>     I wash them ! :-)  I do bee removals just for the fun of it, (My wife
> does not like the idea) and my gloves get covered with honey, bees (both
> dead and live ones) and other kinds of dirt. When I am finished for the day
> I put them on and use a liquid hand soup (mild) and wash them as I would
> my hands. I let the gloves air dry for a couple of days and then treat them
 
We don't wash our gloves very often -- altho some of our people wear them
all day, every day -- but when we do, we throw them into a washing machine on
normal cycle.
 
If they are hard when they dry out after that, we use a _little_ neetsfoot
oil (made from the feet of neet (cows) and bought at the Home Hardware
store) like hand lotion to soften them up.  In the interim, a quick dip or
two into the water bucket and a rubbing together without soap removes most
honey or syrup and grunge.  Being damp doesn't make them uncomfortable --
au contraire.
 
If no neetsfoot oil is handy and the gloves won't even go on because they
are stiff, a quick dip into the water bucket we carry with us makes them
pliable without soaking them.
 
An aside on water pails:  We always carry a 2 1/2 gallon pail of water or
two on our truck.  It serves many purposes:
 
* One can dip dirty hands into it and then rub them til clean(er) *beside*
the pail (not over or in the pail in the fashion natural to almost every
new kid I hire).  Managed properly, the water will stay fairly clean all
day.
 
* One can use the water bucket and its contents to put out a fire caused by
careless emptying of a smoker.
 
* One can pour it (if still clean) over the head of oneself or one's
partner while still fully dressed in a bee suit on a hot hot summers day
-- resulting in a much refreshed state.  You dry out fairly quickly
after.  We don't wear (many) clothes under a bee suit in summer.
 
We had an occasion to use it for several above purposes the other day.  I
had occasion to sell some splits to a neighbouring Hutterite colony on
Monday, and their beeman came to help us make them up; he brought along a
youth to assist him.  (More on splits in another article coming soon).
 
The young fellow couldn't get the gloves on they were so hard and
deformed.  The quick dip in the bucket fixed that.
 
At the end of the job, we we tying down our load when we suddenly noticed
smoke coming from an inverted lid in which we had accumulated scrapings
(We always pick them up, not to prevent robbing which doesn't worry us
(much), but to keep them from building up on our shoes, which is most
annoying).
 
To our surprise, the young fellow had emptied his smoker -- which he had
assumed was out -- onto the scrapings, and the burlap had re-ignited.  We
then used the water (sparingly) to douse the fire.
 
A warning here about burlap or other fuel.  It is amazing how fast it can
explode into flame from the slightly smouldering state when exposed to
air.  We sometimes light a second smoker form a first, but it is a
dangerous practice.  I once got a painful burn trying to transfer
(apparently barely burning) fuel from one to the next on a hot windy day.
It caught flame in the seconds it took to pull it out of one and drop it
into the other.
 
Back to gloves:  there are many kinds of gloves on the market.  The
goatskin ones cost a little more and wear out faster, but are worth the
slight extra expense.  There are also ventillated gloves with some mesh
around the wrists that are *much* cooler on hot days.
 
I have (and my staff almost invariably have) trouble with one feature of
almost all the gloves we have encounered:  for some reason, the
manufactureres always attach the 'hands' at the wrong angle to the
'arms'.  This results in the small fingers on the gloves working off the
fingers and hanging a bit at the end. It is most annoying and most
pronounced in the cheaper, thicker gloves.
 
W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper                        VE6CFK
Rural Route One   Swalwell   Alberta   Canada  T0M 1Y0
Email:   [log in to unmask]    or   [log in to unmask]
Futures, Art & Honey:http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~dicka