Pollen trap and queen mating

[Connie Bart]

I am using the Sundance pollen traps. They are fabulous! I am confused - can a young queen get back into the hive with the trap set for collecting pollen?

As an aside:I have just put an add in the local PenneySaver to sell my honey and pollen - Wish me luck!

Thanks to all you fabulous beekeepers offering the benefit of your experience! I've learned so much.

[Michael Bush]

>I am using the Sundance pollen traps. They are fabulous! I am confused - can a young queen get back into the hive with the trap set for collecting pollen?

No.

[Oyster]

The Betterbee Pollen Trap ($14.95) has a drone hole on each side that would allow a mating queen to exit/enter. To be on the safe side when using this trap, the screen can be lifted and kept open with a clothes pin, every other day, to provide a virgin queen with better egress/access when in the mating mode, and to ensure proper pollen stores for the bees.

I have two of these traps, and they work well.

[Connie Bart]

I have noticed that after the bees are "trained" to use the "collection" entrance they seem to ignore the top entrances when I have mistakenly left them open (holes in the lids). Would this be a viable option to leave such openings available now and then and would a superceding queen be likely to find her way out and then back in?

[Michael Bush]

I haven't done that much pollen trapping but I have friends who do. They have homade pollen traps and the traps have a 3/8" hole drilled in them as a bypass/drone escape that is always there. The drones use it for an escape and some workers use it as an entrance so there is always some pollen getting in and a virgin queen will use it to go mate. Sometimes she finds her way back in and sometimes they find a cluster of bees on the outside with a queen who can't find her way back in. So, it all depends.