Bob, I always use fishers bee quick on my fume boards. It actually smells really good to me but it pushes the bees out pretty quickly. It works great!

@bob-neobakashwer6582

25 күн бұрын

Me too! But Bee Quick is EXPENSIVE and sometimes in short supply as harvest time approaches. Best to buy it in the off season.

Been using fume boards with Bee-Go and blower from a shop vac for stragglers for 34 years. On a good weather day one man can only keep up with about three boards. After watching you and other KZread beekeepers using the rechargeable leaf blowers, I think I'll try that so I don't have to haul a generator from yard to yard. Love all your videos Bob and have been using your queen rearing method with good success. Appreciate you and God bless you and your crew and family!

Hi Bob, you and the Blue Ridge Honey crew are a Sunday morning staple to watch. Your insight, well thought out content and calm demeanor is addicting and your channel should be a must watch for all beekeepers young and old. I personally only use brushes to remove the supers from my three hives. They work well for me. Thank you and I hope that you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

Hey, greetings from Germany. I use a escape board and the last few bees are blowed out with a leave blower. Works great with my 50 hives. Only had round about 20 bees in my honey house! Greetings, I wish you and your crew a good week!!

Hey Bob, I love all your insights into beekeeping!! After a hundred years of using fume boards, I finally said goodbye to the stink. I've been using the cone type of bee escape for several years and just Love it. They handle more bees than the triangular type of escape. Keep on Beekeeping!!

Hello Bob, I have had bees now for over 60 years. When I used fume boads, I used Benzaldehyde, and that worked no matter what the temporature was. However, I only used it for a couple of seasons as I did not like the idea of using chemicals. The only escapes I have ever used are ' Porter ' Bee escapes, and set right, they work very well clearing two Dadant supers overnight. Kind regards, Tony Marsh. UK.

One word of caution with the escape boards. Since it takes a few days to be effective, the supers have had diminished protection against beetles and moths during that time. Normally, supers can be held around 3 days before extracting without having beetle larvae show up. I'd be concerned about letting the supers sit more than a single day if they were cleared with escape boards. Here in Oklahoma, we have trouble with high moisture levels due to humidity and often want to let the supers sit in an enclosed space with a dehumidifier and fan to help reduce the moisture level. So, the passing of time is a greater concern when escape boards are used.

I have used all 4 methods you discussed. Bee brush worked great when I h ad only a couple hives. Escape board is my preferred sometimes, use leaf blower when taking boxes off the escape boards to clear out straglers. I like to put an empty super below the escape board on big hives, allowing them a place to congregate.

Having had +- 200 hives I used escape boards, harvested about 5 colonies a day, with one helper. They work great, except when brood got into honey supers, then I left them and we worked later, pulled the escape and left them for a few days. Then when they got to extraction room they went on a grid to bottom heat, also had a grate that I'd put the full boxes on and blew them out, they were a cloud, it was about a 10 box size, it wasn't used much, but that is what I did for out of town yards.

I typically use fume boards because of limited time and had success with Fishers Bee Quick (Benzaldehyde). Smells like almond biscotti.I have made my own agent using synthetic almond extract (Benzaldehyde) and tea tree oil mixed in 99% isopropyl alcohol and it works great (used it this weekend). It is important to use sparingly on the fume board (especially on hot days) or you can drive the whole colony out of the boxes.I have also sprayed it on a towel and laid it over the top bars of my supers on the truck to deter robbing.I finish with a brush. Of course this is all based on the equipment I use (solid bottoms) and my location (hot, humid, hell). Looking fit Bob!

@frankedwards1246

Ай бұрын

@drliptak1 - Please provide your 'recipe' in sufficient detail that I can duplicate it. Thanks---

@drliptak1

Ай бұрын

@@frankedwards1246 I use an 8 oz. spray bottle and mix: 4 oz of 99% isopropyl 2 oz of imitation almond extract (McCormick brand) 1 oz of tea tree oil

Fume board with Fischer's Bee Quick works great and no foul odors. Leaf blower will remove few remaining bees.

Good morning Bob and Blue Ridge Honey crew. Hope yall have a good holiday weekend. Hope to see yall soon! God Bless you all!

I'm a hobbiest bee keeper. I use the triangle bee escapes. I think it was Fred Dunn who suggested that drilling some 1" holes around the perimeter of the escape board and closing off with #8 hardware cloth will keep a large portion of the bees from trying to get back into the supers through the triangle. I'm going to try it this year.

Always something interesting in our Sunday Mornings, Thank You! Our hives at home are not far at all from our kitchen where we process our honey. Other hives about two miles away. So far the simple bee brush has been our solution for ridding the bees from our medium supers. Now if we ever get rain we may also get honey!

I'm putting my leaf blower away and using just escape boards the sound of the blower just winds them up into a frenzy for me in northern Michigan.

I agree with you on trying to stay away from the chemicals. I do sometimes use some when pulling honey on an old shirt I place on top of stacks of supers I pulled to help keep some robbing down if things get too wild. Have a blessed weekend and thanks for sharing. - Tom

The fact that I have to lift every single super to place the triangle… that is extra work and extra stuff to take care of and….. I am a carpenter and I can do it all but NO. What I do like to make is duble screen boards. For now I use the smoker to make bees go away and works fine ( I shake every frame of course). My european way of harvesting the honey is simple and efficient and easy. Thank you Bob.

