Harvesting propolis & pollen

bpmurray

I was just in Greece and met a beekeeper who has some 300 hives (he was very nice - didn't sneer at my 2), and he sold jars of propolis and pollen. Does anyone know how one can harvest these? I see propolis as that yellow gunk that gets onto everything, and I leave pollen for the bees, but it appears that these can have some uses: apparently pollen tastes nice although my guess at the uses for propolis is to destroy everything it comes into contact with.

To see this guy's stuff, have a look at his FB page "Corfu Pappas Bee".

Markcheese

Propolis is used in throat sweets, and tinctures , chewing a little bit is brilliant for keeping sore throats/tonsillitis at bay...
Bee pollen is protein/amino acids (I think) .. Anyway it's taken as a health supplement... I worked for a guy in New Zealand who had pollen traps on some hives .. Which he'd empty 1 a week or so in summer, then put it in a dehydrator and then sell it in jars...someone here told me it tends to go mouldy in the drawer of the pollen trap...

brianmc

bpmurray wrote: »

I was just in Greece and met a beekeeper who has some 300 hives (he was very nice - didn't sneer at my 2), and he sold jars of propolis and pollen. Does anyone know how one can harvest these? I see propolis as that yellow gunk that gets onto everything, and I leave pollen for the bees, but it appears that these can have some uses: apparently pollen tastes nice although my guess at the uses for propolis is to destroy everything it comes into contact with.

To see this guy's stuff, have a look at his FB page "Corfu Pappas Bee".

Propolis is collected using a propolis screen... Somewhere, I saw one a bit like the plastic queen excluders but with much smaller, tapered holes. You put it on top of the hive and the bees seal it all up with propolis (as they do, every little nook and cranny). Afterwards, you freeze the screen and with a few twists of the frozen screen, all the propolis cracks out and hey presto.

At least, that's my understanding of the theory!

Effects

You can buy pollen traps that attach to the front of the hives to. I think there's a Polish guy in Tipp who sells them. He brings them in from Poland.