Other Accessories for Bee Keeping
1. Comb Foundation Sheet:
It is made of pure wax. It is artificially provided for the colonies during honey flow season by cutting them to a proper conical size and attaching them to super frames by means of thread. The bees construct superstructure of cells over the sheet.
2. Dummy Division Board:
It is a frame with panel placed alongside the regular frames so that the bees can be confined to limited space, when the population in the hive is less.
3. Porter Bee Escapes Board or Super Cleaner:
It is a board covering the brood chamber with a one-way opening in the center. This is used to clear the super of the bees by keeping it between the super and the brood chambers over night.
4. Drone Excluder or Drone Trap:
It consists of a piece of wood slightly longer than the entrance of the hive with a shallow opening of 1/8th deep. Drones which wriggle out from the hive find themselves unable to bet into the hive again.
There is another type of drone trap, which is fixed in front of the hive entrance in the afternoons when the drones and workers come out for play flights. The bigger grove at the back of the trap allows the drones to come up to the front entrance, however, finding difficult to escape through it they enter the cones, which act as one way lanes. However, the workers can freely go out through the groove at the bottom and also the slots in the trap. The drones thus trapped are removed next morning and killed.
5. Swarm Trap:
It consists of a rectangular box open at one of its broader sides and wire guage fixed to about 2/3rd of its height on the other side. The other 1/3rd portion on this side is fitted with a queen excluder sheet made of zinc or galvanized iron in a slanting position. After the bees construct queen cells, this box is kept on the alighting board with its open side close to the hive and tightly secured with a piece of string taking care to ensure that neither the queen nor the workers can escape through. One or two frames with comb foundation sheet are kept inside the box. When the swarm issues in the format course, the queen is trapped inside the trap. She settles in the comb foundations sheet with a few workers, which are eventually joined by other workers, which had gone out. Thus, the swarm is induced to settle in the frame, which can now be transferred to a hive as a desired placed.
6. Queen Excluder:
It is the same kind of sheet as used in the swarm trap. A colony having a queen with desirable traits and with plenty of brood and eggs is selected. The brood comb with the queen and workers is taken out and kept in a separate hive and spare combs provided if necessary. A queen excluder sheet is placed over the top of the brood chamber. The flour board of the original hive is removed and the whole hive with other brood combs and bees is kept over this and the entrance of the upper hive is closed. The queen excluder sheet prevents the queen from having any access to the upper chamber which results in the construction of queen cells in the upper live.
7. Honey Extractor:
This equipment consists of cylindrical drum containing a rack or box inside to hold the super frames. The box is fixed to a rod at the center and it can be rotated by a setoff two gear wheels. The frames with honey cells are decapped by a sharp knife after dipping it in hot water and fixed to the slots provided in the box, which is rotated by handle. Thus honey from the cells can be drained off.
8. Smoker:
It is a small tin with an elastic bulb at one side; rags of cloth or any material can be burnt inside and the smoke expelled to any desired spot.