On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, TxBeeFarmer wrote:

> Dee told me they
> simply pull each frame and shake and brush off the bees.  One pulls and
> hands them to the other.  At first, I thought that would take FOREVER.  But,
> the Lusby's run around 800 hives, so I decided to try it.  To my surprise, I
> found it went pretty quickly and I was able to sort the frames into their
> various categories at the same time.  Actually, it works out to take the
> same amount of time and with a lot less work - at least for me.

Granted I only run 5 hives, but that's more or less how I've been doing
it.  Also, I find that if I hold up the frame by one of the ears in one
hand, and smack the top of the frame sharply with the heel of my other
hand, practically all of the bees fall right off without any brushing at
all, and relatively little agitation. Then I hold it by the other ear,
smack it again, and the rest of the bees fall off. I then just put the
frames into an empty super box on my wheelbarrow to transport them.  This
goes pretty quick, it takes about 20 seconds per frame.

What I'm having trouble with is a bit different.  When I take the hive
apart down to the bottom board, I have trouble with the bottom sticking
just enough that when I try to lift up the last box, the bottom board
picks up about a quarter of an inch and then drops.  This evidently really
ticks off the guard bees hanging out near the entrance, and they come
after me immediately.  If I manage to get it apart without jarring, then
the guard bees are no problem, but I only manage this about one time in
three.  Does anyone have a good solution to this problem?  I'm considering
attaching weights to the bottom board to give it enough weight to keep it
from picking up so easily.

--
Tim Eisele
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