US 3,995,338 AGranted

Pollen trap with cleaning grid

AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of Agriculture

InventorNorbert M. Kauffeld

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Abstract

A pollen collecting and trash removal apparatus for use on honey bee colonies in which bees entering from the field with pollen are forced to twist their bodies through a double screen grid with offset squares and lose the pollen pellets which fall through a hardware cloth into a pollen drawer. Bees leaving the hive with trash are forced to drop it, when they have to crawl through a 2 screen grid without offset squares, through a 1/2 inch hardware cloth into the trash drawer. The hinged lid permits easy removal of both grids for easy access of bees leaving or coming into the hive. The apparatus can remain on the hive throughout a year and still permit easy manipulation of frames in the hive. Pollen and trash drawers are removed from the side of the hive without obstruction to the normal flight of the bees. The use of hardware cloth or wire screen permits the maximum amount of ventilation.

A pollen trap for collecting trash-free pollen from bees as they enter a bee hive, the trap comprising:

a. A compartmented, substantially rectangular box having an upper and a lower compartment, the box being dimensioned to fit onto a bee hive and consisting of:
1. a substantially rectangular, hinged horizontal solid top, the back portion of which is extended to fit into the entrance of a bee hive,
2. a substantially rectangular, vertically positioned solid front side,
3. a substantially rectangular, horizontally positioned bottom side comprising a very finely screened plane,
4. a substantially rectangular, vertically positioned screened back side,
5. a substantially square, vertically positioned left side,
6. a substantially square, vertically positioned right side, having large apertures for receiving a pollen collecting drawer and a trash-collecting drawer,
b. a pollen-collecting drawer having a very fine screen floor,
c. a trash-collecting drawer having a very fine screen floor,
d. the lower compartment consisting of a chamber for receiving the pollen-collecting drawer and the trash-collecting drawer,
e. the upper compartment providing the passageway for bees, being partitioned longitudinally to form an open ended entry compartment, a screened middle compartment, and an exit compartment, which exit compartment opening directly into the entrance of the bee hive;
the screened middle compartment comprising two vertically positioned removable medium gauge double screens, each of which is particularly nonaligned with respect to the other on the same frame and each of which in the same frame is spaced not more than about 1/8 of an inch so that an entering bee will be forced into a slow and circuitous path to divest the legs of the bee of pollen carried thereon, the pollen passing through the fine meshed floor of the upper compartment to gather in the pollen drawer the said exit chamber being provided with a wide mesh floor to collect the bodies of the dead bees as these are carried out of the hive, and
f. means for securing trap to a bee hive.

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Abstract

Claims1