MANUFACTURE AND EVALUATION OF A SOLAR UNIT FOR MANAGING APIARY

Abstract

Honey bees are a vital part of the food chain, as it consider the most important pollinator for most crops. Beehive boxes must be inspected, cured, fed with syrup and repaired fairly often. The main objectives of this study were to manufacture and evaluate of a unit for safe inspection, optimum syrup fed, quick identify of different states of the bee colony, maximize the colony health and prevent colony losses. The new unit provided with several subunits such as: a holding rack with a shallow dripping drawer; Ultra Violet (UV) sterilization cabinet; climate indicator; hives and honey supers carrier; sugar syrup feeder; swarm vacuum; solar power system and control panel. The evaluation included two inspection methods; Four levels of UV lamp intensity (556, 711, 813, and 933 µW/cm2); three operation times of the UV lamp (2.67, 5.34 and 8.01 s); and four levels of air speed for the swarm vacuum (2.7, 6.7, 8.6 and 9.4 m/s). Significant decrease in crushing bees number (82.6 %); bee stings (62.7 %); mean time needed for one hive inspection (37.5%), mean time needed for hive feeding (28.57%) and percentage of damaged combs (71.43 %) were detected when using the new unit. Significant increase in sterilization efficiency and suction efficiency were detected when using ultra violet light for sugar syrup treatment and the swarm vacuum subunit for catching bees, respectively. Also, there was a little percentage of dead bees at higher suction air speeds, so it is recommended to use the new managing unit.