what is the best way to harvest?

[rgy]

what is the best way? we take out each frame and shake of the bees and then brush the remaining bees of then quickly place the frame in a storage tub with a lid.  Seems like there must be an easier way.  Maybe those fume boards?

[L Daxon]

I have always used fume boards.  Very quick, maybe 5 minutes per super, depending on how hot it outside and how much of the repellent you use.  I use Bee Quick.  You can buy a fume board or make a quick one by temporarily stapling some absorbent material on the underside of the top cover and spraying it with the Bee Quick, then placing it on top of the super you are trying to harvest.

Or, it you want to take longer but not hang around for the whole process, you can use one of those bee escape plugs.  The plug plugs up the hole in the inner cover and you place that cover under the super with telescoping top cover on top.  Once the girls leave the box they can't get back in.  But don't leave that set up on for days at a time as it reduces the ventilation and the honey/wax could melt, depending on your outside temps.  (We have had 50 days over 100 in OKC this summer and more expected).

Brushing each frame puts a lot of bees in the air and can kill some bees.  Remember to brush up in the direction the cells tilt, not down the face of the frame.

[BeeMaster2]

First I used the shake and brush method. Full suit, and gloves required. Bees were mean for the next 3 weeks.
Built a couple of bee escapes, put them on the day before and then still had to shake the bees off, did not use the brush. Better than shake and brush but still had a couple hundred bees in the supers.
Now I use Bee Quick. Spray it on the fume board or card board and place on top of the super, 5 minutes later remove super, repeat for remaining supers, then place fume board under the supers to remove the remaining supers in the stack. I didn't even use a veil for the last honey removal. It's 98 plus here in FL. And best of all the bees acted like nothing ever happened.
Jim

[Hethen57]

I'm going to have to try the bee quick method next year.  The first year I tried shaking and brushing and it sends the bees into a frenzy and made them mad.  The past few years I have been using a combination of bee escapes and compressed air, which works pretty good, but you still need to get the bee escape under the heavy boxes full of honey, many of which are burr combed together with honey stores.  The next day I go frame by frame and spray the remaining bees off with burst of compressed air and put them in empty box and cover with sheet.  They don't seem to get too irritated.  Labor intensive, but it works.  Luckily, my bees are close enough to my shop to use a long hose from my compressor.  I am all for trying a method that gets them all out of the box at once, without lifting each frame.  The escapes get maybe 80-90%, but I need 99.9% before I bring the frames into my house for extraction  :-D

[Scadsobees]

I use a type of homemade fume board with BeeQuick, and then also blow the remaining bees off with my shopvac hooked up to blow.  Works great, I end up with less than 1 or two bees per super.  While I'm blowing the remaining bees out of one super, the next one has the fume board on.

I use the corner tool from my wife's vacuum and duct-tape that onto the hose to focus the air stream a little more.  She don't mind as long as I remember to return it!! :-D

I could probably get away with just the shopvac, but it is nice to have the supers mostly cleared and not having to blow that many more out.

That $40 shopvac - don't know how I lived without it!  It is both my bee blower and my bee sucker!!

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesharvest.htm#beeremoval

[BeeMaster2]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesharvest.htm#beeremoval

Michael,
Which one is your preferred method.
Jim

[Michael Bush]

>Which one is your preferred method.

It depends.  But I can eliminate a few quickly.  I've never used bee-go or honey-robber.  Having smelled them I would never even consider it.  I have never used Bee-quick, though if I were to try to use something on those lines it would be my preference over bee-go.  I have tried the Porter escapes, even had a special inner cover with several holes for them in it to speed things up.  But they were not a success.  I've used the triangular escapes and would use one again if I had a reason to harvest early but there wasn't a lot of flow at the time and robbing was an issue. 

Assuming a flow at the time and an early harvest, I use abandonment.

Usually, though I wait for the cold to set in and pull them off while the bees are down in the cluster and have no bees in the supers.

[rober]

i did not get around to making a fume board yet so i took a towel & a piece of 1/8" plywood & layed a piece of 1/2" plywood across a wheelbarrow for a stand.
i had an empty super on the stand. put the towel over the hive, sprayed it with bee-quick & put the 1/8" ply over the towel & waited 5 minutes. pulled a frame & brushed the stragglers ( very few ) off, placed the frame in the empty super & covered it. repeated the process til finished. the bees did not vacate the space between the outside of the 2 outer frames next to the hive body. i moved those 2 frames to the center of the super & fumed them again. i also had the wheelbarrow about 20' from the hives. i handed the bee-free frames to my wife who put them in the empty super. it went smoothly & the bees stayed calm.

[BeeMaster2]

Rober,
I suspect the reason the bees stayed on the outer frames might have been due to where the Bee Quick wasn't on the towel or area above the frames. I try to cover every square inch of the fume board for best results.
Jim

[rgy]

I would be interested in how Redbud (i think that is his name) out in south dakota with 4000 hives does it or how any other big commercial guy does it.

[TwT]

I always used triangle escape boards with good luck, but once I got a large number of hives I use a fume board with bee-quick and it works great, fast and easy, just dont leave it on long (more than 5-6 minutes if I remember right), it will run the bee's completely out of the hive, you can remove 2-3 supers at a time with no bee's. but fume board is the way to go and fishers bee-quick is my choice, the others smell like vomit!!

[mikecva]

My uncle tried bee-go and bee-robber, both worked but he discarded both because of the smell (he actually gave one away & pitched the other.)  -Mike

[beehappy1950]

I just tried the Micheal Bush abandonment method system. Something happened, I had more bees on it after dark than was there when I took it off. The bees were hanging on the front porch and maybe I set it to close.But I did want them to find there way home. Oh well. Any suggestions Micheal? Thanks Harold

[splitrock]

"I would be interested in how Redbud (i think that is his name) out in south dakota with 4000 hives does it or how any other big commercial guy does it."

My best guess would say he uses bee-go and fume boards. The commercial beek I have helped uses the same.

Joel

[glenn c hile]

Bee Quick works well IF temps are high and hive is in the sun (volatilize the chemical).  I have not had as good luck when the hives are shaded or temps are less than 85 degrees.  When cooler it drives the bees mostly off the frames but when you lift the box there will still be a number clinging to the bottom.  A gas powered leaf blower comes in really handy.

[beehappy1950]

I dont have but 5 hives so doing them a frame at a time is quite alright. I just pulled 3 boxes with the aid of my shop vac hooked up in reverse to blow. I am hooked. Didnt hurt any bees. Better than a brush. I am wanting to get over a hundred hives and then I might have to figure out a better way.  Thanks Harold