We've had to remove all of the bees from large numbers of colonies in order
to weigh the bee population. We've done this in commercial operations, with
no apparent problems, sometimes going through the hives every two weeks.
We try to find the queen and isolate her -- don't need to bang her around
anymore than necessary.  But, we've seen and have shaken all of the bees
into a box with a queen excluder bottom when making up packages.

What we learned is that you don't just BLOW.  Combine shaking and blowing,
much easier on all concerned.  Set up a sawbuck, grab a folding suitcase
rack from a hotel, anything that you can set the box on so that you can
stand and work in a comfortable position.

1.  Set the box on the stand.
2.  Turn on the blower.
3.  Pop up and remove one frame -- set aside, I lean against side of stand.
4.  Pop the nest frame loose, slide it into the space from which you
removed the frame, lift the frame upward about 3-4 inches.
5.  Give it a fast, downward thrust, ending in a upward yank, most of the
bees, caught by surprise, will fall off and out the bottom of the box.
6.  Now that most of the bees are off the frame, flow the rest off.  If
needed you can pull the frame out, turn it over, etc.
7.  Set it back down in the box as far from the undisturbed frames as
possible.
8.  Repeat as you go.
9.  When done, pick up the initial frame.  It will have picked up
wandering, lost bees.  Shake and blow it, and you're done.

In other words, shaking is faster and easier than blowing, the blower
simpling get the last bees -- you can do the same with a bee brush, but it
takes longer -- and don't use a black, horsehair bee brush -- they will
attack it.  Light colored synthetic bristles are far superior --bees
ignore.  However, keep the smoker away.

As per the slide, I like it.  Without a slide, a get a mess of bees tangled
in the vegetation, heading every which way.  We set the stand, slide in
front of the hive.  The shaken/blowen bees slide down, right to the hive
entrance, and walk right back into the brood box.

As per killing bees, yes, a few; but fewer using the shake plus blow, than
just blowing.  And, many of the chemicals used to drive bees also harm bees
-- we've seen high numbers of queen supercedures following chemical use.

Jerry