April 27th, 2016

On Sunday we went to check on the 4 new bee hives and to stick the yellow sticky trap onto the legs of the frame. To our surprise we already found two of the hives teaming with bees although it isn't the main swarming season. I reckon with so many old trees being cut down in Karen these days, many swarms are surviving in less than optimal conditions and as soon as their scouts had found our new hives they decided to move! Great for us. This brings the number of our beehives up to 7!

Yellow sticky trap

 We use yellow sticky traps to keep ants out of the hives. The easiest to use is the sticky traps that is sold for greenhouse use. It comes in a 100m roll and is 15 cm wide. It is easy to wrap around the legs of the frame as it is a softer material than the usual sticky trap cards. It is also very useful in the garden to trap whitefly and fruitflies. Hier in Kenya it is available from Koppert as yellow rollertrap https://www.koppert.com/company/subsidiaries/kenya/

A piece of yellow sticky trap is tightly wrapped around the legs of the frame. It is then covered with the empty water bottle to prevent bees from getting stuck on it.

The finished set up with 2 Langstroth hives and 1 Warre hive. Notice the sticky yellow trap already fixed on the leg in the back. The bees moved into the hive in the front and the second hive from the back. The Warre hive will be attractive to larger swarms. We are hoping to get one soon and to see all 4 hives filled. After the cold season is over we will place "supers" a second storey on the Langtroth hives. It will be separated from the bottom box by a Queen excluder. This way the bees will start storing only honey in the upper box, while brood will be in the bottom box. This way the beekeeper can harvest the upper box without disturbing the brood in the box underneath.
​The Warre hive works in the opposite direction and doesn't use a bee excluder. It uses the principle that Queens only move a certain distance from the brood and that bees build from from the top down. In a Warre hive you always add a new box underneath and remove the one on the top.