>>Some hobby beekeepers on the list might buy the above but all the sideline
commercial will get a chuckle from the above.

> what you have said is quite clearly false because "all commercial
beekeepers and sideline beekeepers" don't all do things your way.

Come on, it's just an expression, like "all my friends are democrats". Well,
I don't know if they all are; some are probably non-voters. ;) Anyway, I
think you can see what he meant. 

Most beekeepers with more than twenty hives should find another way to take
off honey besides brushing and shaking. It's very hard work, tends to rile
'em up, and what's worst -- causes leakage. Any method of taking off honey
which minimizes leakage and robbing is better in my book. 

I have three friends in my neighborhood who run around 400 colonies each.
These are not sideliners in my book, though they supplement their income
with other occupations. Two use fume boards and one uses bee escape boards.
I understand the objection to fumes, so the bee escape boards seem like a
very good solution to taking off large amounts of honey without pulling the
supers apart. 

If you have enough escape boards, you can put escapes on part of the day and
pull honey that was set up the day before. I don't like having to handle it
twice in the yard, but taking off supers with no bees in sight is such a
breeze that it's worth it. But -- you have to use queen excluders or you run
the risk of escaping off the queen.

By the way, I don't agree with everything Bob does or says, but I sure agree
with him on this one. And I appreciate his presence on the list as a
beekeeper with many years of experience. 

pb

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