Colony 3 – No pollen trap but Beehold tubes!

Following an idea from an Austrian citizen scientist (thanks Andi!), I went to the workshop in the basement of university today, to modify a sliding gate hive entrance. In INSIGNIA, the third monitoring colony is used for Apistrips, beebread collection and the Beehold tubes. In contrast to colony 1, no pollen trap is installed, and hence no adapter can be placed to hold the tubes at the hive entrance. Therefore I made four holes in the sliding gate, to fit the two Beehold tubes (way in for the bees) and the two dummy tubes (way out for the bees).

Modified sliding gate hive entrance for INSIGNIA monitoring colony 3: Make 4 holes for the tubes, the rest of the entrance is bee tight!

The sliding gate normally closes the whole flight entrance, but the small holes allow ventilation. The 4 large holes were made to insert the 4 tubes shown above.

Small handicraft work. You could either drill the holes or cut with pliers and refine with rasps, so did I!

This is how it looks with the two exit tubes (outside) and the two central Beehold tubes for bees entering the hive.

Will show you how it works in the next days!