I was browsing an online beekeeping supply company and saw a propolis trap. Basically it replaces the inner cover and has lots of little holes that the bees have to seal up to block the light from coming in. You remove it put it in the freezer and then the propolis cracks right off for harvesting.
I’m interested in the medicinal value of propolis as well as it’s success in prepping swarm traps. Does anyone have any experience with these things? Or in the use of propolis outside the hive in general?
We scrape the propolis from the frames then dissolve in tea tree oil. My son uses it on his face to reduce acne, have to say it’s been fantastic and he is off his other meds namely antibiotics. His face has 90% cleared up. It’s anti-microbial activity is far beyond any manuka and in a class of its own.
You are correct, the concept is that you want a little bit of light coming through the trap so the bees want to plug the holes. But even if you just cut inner covers out of window screen you’ll get a lot of propolis on them. Cut the screen to fit the box. Peel it off when it’s well covered and roll it up and rubber band it. Put it in the freezer. When you pull it out, put it in a garbage back and unroll it. The propolis will fly off the screen. It comes off of the plastic better… but either will work. The screen might be free if you have some laying around. If you want to collect it for your use or to sell it, this works well. The propolis will be clean (no wood chips), unlike what you scrape off in the hive. It’s still worth keeping the scrapings from the hive, but it won’t be as clean.
Propolis is a good immune booster and a good antimicrobial for any kind of sore. It makes nice “chewing gum” but may stain your teeth. It has been proven to prevent cavities when used in a tincture as a mouthwash, but again, will stain your teeth… I used to take propolis but haven’t bothered in recent times. I have a good immune system, so I can’t tell that much difference.
Haven’t tried it but that does make sense… will keep it mind, I don’t have any any perspex in my hives but who knows what the future holds, I didn’t know that a little light coming in will make the bees produce more propolis.
Hi Rod, I picked up a couple of hives the other day out of one tree that was being cut up for fire wood, I actually got three hives out of it, I made two hives out of one of the colonies. Carbonarias. No, they don’t like any light coming in:) I saw your post where you said your wife keeps them. Do you know of that bloke at Ku-ring-gai that keeps them? He calls himself Envirotube on Youtube. I have perspex on the sides of my observation beehive, that works well. I keep that screwed tight, then I have ply on top of that that I can remove any time I like to show people. It’s empty at the moment. I’ll ttyl, bye
Oh Yes, Peter Clarke. He uses my yard for Hive splits every year, we end up with a couple dozen native beehives for a time until they settle and then can be given out to Kuringai ratepayers. He wasn’t too impressed last year when he saw that there were more honeybee hives than Natives. My wife did have a little chuckle to herself. They just don’t compete with each other and live well together, but I don’t think Peter quite sees it that way.
Lol, he’s a funny bloke, he hates shb, I told someone on Youtube about him the other day, they asked me how these little fellows would go south of Sydney… I had a Carbonaria hive & did a split last spring, probably too early, I sold the strongest half for a pittance, probably also too early. It powered on for the bloke but the other half didn’t make a new queen. So you can imagine how stoked I was to go & grab these ones. I finished up getting about 1 & a half cups of honey out of it. I squeezed it out with a potato ricer. Then strained it through a stocking. I’ll catch ya later, cheers
I would put it underneath and then prop it up enough to let some light onto it so they will be more motivated to propolize it. When the weather is warm, of course.
Hi Adam, I only recently discovered that I have a mini goldmine of propolis contained in all my boxes on the ledges. All you need to do is put the box in the sun for a while to soften it before scraping it out.
Plus I get a buildup between my lids & top boxes which can be scraped down from time to time.
To get more, all you’d need to do is raise the lid a few mm so the bees fill that gap.
Propolis is wonderful stuff, I scrape it off into a tupperware container everytime I do a hive inspection, it gets steeped in alcohol or tea tree oil for use as a tincture. One of the hidden treasures in the beehive.