Sunshine Bee-Safe Screens
Bee Safe and keep your screens on to protect from varroa, AFB, and robbing. Robbing season or not robbing season, keep your Bee-Safe screens on.
Revolutionary new design based on bee behaviour and hive aroma flows. The design shown is Mark 8. We continue to develop the design for all hive types and configurations for both non-migratory/hobbyist and migratory applications. Expect design changes.
Images
Bees perfectly adapted to the Sunshine Screen
Sunshine Bee-Safe Screens
- Stop robbing and drifting bees.
- Bee-Safe protected hives reduce infestation of varroa and diseases such as AFB. Scientific proof of in this very recent scientific study, which said, "colonies lacking robbing screens experienced faster varroa population growth than screened neighbors"
- Permanent installation (recommended), temporary installation during robbing seasons, or emergency installation during times of intense robbing (not recommended).
- Left or Right-Hand screen entrance options.
- Landing and non-landing board options.
- Migratory and non-migratory options.
- Pollen trap screens.
- One-minute installation with minimal disturbance to the hive.
"Build it and they will come"
- Kevin Costner's character Ray Kinsella, in Field of Dreams.
"Put enough obstacles in their way and they will go."
- John Szymanski, Bee Psychologist.
Sixteen individual design features prevent robbing and drifting, whilst resident bees continue the work of the hive.
Serious robbing is not common but starts with individual robbers finding the entrance, getting through the guards, stealing some honey, getting out alive, and waggling for this honey source back at their home hive. Once enough robbers get through the hive's defenses and advertise it, serious robbing begins.
When times are tough, robbers become more persistent in breaking through a hive's defenses, and with success, come more robbers. If the entrance is large and robbers arrive in numbers, the guards are easily overwhelmed. What follows is carnage; thousands of dead bees and worse, a killed queen and doomed hive. Even outside of dearths, individual robbers can be frequent. Sunshine Screens thwart these individuals and without advertising, serious robbing will be prevented.
Robbing and drifting are major vectors of diseases like AFB and varroa. Even without full-on robbing attacks, individual robbers and drifters can carry disease and mites into a hive. Using Sunshine Robber and Drifting Screens minimizes those biosecurity risks.
Design by a bee psychologist, the Sunshine design is based on understanding bee behaviour and air/aroma flows. Sunshine Robbing/Drifting Screens work by sensorily, visually, and geographically, disguising and deflecting foreign bees from the entrance to the hive. The design is also based on keeping robbers and drifters away from the real entrance and thwarting and frustrating them so they just give up and go. Robbers that don't succeed don't waggle, and if they don't advertise, serious robbing cannot start.
Sunshine Bee-Safe Screen Design Features.
Our screens work extremely well to prevent drifting and robbing and so reduce mite and disease infection. Our designs continue to develop to achieve 100% effectiveness.
· Smaller vent areas - Robbers' attention is diverted to the narrow top and side vents, away from the screen entrance. Larger vent areas encourage robbers to make wider searches, with a greater chance of stumbling upon the entrance.
Small mesh size - Prevents varroa mites passing through mesh.
Hive aromas vent above, to the side, and at the maximum horizontal distance from the screen entrance - This draws the attention of robbers away from the screen entrance. Screen entrances above a venting area, are aroma chimneys and attract robbers.
Venturi Side Vent - The side vent attracts robbers to the opposite side and away from the screen entrance. A windshield over the vent prevents wind from blowing into the vent and pushing hive aromas out through the screen entrance. The windshield causes a venturi effect, drawing hive aromas out of the side vent and away from the screen entrance further drawing foreign bees away from the screen entrance.
Short-term jail - The coup de grace of the design features is the short-term bee jail. The top and side vents are each made up of an outside and an inside mesh with a small entrance in the outside mesh. Robbers come to the aroma and spend time trying to find an entrance through the outside mesh, they eventually do, but are blocked by the inside mesh. Once they have had enough of not gaining entry to the hive, they take some time to figure their way out. Eventually, they do, but by that time they have had enough and leave.
· Adjustable entrances - The entrance size is easily adjusted and so enables permanent and temporary installation. For permanent installations, the entrance is
adjusted to changing forager traffic. The entry can be widened during good nectar flows when greater traffic requires room. During robbing periods or when robbing is intense and maximum protection is required, the entrance should be reduced. Smaller entrances emit less aroma, are harder to find, and are more easily guarded.
Non-migratory screens with side entrances form a deep cul de sac as the last line of defense to thwart robbers. Larger migratory screens enable bottom entrances a good distance from the screen vents.
Simulated nooks and crannies - Robbers explore any small dark nooks and crannies as possible entrances to the hive. Robbers waste further time exploring the laser-carved black portions of the Sunshine Bee logo. One slot cut into part of the bee logo emits hive aromas and keeps foreign bees distracted from the real entrance.
Thwarting or stalling robbers, even in small ways reduces their persistence. The more energy they use, the more frustrated they become and the quicker they give up and learn to ignore the hive as a honey source.
Hive more defendable by the guards - Successful robber screens result in guard bees not being overwhelmed by the very small number of bees that may get through the screen defenses. The longer distance between the screen entrance and the hive entrance provides more opportunities for guard bees to challenge foreign bees. Often it is enough for a robber to be charged by a guard for it to leave the hive.
Migratory Screens - Have a larger volume to allow for considerable bearding inside the screen when transporting hives and entrances are closed. Closed entrances are recommended to reduce drifting between hives in the load. Closing the entrance automatically opens a bottom vent to create a cooling effect inside the screen.
One-minute installation and minimal disturbance to the hive - Both the design and the installation procedure are based on bee psychology. Bees adapt quickly to the Sunshine screen and the productivity of the hive is not affected.