Monday, October 17, 2011

The RIGHT Way to Remove Honeybees from a Super

Ok...I covered the wrong way to get honeybees out of a super, so now I will cover the better way we get the bees...and honey...out of the bee hive.

First, unless you are one of those folks that bees just don't sting for some reason, I suggest suiting up in your protective gear, veil and gloves at the bare minimum! Even if you aren't using a leaf blower, sometimes the bees can get a little edgy when taking their honey. Don't forget the smoker, and your bee brush!

Second, whichever size honey super you are planning to remove, have an empty one with you. We always have it on a sideless wagon, but a wheel barrow will work just fine. You will need it, because you are about to make the empty super quite heavy!

Third, smoke your bees, and using your hive tool, remove one honey frame from the full super. Using your bee brush, gently brush the bees back into the super you just took the frame from. Do not roll the bees, but rather use a flicking motion. A rolled bee is a ticked off bee, and ticked off attitudes among bees are rapidly contagious! Once the frame is just about bee-free, place it in your waiting empty bee super. Do this for all frames in your full box, smoking them as necessary. Do not leave the empty box on the hive...either remove it or put empty frames back in it. Honeybees can do strange things with wax in an empty box!

Ok...this process works pretty well for the small homestead. Other folks use bee excluders, that have a one way door of sorts which allows the bees go out of the super, but not back in. One of the beekeepers I know uses a product called 'Bee-go' to remove the bees from the desired super. Bee-go has an unpleasant scent to the bees, and causes them to vacate the premises. The beekeeper says that Bee-go smells like human vomit, so I can hardly blame the bees! There are other products on the market that work like this, but do not have such an objectionable odor to humans...the bees, however, still think its disgusting.

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