How to shake bulk bees?

**David LaFerney** · 02-23-2011, 07:23 AM

Surely if you shake out too many bees at the wrong time you could seriously damage hives - so when, how, how many, how often - how many do you leave? Do you feed the shook hives after? Will they be able to cover brood if it gets cold at all? What can you expect out of a hive that has been used like this - is it better or worse off than one that has been split? How many bees can you reasonably expect to shake from a hive? Is it pretty certain that a hive that has been shook won't swarm?

I'm just curious as much as anything - maybe there's a link to this already?

**Honey-4-All** · 02-23-2011, 08:29 AM

There is

Thread 250632

**David LaFerney** · 02-23-2011, 09:13 AM

That thread really only talks about how to get the bees out of the hive - bee go, smoke, shaking, mystery chemical - but doesn't answer any of my other questions. Thanks all the same.

**Honey-4-All** · 02-23-2011, 10:07 AM

The best piece of advice I can give you is that you make the time to go volunteer your services for a month of queen raising and packages production at one of the better outfits. It will be the cheapest tuition in $ cost as well a time spent compared to figuring this all out "yourself." Split it between two folks if possible. You will be wiser in both the short and long run for doing so.

Man do I sound old........................

Ps. Not looking for free help btw. Its cheaper to pay someone who knows this job than train a free-bee. The mess up cost is to high to allow newbees to do it unsupervised. If you want to "work" here the tuition would be ..... well...... let me think that one over.

**Pyrotechnician** · 02-23-2011, 10:29 AM

Youtube is your friend..

**David LaFerney** · 02-23-2011, 01:32 PM

Originally Posted by Honey-4-All

The best piece of advice I can give you is that you make the time to go volunteer your services for a month

That's probably great advice, but I can't afford to be that curious.

OK, let me infer a bit from package availability dates - In N. Georgia you can apparently shake bees starting about the middle of March, and I'm gonna guess the same hives can be raped again about 3-4 weeks later, and maybe a third time in May - so you have to leave a critical mass of bees each time. And probably you feed so that they can concentrate on raising more brood instead of foraging? So, shake out about 1/3 of the bees at a time?

I'm also going to speculate that package producers do the same things to build up populations that anyone else would do - overwinter with young queens in a warm climate, feed pollen sub...

Then what? Let them rest and build up again for next year? Is that pretty much all you get out of those hives? 2-3 crops of shook bees?

**Roland** · 02-23-2011, 05:20 PM

You may be asking some questions to which the answers where learned the hard and expensive way."Honey 4" You must be still caluclating how much you would have to pay him to work there.

Since the answers may be different for different locals, you may have to earn the information the hard way also.

Roland

**David LaFerney** · 02-23-2011, 07:09 PM

Sure, I get that. Although a bunch of hobbyist like me trying to produce package bees would most likely just result in more demand for bees to replace the ones we kill.

**G B** · 02-23-2011, 07:12 PM

RATZ: I was going to hit up Honey-4-all and volunter my services for free. Guess I will have to figure something else out. I have no interest in making packages but sure want to check into shaking bulk bees.....

**Roland** · 02-24-2011, 08:06 AM

David - experience should give you an idea of how many bees it takes to cover the brood in a given hive. We are heavy frame manipulators, and are very aware of how much you can spread them out, and that a look at the 7 day forcast is essential. If a cold snap is coming, plan accordingly. Look at the brood, and when it will hatch. Don't look at just what bees you have now, but what you will have in ten days(capped) and later. As for feed - your local will determine that. Do you have "slop"? If not, then feed? Remember that if you are removing the field bees, they will have to shift jobs to replace them.

Do it!, Watch what happens. use common sense.

Yes, it is the hobbiests that drive up the cost of bees for the commerciaal people.(like this year!)

Good luck.

ROland