ATTRACTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT TRAP COLORS TO INSECT PREDATORS OF HONEYBEE IN ERBIL

A study was carried out in the Grdarasha Research Station-College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences-Erbil-Kurdistan region-Iraq, to survey insect predators attacking Honeybee hives using Traps and assess the attractiveness of four colors of Trap to catch insect predators of honeybees around the honeybee Hives, as well as to study the seasonal incidence of trapped predators in relation to weather factors during the time period between July and November, 2022. The tested colors were Red, yellow, white, and Blue. The RCBD design was utilized in the experiment. The result showed that there were two types of wasp which caused a major risk on honeybee hive and apiary; those were Red wasp and yellow Wasp, Vespa orientalis and Polistes versicolor. The seasonal incidence study showed that the population of predatory wasps reached the peak in the month October 11.55 wasps/ trap. The evaluation of different trap colors for both types of predatory wasps revealed that the most attractive color was Blue followed by yellow and the least attractive one was white and followed by the red color.