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who uses bee-go

10K views 36 replies 21 participants last post by  wishthecuttlefish 
#1 ·
I have never used bee go before if you use it can you give me some insight. Does it change the flavor of the honey at all? I have heard the horror stories of spilling it in your car, basement and etc. But what about the honey if it does not come out of clothes does it effect the honey?
 
#29 ·
Two methods of getting bees off frames for extraction that I heard of from my local assoc:
1. two "spritz's" from a water spray bottle of bee-go inside the inner cover, wait two minutes


NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
NEVER SPRAY BEE-GO INSIDE THE HIVE OR ON PARTS OF THE HIVE.
IT MUST BE USED WITH A FUME BOARD OF SOME FASHION!
 
G
#30 ·
Sorry to be so late in contributing to this thread, but it has been a busy summer, and I have not been looking at these forums. I will attempt to address all the questions posted to date.

First, some general things:

The pointed spout that comes with Bee-Go creates a solid "stream" of liquid. This stream splashes when it hits the fume board, which appears to be the primary mechanism that results in bee suits and clothes that must be discarded.It also saturates the fume board cloth in small areas, while leaving large areas untouched.

We started including pump-spray tops with Fischer's Bee-Quick (we make Bee-Quick) this spring at no extra charge. They are much more expensive to buy, but they make it almost impossible to saturate the fume board cloth, and reduce the chances of both over-use (waste) and liquid dripping off the cloth onto the top bars.

Fume boards themselves are the root cause of many problems. Some people simply harvest too late in the season to be able to use a fume board. The sun is supposed to heat up the metal top, which then heats the cloth, which vaporizes the repellent liquid. We like "breeze boards" much better. They are used by the really big commercial beekeepers, and are described here http://www.bee-quick.com/bee-quick/breeze.html

Breeze boards work even in temperatures so low that one hesitates to open the hive. You don't really need much breeze, and the
results are consistently superior to fume boards under all conditions. I assume that a breeze board would work as well for products other than Bee-Quick.

We are working on getting one or more of the woodenware vendors to offer a ready-made version of a breeze board, but they are
more bulky than a fume board. Better to make one yourself, or ask a friend with a saber saw to make one for you.

As for "which works better", all I can say is that Bee-Quick's label says "Full Refund If Not Satisfied" in large bold print.
No other product sold to beekeepers has an unconditional money-back guarantee. The interesting thing is that over the 4 years that Bee-Quick has been sold, we have had only 3 bottles returned to dealers out of about 40,000 sold. I can live with a 99.999925% customer satisfaction rate. You can't expect to please everyone.

From the number of 1-gallon and 5-gallon jugs of Bee-Quick selling every season, I don't think many of the large commercial beekeepers are using Bee-Go or Honey Robber any more. Bee-Quick is 100% food grade, and Bee-Go is not food grade at all. It is a hazardous material. Many commercial beekeepers have switched to Bee-Quick due to worker safety (OSHA) concerns, as both Bee-Go and Honey Robber have all those warnings on the bottle for a reason - they are required by law to have them. About the only "warning" for Bee-Quick is to avoid getting any in your eyes - it will sting like the dickens.

Now, some specific views on specific questions:

The "pizza box" approach mentioned would work only on the hottest days, as the cardboard is not going to get any hotter than the air temperature.

Like others that posted I feel that spraying any repellent into the hive (or on the inner cover) is a very bad idea.

As far as bee removal applications, there are some cases where one can put some Bee-Quick on a cloth and get the cloth into the cavity to "convince" the bees to move out the entrance. (This can also happen with
a hive if one uses too much, which is why we say "use less" so often.) I don't really see this as a common scenario, as one must still remove 100% of the comb to avoid having a swarm move back into the cavity, so you might was well open up the wall from the start.

I would not suggest that anyone ever use Bee-Go or Honey Robber in the wall of any structure occupied by humans, for obvious reasons.

As for bee escapes, brushing, abandonment, and blowers, all these approaches CAN work, but none are as consistently successful, as inexpensive, as easy, or as quick.

I really don't have any incentive to "push" Bee-Quick, as we donate all profits to the Eastern Apicultural Society Bee Research fund.

jim
 
#31 ·
Thanks for your post. I use Fischer's and you have solved my only problem with the directions for building a breeze board. I can't wait to try it. Your product is great. I have been using an old inner cover with a towel stapled to it. I do crop polination and hate the inner covers and this is the only use I have found for them. Thanks for your post.

Mark Carden
 
#32 ·
I too will have to try a breeze board as I cant get the Bee-Quick to work as fast as Bee-go on the cooler days.On the hot days it worked as well as beego and no matter what anyone thinks ,the smell is 10,000 times better.Pulling supers right now is a race to get the supers off and on the truck before robbing gets severe.It is worse in the areas where there are a lot of beeyards too close together,as is the case in the irrrigated areas of Kalifornia.I bought a gallon of it to try out so will stick with it till I get it right.
 
