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Blowing bees from supers

28K views 64 replies 23 participants last post by  Ian 
#1 ·
#35 ·
Mike
I use a blower and I am just a little guy (in # of hives that is) and I have used escapes and they work if there isnt any brood in the supers but then you gota lift every thing 2 times and it takes 2 days and I have never had supers as clean of bees as with useing a blower.

I have had this coversation with other keepers and they worry about the fumes from the engine (I am useing a leaf blower) I have it set up so the exhaust is blown to the side of the supers (like a fart in a wind storm any way) so what it amounts is DO IT YOUR WAY, and the rest of the guys can set in the truck:lookout:
 
#36 ·
Mike
I use a blower and I am just a little guy (in # of hives that is) :
I think that is the distinction in this thread. Less than 100 hives and one can do it pretty much anyway you like. As the hive numbers grow, the leaf blower becomes onerous. Mike has expressed a desire to grow to significant numbers I believe, hence other larger commercial beekeepers were telling him their experience.

But you are right.... Do it your way! Lettem sit in the truck :)
 
#40 ·
I have blown bees off about 2.5 tons of honey annually for over 30 years. It works well, does not involve stinky chemicals but is obnoxiously noisy. You also have to carry a gas can in the truck. My bees are spread over various locations, so only at one do we blow for more than 15 minutes. I can see that on a large scale fume boards would be advantageous. I don't see that blowing kills very many bees, and their work for the year is finished at harvest time anyways.
 
#41 ·
I'M VINDICATED!
Odfrank, you do landscape right? so you already have the blower??? Gas, big deal. tank up before or chunk a can in the back. I am a lawn guy/landscaper so its easy for me...noise...this blower is one of the quieter ones on the market. You can carry on a conversation when blowing at a low speed.
mike
 
#45 ·
Yeah, a big truck, a Bobcat, pallets and 6 or 8 fully suited beekeeper laborers attacking 40 or more colonies. Oh yeah, and two blowers.
Wow.. I can only imagine what that must have looked like. Wonder what was louder.... the blowers or the millions of bees in the air. Did he have Lynn B. out there with a blower on his back? Talked to Lynn just this morning, did not know he had moved the Queen operation back to NYS.

So Mike can choose his own poison, for us... I will take the silence.
 
#47 ·
It looks pretty effective to me, and those bees were just kinda skidding across the concrete - probably no worse than stopping abruptly in grass. I would do it before I would use the extract of vomitus stuff.

Were you holding the camera with one hand? Actually a pretty good video. And if you built from 2 hives to 20 last year you must be doing something right. I thought I was doing good going from 2 -10 last year. I'm up to almost 40 last time I counted though. Mostly nucs though.
 
#51 ·
We are going into the dearth and you are splitting? Are you on some kind of Ag? I hope so. 80 by the fall? Unless we get a great fall flow you are going to have very weak nucs heading into winter. Frankly, I would worry less about counting your hives than building them up. Keep in mind: Strong hives. One good hive can beat 50 weak hives any day. As far as Canadian Queens....are you kidding? Why are you not buying BWeaver stock? You are close enough to pick them up! Insanity....

Look hard and long at this before you do anything:

http://www.plantmaps.com/interactive-texas-drought-monitor-map.php
 
#53 · (Edited)
Once again casting judgment against someone without all the facts.
1. My queens are coming and I have no choice...its called feed and frames of feed that i have laying around. I wanted them this fall but i had no choice.
2. I am on liquid sugar agriculture
3. Yes 80 by fall. I make fall nucs that kick the rears off of the previous spring's nucs. They make more honey.
4. Who said I am going to make weak nucs?
5. YOU were the one wanting a hive count- "If you cannot be bothered with a simple hive count, you are probably not going to be bothered with keeping the contaminated comb and frames, etc."- In a previous PM
6. Again, who said that they will be weak hives
7. Canadian Queens- http://www.fergusonapiaries.on.ca/ - the best buckfast money can buy coupled with some hardy texas buckfast. Its a stinking experiment for crying out loud!
8. Beeweaver? Lets not go there. There are always better options that cost less.
9. You think i drove to CANADA! No way..I had a friend in NJ get them and then forward them via usps express.
10. Don't call me insane...I have thought this out long and hard and experimented to find the best way. Quit picking at me without conclusive evidence backed up with experience.

My business is built off of sugar syrup if that is what you want to know...honey flow is a plus but not necessary.
Mike
 
#58 ·
7. Canadian Queens- http://www.fergusonapiaries.on.ca/ - the best buckfast money can buy

Mike
Just curious. What did those babies cost you, including shipping? And could they have been the source of your EFB? Or hadn't you had them long enuf?

A number of Posters, such as Mike Palmer and others, work to grow Queens Loacally so thery are better fitted to where they live. What made you go the other way?
 
#54 ·
If you are going to call people who order canadian queens crazy then you need to call a lot of other people crazy (including fellow texans) that are useing them and or have ordered them. I will now have 5 lines of buckfast here at the house. Rweaver (watered down by me/neighbor), Russell Apiaires, and 3 lines from up north.
Thanks,
Mike
 
#55 ·
Looks fine to me. Years ago I worked next to a migratory beekeepers yard on 288 south of houston. They used blowers as well, and several truck loads coming and going when they were doing it. I enjoyed the free honey :D
 
#59 ·
Uh Mark they just hit texas yesterday...they will be ready for p/u very soon. So no they did not bring me anything.

I do, but i Need to reinforce my buckfast genetics...I want to have a "purer" strain of it...shoot I will have as pure or maybe purer strain of buckfast than RR and some other breeders.
 
#62 ·
We use the blower too. Like it. We got a thing from a bee auction, paid like a buck or two.
It is an old super on a wooden stand with the sides enclosed. It is approx 2 1/2 supers high. On the inside there is a sloped board where the bottom is a few inches off the ground. We set it in front of the hive and blow the bees back into the hive.
I got hubby to line it with tin thinking it would be more slippery for them. Just gets more sticky. Think we will take it off

Our blower hose has an end on it which is like the crevace cleaner on the vaccuum cleaner works well, when it does not fall off :)

I will post a pic when we get it out.
 
#64 ·
Mike,

When we ran a few thousand colonies back east many years ago we always used a blower on our bees. I'll never forget our main man 'Percy" used to spend hours at it all day long and never complained. He'd have a huge pile of bees after blowing for an hour or so, as most of our yards were 50-70 hives. But please Mike, blow them out onto the grass or field, and not onto concrete !! Ouch that video hurt to watch. And good luck with your expansion, we all have our own ways of doing things.
 
#65 ·
What are you guys talking about? I have watched the vid and only read a couple pages of comments,....
he is not blowing the bees against the cement, they are being blown across it, and its smooth. By the way everyone is commenting youd think he was blowing them directly down or into a wall.

I blow bees out of supers also to collect my last round of honey. I use a cattle blower run by a generator back on the supply truck. Its quick and gets all the bees. Robbing gets bad here on the last round and we have to get in and out in under 3/4 hour and we have to work in all types of conditions. We blow them down into grass infrount of the hive. Mortality is next to nil. I have used acid, and I can tell you when that stuff gets flashing and not watched properly there can be huge mortality issues.
I primarily use escape boards

Just my 2 cents
 
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