Allen Dick wrote

> Does anyone have a good simple, cheap design for a dead bee trap?

When I worked for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, we had a
dead bee trap that we used in trials.  It fitted over the front of the hive.
It was about 8 inches high and as wide as the hive.  In our case it was 16
inches wide and about 20 inches deep and made out of galvanized sheet metal.
We had a punched queen bee excluder that fitted over the top of this
container and the bees had to go through this excluder to exit and re-enter
the hive.

On the bottom of the container was a grid.  The dead bees were brought out
of the hive by the bees and as they tried to take them out through the
excluder, would be released and drop down beneath the grid.  We could take
the container away to count the dead bees.  We had the dead bee trap this
big as we often did insecticide trials and the affect on bees so needed to
be able to hold large numbers.  For simple trials, it could be made smaller.

When you put this on a hive, it has to be a hive by itself or alternatively
all hives must have the dead bee trap.  If you have one hive with the dead
bee trap and the others do not, the field bees will drift into hives nearby.

Hope this helps.

Trevor Weatherhead
AUSTRALIA