Scraped the stingers off me and the dog now what????

[Hiveyleague]

 Today I got a good lesson regarding lawn mowers and bees,so did my poor dog.
With all the rains and high temps. we've been getting the lawn is growing fast,so I decided to mow today.
Less than 2 weeks ago I got my first bees a 5 frame nuc and brought them home and transferred them into a 10 frame deep,and the most bees I've seen to date outside the hive has been less than 30.
So I was mowing the backyard where my hive is and even was careful(at least I though I was)not to mow too close to the hive and pointed the grass being expelled by the away from the hive.I made my pass and the last time I noticed my German Shepard was behind me,because he like to follow me when I'm mowing.All of a sudden Nemo(the dog) passed me up like he was in the passing lane late for work,with a cloud :bee: of bees following him :shock:.Of course half the bees decided I was guilty too(ok I am the guilty one :roll:) and perceded to light me up as well.Nemo and I made a mad dash for the house with bees in close persuit,and as we dove in the hose I shut the door and noticed a half dozen bees made it in with us.Spent a 10 min. shooing the bees out the front door,then started scraping off stingers off me and Nemo.
So after the bees seemed to have got over all that I slipped out and started the mower and made a run for the garage without incident.
 Ok here's where I need help to learn how to avoid this fiasco again.Can I mow at night is that better or is it best just to put on the bee suit and just do the mowing and let the bees have at it.
When you folks finish laughing :-D :-D at the newbee beek how bout posting a few tips :brian: on the best way to mow with the bees without getting lit up again.

[VolunteerK9]

Sorry, but I'm still snikering...My weinee dog passed me up the other day when I was splitting a hive. He never looked back.

Call me a pansy if you like, but I put on a sweatshirt and a veil when Im mowing around mine. I had rather sweat for a little while than swell and scratch for a couple of days.

[backyard warrior]

I mow in my undies i could use a little swelling in some areas   :-D

[Tommyt]

Button up the hive the night before cut the grass then
Open them and run like hell
Or open suited up


Tommyt

[Hiveyleague]

I mow in my undies i could use a little swelling in some areas   :-D

HAHAHA ....I'm not touching that one Backyard Warrior.
If I was mowing in my undies when all this went down today,I'd already have a line of women knocking at the door :-D :-D :-D...HEEHEEHEE
And no I'm not checking the dog!!!!!

[Hiveyleague]

Button up the hive the night before cut the grass then
Open them and run like hell
Or open suited up


Tommyt

Tommyt will a piece of bottom screen folded in half do the trick?

[The Bix]

It doesn't sound like you had too much difficulty when you made the transfer to the 10 frame deep else you probably would have mentioned that.  I think that perhaps you (and Nemo) suffered some poor timing.  If they were friendly when you made the transfer and now unfriendly perhaps something happened where they had to defend the hive (skunk?) and were already on red alert or perhaps they've gone queenless.  I had three hives go queenless last year...they can be quite irascible when they are queenless.

[S.M.N.Bee]

I hate to say this but I have never had a problem. I even use the string trimmer under the hive [quickly] and the girls have not taken issue.It could be the dog stuck his nose in the front door and this is what upset them. I know this can happen I've seen it.

John

[annette]

Never have a problem with mowing. I do put on my full suit and veil and get onto the riding lawnmower. They come out of the hive to investigate, but leave me alone. I always mow during the day when they are most focused on foraging. I think the key is that they are busy foraging during midday.  Unless I have just been lucky!! :-D :-D

I think that it is true that they smell the animal (dog) and get more aggressive!!

[Hiveyleague]

I forgot and left out one part,it was almost 90* down here in sunny Florida today and I was mowing in just shorts(standard Fl. attire) and sneakers.They got me several times on the legs and back,I can handle the stings on the legs,but those one's on the back smarts like heck.

[Tommyt]

Hiveyleague
I know a Beek from Dunedin that takes his bees to the Groves
He told me all he does it put in a piece of foam rubber when he
Loads them up to travel,The stuff he uses is like Filter foam not
the solid foam padding
I would think that would work for you
We have a long cutting season maybe you should make a screen door  :-D

Tommyt

[T Beek]

I agree with annette, mow suited up and on dry sunny days when most are out foraging.  I think its the "not hearing" them that freaks me out the most, but they've never bothered me while mowing..........yet :)

thomas

[Hiveyleague]

Thanks all for the helpful advice(with the exception for obvious reasons Backyard Warriors tip hiveagra :-D)
I think Annette's tip to just suit up next time,and sweat it out,and to leave Nemo in the house(he said never again anyway :-D) next while I'm mowing.

[T Beek]

Yeah, I save mowing my hives for either first or last so my suit is only on for about five or ten minutes.

thomas

[Brian D. Bray]

I mow around mine, then take a weed wacker to the more stubborn weeds.  Bees don't bother me at all. 

Thing I've found is: If you don't think about getting stung, you probably won't.  Think a single thought about getting stung and you probably will.  Takes a lot of experience to get to the point you don't think about getting stung when you're around bees.

[bee-nuts]

Not sure what to think.  I have seen lawn mowers go right up next to the hive with no stings.  My friends dad runs the rider right up to the hive.  Mine are in areas that dont need mowing other than week eating.  When the week eater wacks the hive they will launch for me but other wise not a whole lot of action.

Im a bit worried about your location and ahb.  If they start getting hot when working them requeen as soon as possible.  Make sure you are suited up good before you play with these girls.

[KD4MOJ]

No problem here using my regular mower... that that was a different story when I borrowed my brothers 50in Zero-turn... they didn't like that one at all. 19 stings later... chased me to the front yard!  Must have been the motor or vibrations.

...DOUG
KD4MOJ

[scdw43]

Requeen the hive.

[Bee Happy]

My wife got about a dozen stings last year on the tractor, I could say vibration, noise, hot CO2? people say all those things, and then other people say "never a problem with mine" -  The hive she was near couldn't be considered anything close to hot but they aren't my most gentle either.

[Hiveyleague]

Requeen the hive.

I think you may be right to re queen the hive,yesterday after seeing another post on this thread that the new nuc could be queenless is why they were so aggressive.So today I inspected the hive and didn't see any new brood or any brood at all for that matter,nor did I see the queen and looked(I had my reading glasses on ,but still have untrained eyes) carefully taking the frames out then again replacing them.I've contacted the nice gentleman I bought them from and he said to at least give them another week,and if the hive still appears to be queenless to bring it back and he would swap it out with a another no problem.I told him thanks and will check again next week,not really worried at this point if the worse case scenario I get a  nuc to replace the one I have,then maybe Nemo can resume his fun following me as I mow(after I make a few passes to make sure) without having to worry about getting lit up again by the bees.