I will be using my wintering shed as a hot room this summer. There were always some bees left in in the honey supers after using bee escapes for me last year. Wondering if there is a way I can entice them to leave the hot shed without having more bees come in the shed to rob the honey?
Ridding bees from the hot room?
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This is just an idea, I've not tried it myself. Do you have any windows in that room? Perhaps make a plywood blank to seal in an open window, and in that plywood, put bee escape cones, those little red ones. Or maybe use a piece of plexi-glass instead of the plywood.
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A window is nice as to attract the bees. As to your question, I'm still working that one out...
Cones do not work as wasps and very motivated bees are able to work it both ways . Sweeping or vacing them off the window is what I have been doing.
I'm building a removable window trap which will allow me to collect the hot room bees and transport them out to a nearby bee yard,
Cones do not work as wasps and very motivated bees are able to work it both ways . Sweeping or vacing them off the window is what I have been doing.
I'm building a removable window trap which will allow me to collect the hot room bees and transport them out to a nearby bee yard,
Last year I used a shop vac and just vacuumed them up as I extracted, as I grow that could become a large number of dead bees although now the damage is minimal. It worked alright but the wasps and bees were finding their way in to the extracting room through any crack.
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So in the new digs I have put attention towards stray bee management.
#1, make the building bee tight. All my doors, overhead doors and windows close tight with weather stripping which close tight enough to prevent sunlight entry. My hot room doubles as my wintering shed so not a beam of light enters around my doors. Screen is placed over my vents.
#2, leave nothing outside that will attract bees into the yard. Easier said than done
#3, I am building a seperate vac which has a pressure relief valve to slow down the speed of the hose suction and it will have a smooth hose . All pockets of bees on the extraction window can be cleaned up.
#4, I'm building window traps on the hot room windows which will automatically gather and trap the bees in a closed container outside the window. This keeps the bees from making a mess inside the hot room and allows for easy gathering outside and off to an out yard. I don't want to gather these bees in hives besides the facility as it makes for large hives and increases the bee pressure around the honey house.
#5, I keep one or two small catch hives over my main overhead doors to catch strays as I bring the honey I to the yard. I replace them frequently to keep my bee pressure down around the honey house.
#6, I'm going to run an industrial bug zapper in my extraction room at night to kill the wasps and run one outside to kill off wax moths
That's my plan, hope it works this summer ! It's lots of work but by keeping the bees under control, work is much more pleasurable
#1, make the building bee tight. All my doors, overhead doors and windows close tight with weather stripping which close tight enough to prevent sunlight entry. My hot room doubles as my wintering shed so not a beam of light enters around my doors. Screen is placed over my vents.
#2, leave nothing outside that will attract bees into the yard. Easier said than done
#3, I am building a seperate vac which has a pressure relief valve to slow down the speed of the hose suction and it will have a smooth hose . All pockets of bees on the extraction window can be cleaned up.
#4, I'm building window traps on the hot room windows which will automatically gather and trap the bees in a closed container outside the window. This keeps the bees from making a mess inside the hot room and allows for easy gathering outside and off to an out yard. I don't want to gather these bees in hives besides the facility as it makes for large hives and increases the bee pressure around the honey house.
#5, I keep one or two small catch hives over my main overhead doors to catch strays as I bring the honey I to the yard. I replace them frequently to keep my bee pressure down around the honey house.
#6, I'm going to run an industrial bug zapper in my extraction room at night to kill the wasps and run one outside to kill off wax moths
That's my plan, hope it works this summer ! It's lots of work but by keeping the bees under control, work is much more pleasurable
we used to try and make up a few nucs from hot room bees. most are old worn out bees with a short life span plus its late in the year to get a start. picked up a 2x3 commercial bug zapper at an auction. end of problem and time is better used extracting.
Put a drop or two of lemongrass oil and a piece of pseudoqueen (QMP) in an empty hive by the window. They tend to go in and cluster there. Take them out and dump them outside at the end of the day.
Make sure you put the window in an accessible part of the hot room, once all the supers are in for the night.
How about hingeing it at the bottom, to open outwards at the top with a nuc box nearby. I have shelf brackets to stand the box on. We build several nucs from the hot room during the year, just take them away when full, bothersome or done extracting.
How about hingeing it at the bottom, to open outwards at the top with a nuc box nearby. I have shelf brackets to stand the box on. We build several nucs from the hot room during the year, just take them away when full, bothersome or done extracting.
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ya, my goal is to clean out the extracting room every day. Ill try to sweep as many off the windows as possible but the straglers then get targeted with the zapper. My hot room is different, where as my objective is to gather as many live bees as possible and put them back to work in nearby hives. These bees give a good boost to a yard. there is more bee pressure in the hot room as compared to the extraction room.
Im trying to figure out a way that lets the bees escape the building but contains them.
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>put bee escape cones, those little red ones.
They don't work, the bees come to them and turn away. The ones that work are the small mesh cones.
This window screen represents 30+ years of extracting room bee escape experimentation. Old style escapes = didn't work, red cones = didn't work, mesh cones = work great. V- guides, worked great. The bees always crawl up to the top of the screen, the V channels them to a screen escape and out they go. They get absorbed into the 40 hives outside. These are on the screen and we crack the window open as necessary.
They don't work, the bees come to them and turn away. The ones that work are the small mesh cones.
This window screen represents 30+ years of extracting room bee escape experimentation. Old style escapes = didn't work, red cones = didn't work, mesh cones = work great. V- guides, worked great. The bees always crawl up to the top of the screen, the V channels them to a screen escape and out they go. They get absorbed into the 40 hives outside. These are on the screen and we crack the window open as necessary.
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