#33 ·
I use the dog vomit bee go on fume boards and even my wife who can smell gas when the house next door has a pilot light out can not smell it on the honey. I use a small amount . I rob at the hot part of the day. I don't get it on my gloves or on the supers. I store the supers over night in a big open shop with the top cover ajar to let the odor drift out and I can't smell it the next day when we extract. I don't know what else to do. I do know that years ago when we used the brush method that we had hundreds of stingers in our clothes and it was not safe to walk around the yard for days. One time last year we found a second queen in the third box just up above the excluder while useing the beego she was stuck in the excluder with about 10 bees around her. brood above and below the excluder. I think if you left it on a little longer it would drive them all out. I may try the bee quick next year. This is the only chemical that I use and don't like it.
 
#34 ·
>Like others that posted I feel that spraying any repellent into the hive (or on the inner cover) is a very bad idea.

I'm just an innocent newbie. While working with a veteran beekeeper this summer, spraying bee-go on top of the inner cover was the only method I saw him use.

He has a lot of hives and found that this was the most efficient way to clear bees off the honey supers. Please explain the bad points of this?
 
#35 ·
No experience with putting it on an inner cover(we dont use them)but the smell of beego will linger for years(centuries?)on the fume boards.I wouldnt want it in any direct contact with the hive parts as it probably would irritate the bees until they could evaporate it.
I am going to pull 90 supers from a yard tomorrow .Wish there was time to make some breeze boards to try.There is no nectar coming in and the bees are defending their supers.So the first thing will be to take off every hive cover(except any weak hives or nucs).The bees will stop everything to guard the honey.This will allow some time to take off the supers before robbing starts.Clarence Wenner first came up with this idea and it works,but dont do it if there is another beeyard close by as they wont hesitate to rob.Using 8 fume boards will keep me running till the supers are off.Some hives seem especially sensitive to beego and will become stupored by it,so you always want to put the fume boards on sideways to the hive at first.This allows a lot of bees to fly out and the ventilation makes it work better.It also helps to go to the yard the day before and pull excluders and break the supers free so the bees can clean up the sticky burr comb ,and you can deal with the handfull of queens that always seem to make it through the excluders.This is all old stuff to a lot of you but might help someone.
 
G
#36 ·
mnist said:

> While working with a veteran beekeeper this summer,
> spraying bee-go on top of the inner cover was the
> only method I saw him use.

> He has a lot of hives and found that this was the
> most efficient way to clear bees off the honey supers.
> Please explain the bad points of this?

Let me rant a bit here.

Nothing should be in honey except honey.
It is just that simple.

An inner cover is either plywood if it is a good one,
or masonite if it is a cheap piece of crap. Neither
are generally considered "absorbent materials".

If you spray a liquid on a plywood or masonite
surface, and then place that surface over the supers,
what happens to the liquid? It has to drip down onto
the frames and the combs. This is a big non-no.
You never want ANYTHING to come into direct contact
with honey, comb, or frames, since it will certainly
come off in the extractor, and get into the honey.

There are some people who have been misinformed, and
think that butyric anhydride (the active component of
Bee-Go and Honey Robber) oxidizes to butyric acid, and
think "that's OK", as tiny amounts of butyric acid are
found in all honey. Only SOME of the chemical goes
through this reaction process. Nowhere near all.

Butyric anhydride is not food grade for human food.
It is permitted as an additive for animal feed, but
it is not "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA,
nor is it listed as an "approved food-contact substance"
by the FDA. The EPA "exemption from the requirement for
a tolerance" for butyric was revoked by the EPA back in
1998 (see page 6 of http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/fqpa/revoked.pdf.
The EPA uses the synonym "Butanoic Anhydride" as
the formal name for the chemical. Same thing. With
this revocation, there is no remaining "food use"
for this chemical.

So, what part of "no food use" is unclear?
Heck I dunno, the EPA and FDA have much bigger
problems to worry about, and the "honey industry"
tends to be a self-regulating group of responsible
people. An administration that quietly reclassifies
carbon dioxide as "not a pollutant" http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030916-6.html http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=438719 http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2003/36/we_538_03a.html
is not going to "enforce" much of anything, is it?

Now, fast-forward to "later", after you have harvested.
The supers are removed, and the inner cover is back on
the hive. The bees are still exposed to the residue
of the Bee-Go, and will walk in/on it, spread it around,
and get it all over the hive.

As many have pointed out, the odor of butyric anhydride
is amazingly persistent to many noses. Long after it is
no longer repellent to bees, it remains repellent to humans.
Your inner cover is going to smell terrible for a long,
long time. So will you, since you must handle the inner
cover.

Enough said. You get the idea.

jim
 
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