Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

How many beekeepers wear gloves when inspecting a hive?

I wear them and the suit all the time. Anytime I work the bees and I take the gloves off, one of them is gonna get me.

Gloves can get in the way.  A few stings is a fair trade for dexterity.  Stings can be kept to a minimum with slow confident movement.

My jacket and my Golden Bee Products suit, have cuffs that are either elastic or velcro.  I wear regular leather doeskin gloves tucked into the sleeve.  They are easy enough to take off if I need my fingers.  But since I used to work construction all year round in the panhandle of Nebraska, I can do most anything with gloves on.  I can catch a queen and mark her with gloves on.  Not that I recommend it.

If I am jsut opening the cover to take a peek into the hive, I don't wear anything. I often sit in front of my hive ( some of the best quality down time I have ) and watch the bees....I keep a magnifing glass at the hive and get really close and look at the bees through the glass. No protection needed at all.
BUT if I am going into the hive I wear a full bee suit.  The glove I wear are brown Jersey Gloves with thin vinyl gloves over them. The dexterity with these is very good and the bees pay no attention to my hands. I don't necessarily fear a sting, but one sting will probably lead to more.
When I am working In the hive, I want my attention on what I am doing rather than worrying about a sting.
A sting and I will most likely be doing work in the hive a little more quickly. So, for me and ...for the bees....gloves are necessary to do the best inspection I can.

Dennis

when i first started i went in with as little as possible...but after a couple of major stinging events i wear gloves and plenty of other protection. it makes beekeeping enjoyable instead of painful.

For me it depends on what kind of a day they're having.  I have plenty experience working flightline maintenance with gloves so I can get around alright with them.  If they're having a regular day then I go without.  If I get a head but before I start the gloves go on  (during this time if I'm hit more often then I reevaluate conditions and coming back tomorrow).

I wear the bright yellow diskwashing gloves.. never been stung on my hands.

I don't wear them most of the time, I am an auto mechanic by trade so my hand take a beating all of the time. I've only been stung in the hands once and I felt a liitle prick and not til I saw the stinger did I realize I had been stung. I scaped it off with the hive tool and I had very little reaction to it. I still get nervous sometimes when they get stirred up and I will then pick gloves on but rarely.

I have decreased physical sensations due to diabetes and nerve damage so I usually don't even feel the critters crawling around on me until I get stung and then I hardly notice.  If focused on what I'm doing I don't even notice it then.  Today I was remodeling the dog house (it's under a plum tree) and yellow jackets were all over the wind fall.  I got stung twice in the right hand and didn't feel it or notice a thing until I was done and washing my hands for dinner--then I saw 2 little white dots on the web of my hand.

today was the frist time i did not ware my gloves. and pow got it on the finger. now it looks like a tigers baseball bat and so dose my hand. frist sting of the year. :(

Always when I go into the hives.  If I am just feeding them by filling or cleaning the hive top feeder, or checking out the entrances, then I don't wear protective clothes.  My girls are really gentle, but when I worked this summer helping my mentor with his pollination contracts his girls are not nice at all.  I removed fifty stingers from one glove, from one hive.  I bought two suits, one for working with his bees and one for working with mine...

Always gloves, as a first year beekeeper it helps me to focus on what I'm doing rather than how many times I'm going to get stung.

On advice from one of the popular bee books I didn't wear gloves when I hived the package but I made several mistakes because I worried too much about being stung even though I wasn't.