[Native Bee]

Hello all,

I may or may not be doing a cutout soon of a hive that has been sprayed. I questioned the homeowner on whether or not they had sprayed just the entrance or up into the cavity. They answered with "very lightly just at the entrance, should we try soaking them?" (Face palm).

Anyways I am going to take a look at it and see if I think it would be worth my time or not. So if I end up going forward with the cutout what is the best way to clean my suit afterwards. I'm not as worried about my tools since they're metal but the suit is fabric and could possibly absorb the chemicals. I assume that there is a pretty short half life on insecticides sold for consumer use but I just wanted to get everyone's opinion.

Definitely going to charge extra for this one.

Thanks.

 

[Beeonefarms]

take veil off and then super suit into the washer.

 

[Native Bee]

No special precautions? Special detergent, wash 3x etc? I think I'm a bit paranoid about it.

 

[AmericasBeekeeper]

You can wash a veil in the dishwasher when the wife is away.

 

[Mr.Beeman]

You'll be fine and so will the suit. I have used my suit to spray several yellow jacket and bald faced hornet nests and had no adverse effects on the honey bees while wearing it.

 

[Native Bee]

Thanks for the comments guys. I just don't want my non contaminated bees to get contaminated. I really wanna save as many bees as possible though but sometimes, more often than not, they've been sprayed.

 

[Mr.Beeman]

When I do get sprayed bees, I confine them to a specific plot of land I have that will not pose a threat to any of my bees. After a couple of months they are then moved to my apiary.

 

[Daniel Y]

I would not touch a colony that has been sprayed. I had someone call me the other day saying they had bees that they made the mistake of trying to spray. I interrupted them right there and said let me save us both some time. I am not interested. end of conversation.

 

[sqkcrk]

Thanks for the comments guys. I just don't want my non contaminated bees to get contaminated. I really wanna save as many bees as possible though but sometimes, more often than not, they've been sprayed.

You thought that doing a cutout that had been sprayed was going to get something on your suit that if not washed would transfer something to your other hives. Seems pretty extreme to me. Over cautious and paranoid. What do you think would happen were you to do the job and then not wash your suit? That it would kill bees?

If you are that concerned, why bother doing the job. I would not be so concerned about exposing your other colonies to something that your suit was exposed to, I'd be concerned about breathing whatever was sprayed. If you have these concerns about the suit, walk away. Or, at least wear a paper filter face mask.

 

[Native Bee]

I'm concerned because I have zero experience with this sort of thing. I was hoping to get other peoples advice who had cut out bees that had been sprayed and tell me that it did or did not cause problems I.e kill other bees in their yard. But what I'm hearing is that it's likely safe.

 

[jimsteelejr]

We do a lot of cut outs. When we get to the customer we always ask if the bees have been sprayed. We watch their eyes and body language and if we have doubts we tell them they have to taste the honey. Generally we get the truth out of them.
If we know or feel a hive has been sprayed we discard all the comb except for one piece of brood from as far away from the opening as possible. Other than that we are not worried about anything else. If the bees survived then the poison levels have dropped enough that a chance exposure is not going to hurt us. And since we are not bringing anything but bees into the apiary we feel there is little to worry about there. We generally wash our suits and gloves after each cut out but that is because they are usually pretty funky with honey and dirt.
Any one doing cut outs should be more worried about things like Hanta Virus (rat feces), Tetnus (nails and splinters) asbestos (old insulation) and lead poisoning (paint and old plaster).
and heat stroke-even the new ventilated suits get pretty **** hot especially if there is no breeze and you are on the sunny side of a house. We always try to bring an ice chest with water and after last week we are bringing an electric fan from now on. We did a cut out in a camper trailer and it must have been 140 in the trailer.

 

[Native Bee]

Thanks jimsteelejr. Luckily it's not too hard to get people to tell me whether or not they've been sprayed because "how else would you get rid of them besides bug spray?" But yeah I think I'll go check it out and see how they look after a few days after being sprayed and go from there.