OK so I am going to give a bee venom harvester a go. I am always on the look out for ideas and products that can help me to get more out of the efforts that need to go into keep my bees happy and healthy. This has been a long time coming but finally I have bitten the bullet and got a kit to try it out.
Theory is pretty straight forwards. Set up the kit outside the hive and leave it on for 15 mins then off for 15 mins and harvest from the glass sheet. Will give it a go and see were I get to. Will be interesting to see how aggressive they get and if this has a calming effect or the reverse over time. Green poly are my most aggressive hive and a huge colony so will be a good place to start as a trial.
Key to the success of this project is the selling of the bee venom so please Contact me if you are interested in buying some bee venom.
First up is the venom extractor. After doing lots of research online I though this one was the best and at the best price point. I got a 3 frame set-up. I need some way of rigging this to the hives, but I will cover this in the blog about the first attempt.
The plan is to return the glass slides to home and to dry them out in the dark. I have a multipurpose scraper to remove the powder from the glass surface.
Tip: Bee venom is really quite dangerous in it’s concentrated form so take great care with the powders. This is especially dangerous to pets and non beekeepers who don’t have much natural immunity to stings.
A milligram digital scale is needed to measure the quantity that is produced. Each slide should given me < 0.5 g so need a lot of slides to make this worth-while. A 0.001 resolution on the scales is therefore important. Was simple enough to get of Amazon. This one came with a calibration weight and a weighing bin.
I have bought 2 ml glass bottles. I bought the dark glass ones as bee venom is light sensitive and should not be exposed to direct sunlight.
I plan to sell vials with a single gram of material as my standard unit.
I’ll update this as i get more understanding of the equipment that I need to use. Meantime if you want to buy some bee venom please do contact me.