A doubled-faced bee venom collector: a new contribution to improve bee venom collection
Conference Paper
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abstract
Collecting bee venom or apitoxin requires careful work with the highest degree of
cleanliness. Furthermore, precautions at the time of collection in the apiary must be
considered. Several kinds of bee venom collector exist in the market of beekeeping
equipment [1,2]. In the apparatus used outside the hive, the collector panel is put on
the entrance or on the bottom board of the hive. Other types are used inside the hive,
on or instead of the frames.
The aim of this study is to provide an improved device for collecting bee venom with
required quality at several scales: 1-quality of the bee venom namely, specifically
purity and physico-chemical characteristics, 2- yield of the collection, 3-stability of the
beehive as well as the apiary, 4-reduce bee damage or the death of the excited bees
per period of collection, 5- provide an affordable device for Moroccan beekeepers. The
improvement affects several levels and sections: electronic control system part,
stainless wire array, venom collection surface. As a result of the study we can conclude
that it is possible to make a bee venom collector that is relatively cheap and, at the
same time, suited to Moroccan conditions. The optimum frequency of bee venom
collecting event is every 10 to 15 days and the optimum duration of bee venom
collection in the beehive is 30 min to 60 min early in the morning. The experiment
showed that the best method consists of placing the frame at one of the outermost
opposite ends of the beehive. An average yield per period of collection (30 min to 60
min) and per beehive was from 30 to 35 mg of dry venom. Furthermore the quality was
very promising. With the present apparatus bee venom is dried on clean conditions
with the minimum contaminations and without secondary air current, reducing dead or
injured worker bees – 15 to 30 died bees. The presence of a wire tensioner provides
a good conductibility of the current and consequently an optimum bee electrocuting.
In view of the foregoing, three conclusions draw oneself: 1-The production of bee
venom in Moroccan apiary will constitute a new practice in addition to others and
consequently an additional income for beekeepers. 2-This device will be the first step
to develop other apparatus with several improved and coupled techniques. 3-The
feasibility of bee venom collected by this device can likely confirmed by a chemical
and biological characterization.
