18 Apr 2020, 15:36
Thought it might be worth sharing some practical issues with pollen traps.
I've two types the Thornes Fairweather National pollen trap and the Abelo National Pollen trap.
Trying to figiure out how to attach the Thornes pollen traps was a bit of an issue, it turns out in an unmodified state it wil only fit onto a wooden floor with no landing board and with the recess side of the wooden brood box facing the floor (cold way) as there is a ruddy great lip that fits into the recess in the brood box. So I've had to "modify" it by sawing off the lip and attach the whole lot to a floor so it can be used on the flat face of any hive.

Now the Abelo pollen trap is a neat bit of kit. It's a floor with a built in pollen trap and sliding collection tray, self explanatory really.
Wooden National hives fit over the lip with ease, Brand new Abelo poly hives are a real tight squeeze but not older abelo poly hives hives which must get slightly compressed with time, not a lot but enough to just not fit. I'm now in the process of taking back the edges of the plastic lip so they all fit easily.
Hope that is of some use if you are thinking of collecting pollen this year to freeze and feed back to the bees in spring.
It looks as though whatever you buy will need a bit of modification.

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