> Dear bee-liners > Are young bees (ones that haven't progressed to the forager > stage) ever a cause for concern with tipping or blowing methods? > If these bees are in the supers they wouldn't be able to find their > way back home. Is this ever a problem in practice? Yes it sure can be. That is one of many reasons why it is an advanced technique. A good intuitive understanding of bees is required to use the method without disasters from time to time. That is also why it is important that a good flow be on. In spite of what I read in the books, experience has shown that in a good flow, *every* bee in the hive seems to be able to find her way home. In less optimal conditions, they just cluster in the boxes. The more I think about the pitfalls, the more I wonder if I should have opened this can of worms on this forum. I notice that a number of other commercials (good friends of mine) that I KNOW tip *routinely*,are remarkably silent. Those of us who work with bees daily for decades do things without thinking or putting them into words, and they just work. When it comes to trying to explain, it gets really tough knowing what to explain and what is just intuitive. You just get tangled up in explaining previous explanations. An example is combining hives -- I haven't even thought seriously about using newspaper for twenty years. Whenever I want to combine hives, I just do it (without) and there are no problems. Twenty five years ago, I can remember piles of dead bees resulting from my inexperienced attempts. Nonetheless, having started this, I guess I should finish it. At this point I should mention that for some reason, my ISPs have problems with finding <[log in to unmask]> and I have been without contact for a day or two. It seems that the problem occurred right in the middle of sending a clarification post to the group -- truncating the post, so I will repost the missing and incomplete messages shortly. Moreover, I was out yesterday and played around with tipping in light robbing conditions and have some *very* interesting observations that I will try to write up today. Regards Allen W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper VE6CFK RR#1, Swalwell, Alberta Canada T0M 1Y0 Internet:[log in to unmask] Honey. Bees, & Art <http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~dicka>