Bee Cones
Artificial entrance tubes
I saw a picture in Malaysia of stingless bees on a really amazing entrance tube. I researched it and decided there were too many reasons not to make an artificial one.
Here is a video containing some of the reasons I wanted bee cones.
Entrance tube info
When stingless bees are trying to cool a hive, pulling air across a flat surface is inefficient. Bees standing in a cone or funnel shape entrance allows them to pull air in much faster.
Stingless bees most commonly make entrance tubes for defense of their hive with the main predator being ants. When ants attack over a long period of time, the bees extend their entrance tunnel to match – the longer the tube the longer the ant attack has been going on for. Entrance tubes are made sticky on the edge to prevent ants walking over the edge. As the tube collects dust from the air bees have to continually extend the tube to renew the stickiness of the tube.
Here is some great footage of the stingless bee “Itama” from Malaysia that someone filmed. You can see the bees working that sticky edge.
Bee Cone Information
- Bee cones are made from plastic and fit into a 12mm entrance hole
- Different colours allow seasonal visual marking of hives
- The curve of cone allows efficient airflow assistance to bees while “fanning”
- Bee cones can be removed and replaced to clear seed and resin to allow even airflow to hive
- Holes near the base of the cone help to confuse phorid fly and other pests that land on the hive and make it difficult for geckos to eat bees
- Cones can be used during a swarm to swap the bees focus from the hive they are attacking to a new hive baited with brood.
Arrows indicating where holes are in cones
I found this little article talking about entrance size being comparative to traffic and defensiveness.
If you haven’t seen my video on ventilation have a look as it will help explain the use of bee cones in aiding ventilation.
Hey how can i get a hold of one of the bee tube tunnel plz
Hey Zac I’ll have them under Nicks sales very soon. ????
Hi Nick, I like the many features of your bee cones, do you sell them to other meliponists ?
I could really use these, particularly because I am going to put a heap of my hive in close proximity to one another in what I will call the ‘Bee Safe’.
I sure will be selling these soon. Just have to receive some more from my manufacturer and I will be putting a paypal button up for them. Thanks for stopping by and making a comment.
Nick
Hi Nick,
We have native bees in a block wall how can we encourage them out into a box ( hive) .
Thanks
Jim
Great question but maybe not the answer you want. You can trap out the workers but the queen will never leave. She surprisingly will remain in the nest until the bitter end. You must break the wall to pieces and remove the brood with her inside. If you don’t get her or leave brood the colony will repeatly remake the nest until they are missing the needed things to make a new queen. I hope this helps.
Hi Nick, Sorry to interrupt. Using eduction method will the queen leave the hive in the block wall ?
No sadly she won’t. It’s a common belief that during the eduction method the mother queen will leave the log or the box to work in the new hive. This however does not happen. They make a new queen for the eduction hive. I have tried many times with different methods to get a queen to leave a wall or somewhere they shouldn’t be. She simply will not leave it for some reason. She will even go without food. If anyone has got a mated queen to leave I would love to hear about it.
Nick.. Thanks for sharing.
Nick, Just for discussion. When the new empty broodcells are created in the eduction box, the “resident” queen has to come out and lay the eggs there ? What is your opinion ?
What happens normally is a Virgin queen will move from the mother hive to the eduction box. Workers see the new area as the beginning of a colony. The new queen goes through several tests to see what her temperament is like. A circle of workers around the queen is common example. If she’s a keeper she is mated and there is a mini celebration of you like. You can see this as excited behavior with Bees running excitedly as if you have dropped the hive or disturbed the brood. This new queen will lay in the new cells. Hope this helps. 🙂
So the mother queen is not killed even though there are two queens, one in each hive and are connected The mother queen still resides in the mother hive and eduction can be done as many time so long as the mother queen is alive ?
Yep that’s is correct. However if left for a long time 2-3 months post queen (New queen) hatching, workers will kill the new queen. This is because the pheromones the new queen produces are very strong. When they play with the mother queens pheromones the workers get stressed and won’t tolerate it. (No man can serve to masters) sorta thing. The new queen is held out usually by 4 or more workers and dabbed with wax on her face and body and then sometimes pulled to pieces. It is a brutal death. ????
What a brutal world. Will this will happen if there is a “T” connector where the eduction hive section will be sealed from inside and automatically other hole will be opened to allow the mother hive workers to make new entrance ?
Ooh good question! I don’t know for sure because I haven’t done it that way ever. But I do know the inventor of that method. I’ll ask John Klumpp that very question and let you know what he says. ????