Bee Quick vs Bee Go

[valleyman]

I just tried bee quick this year when taking off supers. Had always used bee go before. Bee quick does not, for me, work nearly as well as bee go has in the past. Bee go stinks pretty bad but it works. Bee quick has a sickening perfume like smell also. I will go back to Bee Go.

[snl]

I agree!

[heaflaw]

Try Honey Harvester that Brushy Mtn carries. I used it for the first time this year and it works better than Bee Quick. I've never tried Bee Go.

[Katharina]

I'm using Honey Robber from MannLake. It does smell, but works wonders. I did create my own fume board making a wood frame with a hard black plastic cover that has fleece glued to the inside. The black plastic really pushed the fumes and they clear the super rather quickly.

[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

Just my personal opinion, but, Bee Quick has never worked in any application for me. Perhaps for others.

Be Go will work, but I have to use it six miles away, upwind, with a two million cubic foot per minute exhaust system.

cchoganjr

[valleyman]

Come on Cleo it isn't that bad LOL. Once you get past the smell you've got em robbed.

[bevy's honeybees]

Is there any bee go smell in the supers once they are home? During extracting? Any danger of contaminating the honey?

[jim lyon]

Is there any bee go smell in the supers once they are home? During extracting? Any danger of contaminating the honey?

No residual smell and ,short of dumping some directly in the honey, no danger of contamination at all. It takes such a small amount, with good conditions and a good crop to take off It is not unusual to use as little as a gallon of bee go per 75,000 lbs of honey.

[valleyman]

No residual smell that I've ever detected. Except in my storage building where I keep the fume board.

[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

valleyman....it's pretty bad. ask Ronnie Houchens....He spilled a bottle in the back of his truck. (The truck has now been buried at sea.)

cchoganjr

[beedeetee]

I haven't used Bee Go, but I have used Honey Robber (vomit scented cherries or cherry scented vomit). I could definitely smell it on the supers in my garage. The honey itself was normal. After that I decided to go back to shake, brush and blowing, but started using Bee Quick and found that it works pretty good. It doesn't work as good on supers with open honey or broken comb between boxes. I smoke the bees to start them moving down and then put the fume board on leaving an inch gap on one end. After a minute I move the fume board to cover the box. By myself I can keep up with two to three fume boards depending on the weather. I don't break the boxes a part until it looks like the box is pretty empty otherwise the bees with stay with the broken open honey. If you have ever tried to smoke bees off of broken honey combs, you'll know what I'm talking about.

My bottle of Honey Robber is in a bottle with a tight lid, inside a plastic bag with the top tied in a knot inside of a plastic container with a tight screwed on lid. After 4 years I can still smell it if I pick up the container and take a whiff.

[valleyman]

I'll have to admit that some of the effective bee chasing chemicals are rather not for the weak stomached. I can see not ever wanting to spill it in a vehicle. I don't think I would want to bury it at sea but rather torch it. I don't think the fish would appreciate it either. After about a month the smell leaves my storage building, and it stays shut up all the time. I will continue to use it until the wife refuses admittance to the house.

[StevenG]

I air out my fume boards outside the shop for two weeks, then double bag them for storage. Haven't had to burn any clothes yet, but I do shower vigorously.
Regards,
Steven

[Tom Davidson]

I used the Natural Honey Harvester from Brushy this year. When I put it on, the bees immediately let out a roar, and ones that were close to the top started fanning those Nasinovs. I waited until the roar died down, and it had done a fairly good job of chasing them down. There were a few stragglers that I ended up brushing away. They definitely don't like that stuff. I got a "bright" idea of trying this on my hands since I go gloveless for an invisible glove of sorts. That stuff started to sting and burn, so don't be "smrt" like I was.

[khaas15]

I tried to use bee quick and it smelled so bad I couldn't do it. I used bee go and it worked OK. However, the last time I used it, it worked great. I found (through posting on this forum) that it's best not to smoke the bees down before using it. Also, two days prior to harvesting I opened the hive and scraped all the bur comb off the inner cover and top of the frames. It seems that every time I went to harvest I would break the bur comb between the inner cover and frames and the bees would stay and try to get all honey cleaned up. So, cleaning this up a few days prior to harvesting seemed to help.

So, my advice would be cleaning up the bur comb, not smoking the bees, and have at least one beer after applying the fume board to give them time to move down.

[Michael Pawelek]

I'll be trying out "Honey Harvester" for the first time in a few days and wonder how it works since it is supposed to be a blend or aeromatic herbs and such. I doubt it will work as well or as fast as "Bee Quick" but I'm trying to go more "natural" and less stinky! Has anyone used the "Honey Harvester" from Brushy recently and have advise as to how many initial squirts/sprays on the fume pad?

[beedeetee]

Why does everyone think that Bee Quick stinks???? I actually think that it has a rather nice scent to it.

[max2]

One of the great pleasures of beekeeping is the smell of honey. I have never even considered using any of these smelly substances and have no problem with a bit of smoke and a brush to get most bees off the frames.

[sqkcrk]

If you don't mind some bees going home w/ you, simply stand the supers of honey on end and the bees will leave them and go back home. Especially if there is a flow on. Most of them will, though not all. Which I have also seen when I used fume boards.

Another advantage is no smelly liquid or boards to keep track of. I run around 500 cols and the guy who showed me how runs 700 to 1,000 cols.

[Tom Davidson]

One of the great pleasures of beekeeping is the smell of honey. I have never even considered using any of these smelly substances and have no problem with a bit of smoke and a brush to get most bees off the frames.

I ended up ditching the Natural Honey Harvester and fume pad for the efficiency of smoke and the brush myself. My plan is to get a large turkey feather for a more gentle bee brush than the bristly kind sold in the catalogs.