>a nylon brush.  Definitely a slow process.
>Have you ever used feathers?

No, I never have, but if my neighbor can get me a Goose wing...he likes 
killing things both large and small...but for some reason doesn't like the 
sound of my Blue Ticks...I will give it a try. I don't use a brush very 
often, either. There are two instances though, where brushing is important 
to me. First, is in grafting. I brush the bees off the comb containing the 
young larvae to prevent them from being dislodged. Second, is to remove the 
bees from the ripe cells when removing the cell bar frame from the cell 
building colony. I can see how feathers would be quicker, and will try a 
goose wing for the grafting frame. What about with the cell bar frame. 
Would a Goose wing get into all the spaces around the cells?

>  I don't shake/thump the frames to get most of the bees off   - it can 
> definitely harm the queen if she hits a frame top the wrong way...)


I shake a huge amount of bees off frames each year. All my nucs are made by 
shaking bees off frames. Most of my requeens are performed this way, too, 
using the top brood box as my requeening nuc. Sometimes I shake the bees 
onto the top bars, and sometimes I shake the bees onto a landing board in 
front of the hive, so the bees and the queen will run back into the hive. 
After some 25 years of shaking bees in this way, I can say I've never seen 
queen damage. When brushing bees off a comb, whether by a brush or a 
feather, don't the bees and queen still fall to the top bars? In this case, 
how would brushing and shaking differ?

>   bees started to raise brood at the end of January   Now it's back to 
> freezing weather once more...


Here in Vermont, too. I talked to a beekeeper in Montpelier yesterday. He 
looked at his home yard last week. Said most colonies had a frame of brood. 
Now, it's back to the deep freeze. Temps were -10F Sunday night, and -5F 
last night. High on Monday was 15F. Looking forward to April!

  Mike 


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