[philbee]

I use bee repel in the early fall to help take off honey. I don't use queen excluders (honey excluders, I call them ... but don't follow that red herring) in the summer, but I would like to start using them in mid August. I use double deeps for a brood nest and mediums for honey and would like to put the excluders in in mid-August so any brood above the excluder has time to emerge before I do my final round of taking off honey. My question concerns the use of Bee Repel. Let's say I put a fume board on in mid-August and took of the top super which was just honey, and let's say the super below had honey but also brood. Could I put the fume board above this super and reliably expect the queen to be driven down? I know the nurse bees don't want to abandon brood, even though there is a cloud of Bee Repel around them, but does that apply to the queen as well? It would sure make inserting queen excluders an easier task if one could use the Bee Repel and trust that the queen had been driven down without having to check. Using a queen excluder and Bee Repel this way would help me get all my hives reduced to a double brood nest in time for winter feeding and wrapping. As it is, I usually wind up wintering about 10% to 15% of my hivesin a double brood nest with a medium on top which had been used as a "collector" for brood from other hives in the yard that had brood in the medium honey supers. Any advice welcome.

 

[loggermike]

Thats what I have been doing all week. Drive the bees out of the top honey super,set the fume board over the super with brood/honey. Then slip the excluder under it when most of the bees are out. They WILL leave the brood to move down. Its reliable enough, but nothing is 100%.You could always come back and check in a few days, but I never bother.Occasionally a queen will get trapped above the excluder and turn every drop of honey into brood!

Its a good idea to get the queens into the bottom boxes early enough so brood is concentrated when it comes time to treat for mites.

I should add that I am not using butyric, but Mann lakes Honey Bandit. It works well enough and doesn't have the foul odor.
---Mike

 

[Michael Bush]

The queen is usually the first to leave...

 

[philbee]

Thanks, Michael for your answer. I think I now have the green light to go ahead and try this approach to getting my hives down into double deeps in the fall. Cheers. - Tony

 

[Michael Bush]

You didn't take into account one thing though... it will also repel you and every other human you come into contact with...

 

[grozzie2]

and every other human you come into contact with...

Ya never know, that may be considered a _desireable_ outcome.

 

[loggermike]

Well it won't repel buzzards. Every time I brought in fume boards, the buzzards would circle low over the yard. No kidding!

Try the Mann Lake Honey bandit . Smells somewhat like Beequick but works better.