Bee Go & Bee Gone

[p51d]

For prepping to extract, after putting the bee excluder in place under the honey supers, how long do you want to leave to pads on top of the hive with Bee Go or Bee Gone to "push" the bees out and remove the supers to extract?

30 minutes, couple of hours????

Last year I had did this and it did not seem to drive the bees out. Looking for a better experience this year.

Comments are appreciated.

[Jacobs]

Whichever brand you use, I would suggest you use one that smells good to us (like Bee Quick). If the sun is hitting the top of your fume board, it should only take 5-10 minutes to work. Some people paint the outer top of the fume board black so that it will produce more heat and get the fumes going faster.

I'm not sure why you are using an excluder at the time you are ready to push the bees from the honey. I want the bees to be able to leave immediately and do not want anything slowing their march to the lower supers. An excluder is designed to keep the queen from moving up and putting brood in honey frames.

[Wally]

DITTO Jacobs. Why are you using an excluder?

Also, I will NEVER use bee-go and don't know what bee-gone is. I use Fischer's bee quick only. I leave the fume board on for about 5 minutes on a sunny day. Fume boards don't seem to work unless the sun is very bright. I also leave the fume board out in the sun long enough to warm it before using.

[p51d]

Typo-s I use the bee escape where they go thru the hole and out the triangle puzzle....and the nice smelling extract Wally has sold at the meeting.

Is it a waste of time for the bee escape? you guys use this or not.

Sorry for the typo's . Don't leave the nasty smelling stuff in the garage - the wife and kids will not stop complaining.

[Jacobs]

I don't own a bee escape and have never used one. I think they work over an extended period of time. As the bees leave, they cannot come back to the honey super. I would be afraid to have honey unprotected in the era of small hive beetles.

The Bee Quick works quickly and well when the warm sun is hitting the fume pad top and when there is nothing in the way to slow the bees moving down into the next super away from the fumes.

[p51d]

Thanks Jacobs. The bee escape seems to slow my progress so I will try leaving it off this time. The quicker I can get them out of the top supers the better I should be. Thanks to Wally and the folks for the suggestions and my apolgies for my confusing typos.

[p51d]

I would like to thank Wally and Jacobs for the excellent advice. I have been using the bee escape for 4 years. Never understood why I would smoke , take a super off, put the bee escape on, throw the honey super on, then run them out.

The fume pad and extract is the ticket. The bee escape I think will end up in the wall of never used equipment.

Thanks again for the perfect advice.

[mike91553]

I love my leaf blower for blowing bees out of the super. I use some bee quick with no smoke. ( smoke will make them eat honey and harder to blow out) If the bee quick is working too slow I will clean out the rest with the blower. The bee quick seems to work well as a smoke substitute when used on top and I very rarely get any stings.