>Yes, but I'm wondering how long the ammonium nitrate lasts in the smoker,
and how long the effect lasts on the bees.
>Have you tried this with mated queens?

sorry Allen and rest of the list for not replying sooner. I had to go to the
mountain for a week to do some work. Horrible year honeywise, very good for
making new families tough. We only got 25 drums out fo 800 colonies up there.
Everything is delayed, Ulmo hasn't bloom yet. We made some 300 nuc to
compensate.
More rain upfront and a very cool summer. Probably our winter won't be a
good one.

Coming back to the ammonium nitrate and your questions.

It doesn't last long in the smoker, maybe a couple of minutes. You have to
work fast. We prepare a set of 10 nucs to sleep at a time. Then we lit
the smoker
again. The smoker won't last long either as the temperature gets really high

As said on a previous post the effect on the bees last between 5 to 10
minutes. It is impressive. The first time you probably think you have kill
them all. If you are planning to inspect the frames, it is wise to separate
them before sleeping the bees, other wise you will smach them.

Yes I have tried them with mated queens and it works in the same way. I
believe bees loose their memory, cause I have in terchanged the mated queen
from two adyacent colonies with a.nitrate and they were accepted after waik
up.

I have also use it to move colonies some meter away during pollination when
the farmer asked me so because they had to repair an irrigation pipeline.
This was done early in the morning and all bees recognized the new site (some
5 meters away) as theirs.

On one ocation I sleep some 100 colonies in a site because they were no
longer pollinating the blueberries but prefering tha apple  bloom. When they
recovered from sleep they "discovered" the blueberries. It took them some 5
days to come back to apples. The above based on the color of the pollen loads
and the trafic in the blueberrie field.


-- 
Juanse Barros J.
APIZUR S.A.
Carrera 695
Gorbea - CHILE
+56-45-271693
08-3613310
http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/
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