At 09:40 7/15/96 EST, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
>Poster: "Mark D. Egloff" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: A Depressing Day: Bees in the Honeyhouse
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Gentlepeople:
>
> I pulled supers this past weekend and had a rather
> depressing day of it. I used fume boards (probably
> incorrectly) to pull supers and when I got home there were a
> LOT of bees that came home with me still in the supers. They
> were confused, flying all around the place, landing in small
> clusters, and generally trying to figure out where they were
> and what happened to them.
>
> Now my wife only tolerates this pastime of mine and wouldn't
> be caught dead in a bee suit. Bugs of any kind, stinging or
> not, are verboten. Need I say that several hundred (thousand?)
> confused honeybees flying around the neighborhood concerned
> both her and me. After all, suburbia is not the place where
> you want your neighbors to get stung or be afraid of being
> stung.
>
> At the time, the only way I could think of to deal with the
> problem was to hose the clusters down with the garden hose
> whenever they grouped. Thus went the day and the battle of the
> bees. It was NOT fun. I spent most of my year nurturing these
> insects trying to keep them healthy and such. Now I was
> killing them off by the hundreds. It definately took the
> pleasure out of the harvest.
>
> Two things for this group:
>
> First, Fume boards. Are there any special tricks or
> procedures that I should be aware of? I placed the fume boards
> on top after ensuring that about one tablespoon of repellent
> was squirted onto the board then waited about 5-10 minutes
> before I pulled the super. The pulled super was then placed on
> top of a cardboard sheet in the truck to seal the bottom then a
> bee escape was placed on top for whatever bees remained to use
> to exit the super(s). The fume boards did not work on the deep
> supers at all. Do you replenish your repellent frequently?
> How long do you leave the fume board on to drive bees out of a
> 6&5/8" super? A 9&1/4" super? ANY tips on these devices would
> be appreciated. As of right now, unless I learn of a way to
> make them more effective, I will go back to Bee Escape screens.
> It may have caused another trip to the apiary but in the past
> with them I didn't have to spend the day killing my charges.
>
> Second, was their ANY other solution to my problem of loose
> bees in my neighborhood other than killing them? Would a hive
> body of drawn comb drawn them into it to form their cluster?
>
> Living and still learning,
>
> Mark Egloff
> [log in to unmask]
>
Mark,
First of all, don't be too discouraged. We learn from our mistakes. By
going through this, you're learning several methods of doing what you want
to do.
To specifically answer your questions - BEE-GO works best when it is HOT,
HOT, HOT. This is no fun for us beekeepers, because we get super sweaty in
our suits, but it is a fact. Also, sometimes you have to wait up to 15
minutes before you pull your super.
Another thing, only run the bees out of one super at a time (if you have
several supers stacked) and then remove it. Once done, move the fume board
down to the next super. Don't expect that the one treatment at the top is
going to clear all of your stacked supers. Also, don't remove the fume
board until you're sure you want to remove the super.
Finally, when you get them to the house, if you don't want them flying all
over and are worried about them stinging people, you have to destroy them,
one way or another. The method we use is, once we bring the supers into the
honey house, we use a cheap wet/dry vac to suck the bees up. Of course,
this vac is used only for that purpose. And, Oh, BTW, it stinks, BIG TIME.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Mike Wallace
Sar Shalom Apiary
McKinney, Texas USA
"Out of the heart, the mouth speaks."
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