how to get the bees off the cell builder frame

[Chef Isaac]

Well, I went out to the beeyard today and took the cell builder frame out to place in the incubator and I ran into a problem. A lot of bees were attached to the cell builder frame and to the queen cells.

How do you get them off? I tried brushing them off which didnt really work. So I carefully jolted the frame in a downward motion to get the bees off and that worked. Hopefully that didnt damage or kill the queens.

Any suggestions for next time?

[Jon McFadden]

Don't jolt the cells. Try blowing them off with your breath. I'll have more information on Monday when we go through the same thing. We're busy getting mating nucs together. We have enough loafers and swarms we won't have to gather bees from working colonies for the mating nucs.

[onlygoodSHBisdeadone]

Know anyone that has ducks or chickens? Good tail feather makes for a mini brush thats much easier to control.

[george dilley]

i have some turkey and duck feathers on the way

[Michael Bush]

I don't really try to get them off. I just gently get a hold of the cell and take it off the bar and put it in the nuc. Any bees that fall off the cell fall into the nuc. Any that stay on the cell (rare) I don't care.

[tecumseh]

to repeat mr mcfadden:
Don't jolt the cells.

tecumseh replies:
I first remove the bar that holds the cells and then gently use a brush to remove most of the bees. I then use a hive tool to remove the cells which I place in an egg carton with tissue added for padding. by the time the cells are in the egg carton 99% of the clinging bees are no longer a problem.

[MichaelW]

I too found this as one of those problems that you don't think about till your sitting there going hmmm...?

I just blew them off the individual cells with my breath then removed them from the bar. I could not do this with my glove on. It went well with all but one. I had gotten a bee on my hand and was waving it around wildly when I realized, woops, I'm holding a queen cell.