On 25 Nov 99, at 8:38, Mark Hayward wrote:
One was how
> the Beemaster used oil of wintergreen smeared on himself to avoid getting
> stung when trying to cut wild colonies from trees in the woods.  Has
> anyone tried this and does it work?? Anything to avoid a few stings from
> those nasty colonies.

I have never tried this as an idea, but have recently been testing a
new product we've been asked to add to our product line which might
be better than wintergreen.
        It's called Liquid Smoke. This stuff is really interesting, as you
can spray it on yourself. It might be better if I explain.
        Sold as a concentrate, mixed with water 1oz to 15ozs water in a
spray bottle, and used instead of a smoker! A quick spritz across the
entrance and the bees run in, unlike smoke it doesn't disipate so
quickly, so the hive is contolled longer, another spritz across the
frame tops and away you go.
        We used it during the last few days of our season and were very
pleased with the results. Jean, my wife suffers with bee stings to
her hands on opening a hive, we believe it's something to do with the
'change', sprayed it on her hands before opening, 'presto' no stings.
        Late in the season we forgot to make up a 'shaker' nuc, this is used
to shake out all our breeder baby nucs into. So we went to 6
different hives, took a frame from each with adhering bees, sprayed
them down with Liquid Smoke, plus some shaken bees and made up a big
6 frame nuc. Next day we opened them up to add a queen in a regular
cage, not one dead bee! Incidently they also released the queen
quickly and in two days we found eggs.
        I can see a lot of advantages in using Liqiud Smoke, less problem
looking for smoker fuel, certainly safer in dry conditions, and if
you have trouble keeping your smoker lit, say no more!! As a sting
preventer it could be sprayed onto clothing and the bees would just
ignore the wearer.


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