How To Build A Pollen Trap - It's SO Simple!

I'm going to show you how to make a pollen trap for less than £10. I'm currently touring Gozo and Malta and learning everything there is to learn about the Lita bees, and they've showed me how to make these really cost-effective pollen traps. All you need is a yellow pollen collection basket that you can buy from Nico. And the other thing you need to buy from Nico is this piece of plastic here with holes in. The bees crawl through these holes to get back into the hive, and because the holes are so perfectly sized, it means that the bees can get through, but the pollen on their pollen baskets drops off and drops off into this. Now, the cost of these, if you buy them in bulk, is about €5 or €6 for both of them. I think this one's €4, this one's €2 or something like that. The rest of the pollen trap is just made with scrap wood or ply or whatever you've got and some cheap wire mesh. And this is what it looks like here. So you can see there, a very, very simple design. That's the cross-section on one side. That's the front there. That plastic bit can be pushed in and taken out. So when you have it fully closed like that, that means that it is engaged and you are collecting pollen. And then if you want to open it up, you can open it up like that and then let the bees fly through. So the idea is very simple. You just connect this onto the front of your beehive, and all the bees have to go through here in order to get into the beehive. You'll notice a hole on the side there. That hole is to allow drones in and out because otherwise the drones will get stuck in those holes and they will die. So small entrance there for the drones, and you will get a few bees kind of stealing a little bit of pollen going back in there, but I'm sure. We can let the bees get away with that. Now if I tilt that up a little bit, you'll see on the underside here there is some mesh. So what happens, the bee goes in, it squeezes through, and then the pollen just falls down below into this mesh here. And then when it's time to harvest the pollen, all you do is you just slide that tray out there and your pollen is ready to harvest. I've been out all day with Amano today, so I'll show you some of the pollen that's been collected here. Some of the hives are bringing back 300 or 400 grams of pollen within 12 hours is absolutely incredible. I've never seen so much pollen going in. You can see there, that's a hive that we went and collected pollen from about 4 o'clock, and then we're back here at 6 o'clock just doing some tidying up, and I thought I'd do this video. So still a tiny little bit of pollen going in. Good tip from Amano though, he says the colonies generally forage the majority of pollen in the morning, and then later on in the afternoon, once all of the pollen's in, they'll focus on the nectar. I definitely did not know that. In terms of the construction, it's super, super simple. These little bits of metal here clip onto the front of the hive. So on the front of the hive, there's just a little groove, and then that sits in. And then you can see you've got your mesh down there. That's the cross-section on one side. That's the cross-section on the other side. The plastic bit just comes out, sits within a groove, comes in and out like that. Super, super easy. And that is it. How simple is that to make? So the only difficulty that you're going to have in the UK is sourcing these 2 bits here. As always, buying these in Europe direct from Nico— these come from France— It is super, super cheap if you buy them in bulk. I suspect they're going to be a little bit more expensive in the UK, but they shouldn't be. Like, that is just one strip of plastic with some holes punched into it, and then that piece there is just an injection molded basket for collecting pollen. These 2 things here are not expensive. Can't wait to get home. I'm going to take some of these bits home with me. I'm definitely going to have a go at making some of my own pollen traps, but you don't even really need a video for that. That is the simplest build in the world, and you should be able to make it from the details I've given you in this video.

Good luck.

So you can see how those pollen traps go in, super simple. You've just got this piece of plastic here made by Nikko that pulls straight out. So these holes here are perfectly sized to allow the bees to go through but not to allow the pollen to go through. So a bee will come in, it will go through there, the bee will go the other side, and the pollen will drop down into this yellow cage below, and that is where all the pollen is You can see that from the inside as well. If I move the trap like that, I can open it up, the bees can get in and out. You can see taking advantage there. But as soon as I close it, close it to there, and then that means the bees have to go through the holes in order to get out. So you'll see over there now, that's generally where the bees can get through, and they just go in, go out. So after blocking those pollen traps about 18 hours ago, as we were driving down here with Amano, I was saying, come on, how much pollen are we going to get? Is it going to be a centimeter? Is it going to be nothing? Are they going to be full? And he said, oh, well, you know, it's raining yesterday and the pollen doesn't come in until a couple of days after. So he was trying to deflate me a little bit and say, you know, don't get your hopes up. Oh my God, wait until you see how much pollen these bees have collected in about 18 hours, but only really like 3 or 4 hours flying time. So when I came down here, I thought, well, look at these bees. There are millions of bees in the air. Blocking the entrances, surely that's a good sign. So Amano has taken me to the first one. Honestly, this is the first one that he's gone and taken out. And look at all of that incredible pollen. Wow! How much do you think is there, Amano? Weight?

I think 200 grams.

So about 200 grams. So that's about four hours worth of flying. And look at the variety of that pollen. You've got You've got yellows and oranges, golden browns. You've got dark, dark black ones almost. What's that black pollen there? The dark one?

Normally is the poppy.

Poppy?

The red flower.

Yeah, poppy.

Cool. When we produce the opium. But this is the little, not the big.

Yeah, yeah. So the darker one you can see there is the poppy. And then what are you doing here to clean?

I clean for the bees.

So this is the method that Amano uses. Really simple. He's got a quatrinook, I think, there, homemade. So look at all that pollen coming out. That is beautiful. I can't believe you've got that much in such a short time. So really important with pollen, you have to clean it and you have to dry it or it will go mouldy. And I was speaking to Amano yesterday and he was saying that they actually Sell a huge amount of this, so it's not so much for kind of feeding their own bees. They actually do sell it as a product. So it's gone through the mesh, it's gone through the queen excluder. Amano's off to go and collect some more pollen now. Let's see what the next one can do. So super simple to put it back on, just clips in like that.

Normally it's better to make this work in the evening.

In the evening.

All the bees inside. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So my fault completely. Armando saying it's much easier to do this in the evening when no bees are flying, and it just saves kind of squishing any bees. But look, another one. Not stronger like, but still a really good amount. Wow! What's the light one there?

The white is the wild cardo. Like the artichoke.

Okay, yeah, wild artichoke, nice. And all that is left is bees. See if you can see the strongest one, you've got to guess. So I love this cleaning device, it's just a poly box, a piece of varroa mesh, and then at the bottom a piece of queen excluder, and then that just rests on a bit of plastic like that to give the space for the pollen to go Everything here in Malta is homemade, really cheap, but very, very effective. I love it. So next one along. Look at that. It's nearly full up there. It's very moist, the pollen, and you have to dry it.

Yeah.

So it doesn't go moldy.

Yeah.

What's the bottom queen excluder for?

Ah, is the original. This is one Michaela box to collect the drone.

Shaker box. Okay. Yeah, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have only taken.

Yeah, that's fine.

Test the Michaela box. I put this there. Yeah. But the extruder is for the capture of the drone.

Okay. So just for that, this is Michaela's drone capture box. Wow. So can you believe just how much pollen was collected there in literally about 4 to 5 hours worth of flying and from only like 4 or 5 5 of those colonies there. Absolutely astounded with how much pollen is here, I really, really am. A huge selection, tons of flowers, loads of forage, beautiful, beautiful foraged pollen.