Hi Bob, we only have eight hives and use the Ceracell bee escape. I love it.

I use fume boards with Benzaldehyde (Fisher's Bee Quick) as my bee repellant. Bee Quick smells like almonds and is not as persistent as Bee Go. Bee Quick also doesn't permeate into wax, while Bee Go (and Honey Robber) will permeate wax and make the wax stinky and unusable for most things.

I have used the Agitator(bee brush) almost every year, but I don't take much honey. Last year was the first season that I used a fume board, it seemed to work well. I'd like to get me some of the triangle escapes but that mean buy or build them.😂I was told do not buy the "vomit" smelling kind, I was told to get the cherry smell kind I forget what it's called. Thanks Bob, Blessed Days...

Plus one for the Ceracell great escape, three supers usually 24 hours to clear, or less if the temps overnight aren’t too low so the bees keep moving down. Don’t need to blow any bees out, occasionally 3-10 per box left. Plus you can go and grab boxes early morning before the bees are flying to avoid robbing.

I found a bottle of bee go that I bought at least 30 years ago. It stunk as bad as the day I bought it. I guess that stuff doesn't go bad. Enjoyed the video.

@w4447

Ай бұрын

if it is that bad how do you know if it is bad?

Great Video as always Bob! Method selection may vary somewhat depending upon how one harvests and process honey; and when they harvest relative to available nectar flow. Most don't have the equipment nor facilities in place to dry uncapped honey properly. I process only sealed honey primarily for extraction and normally harvest during the dearth in July to give the honey ample time to dry. I inspect and rearrange the supers several days before to identify and mark/move the supers for harvest near the top of the stack. This eliminates 99% of the burr comb mess you discuss; without leaving the supers unguarded to both robbers; and to hive beetles and their developing larvae. Now I wait for that sunny day and clear supers with Honey Robber (used sparingly) and the stragglers with a leaf blower. Also helps clear out the offensive smell you mentioned. Honey Robber is Butyric Anhydride based (yes, concentrated and synthetically manufactured), however it reacts with any available moisture (thus corrosive to your eyes and skin) including humidity in the air to form Butyric Acid. Sunny days provide heating for evaporation and increases the reaction rate. Butyric Acid is a naturally occurring compound, albeit at lower concentrations, in several foods we eat and gives our vomit that distinctive smell. I suspect why the odor may be so offensive to our noses as our brain associates it with an event that none of us enjoy. So I consider using Honey Robber as a near an organic treatment process as Oxalic Acid and Thymol; both of which I use but are concentrated for treating bees well above any naturally occurring levels.

I'm a small scale beekeeper and prefer bee escapes. There are always some bees under the inner cover so a leaf blower clears out those. I prefer this method.

Love my weekly dose of wisdom from king bob. Im a little concerned leaving a full super for the shb here in subtropical australia

Good morning Bob, here in Australia those fume boards were banned many years ago due to contamination issues in the honey. It was a different chemical that was used to what your selling tho. We use escape boards all the time but the escapes are in each corner and bees will still come back up. I have seen on a big honey flow that they've tried to fill that box above the escape board some more. This was after a 2 week period of leaving it on. Overall they work great and everything you said about robbing is certainly true. All the best Bob, love watching your videos. Keep up the good work.

Hello Bob. I have some thick cotton inner covers. I use for a fume board. I like Honey-B-Gone isn’t as strong of a smell as some of others, and works well for me.

Bob, I see a future bright beek there. She asked amazing questions and has a learning attitude. I love it.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

She is very sweet too. 👍

It’s still amazing to me bees can find a flower 3 miles away, fly back to the hive they left from, and let the others know where it is. But they cant figure out how to go through a triangle.

@robinkennedy9974

18 күн бұрын

Perhaps bees are not a maze ing after all!

As a small scale beekeeper I shake and brush the bees off each frame then transfer them one at a time into an empty box.

I used escape boards for the first time this year and was happy with the results. I didn't give it enough time so still had to blow a few bees, but not many. I also use fume boards on the hives away from my local yard as always. I don't use the really stinky stuff, but the almond/cherry stuff that works well. I think the escape boards are more up front, but much less work and quicker the day you pull the supers. Thanks as always for a great channel Bob!!!

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

Thanks. There always seems to be a few stragglers.

This weekend was our first honey harvest. I have fume boards and triangle bee escapes. I used the Demaree method this year, so I had a high stack of full deeps and mediums on most hives. I couldn’t bring myself to do all that lifting to put on the bee escapes. So, we used the fume boards. It worked well, but my wife is complaining about the smell around our house. I have the stored outside.

@mirinewcome3000

Ай бұрын

What we do is laborious but we have physical limitations. First we brush, placing those frames into 5-frame nucs (closed). We bring those back to the house- it's not far- where we've set up the "escape hives" It's a stack of 3-4 supers with a bee escape toward the bottom and a fume board on top. We transfer the nuc-frames in there and use bee-go or diy equiv. Most of the remaining bees leave within 15 minutes. After dark, we brush off any remaining bees and put the frames in the freezer until we're ready to extract.

I have had pretty good luck using the triangular bee escape & connical escape and a leaf blower to remove any stragglers. Seems to work well with a minimal loss of bees.

Good morning Bob, my experience with honey robber…. I didn’t like the reaction of the bees, seemed like it almost put them to sleep! I used a leaf blower last year and the bees attacked the blower sucking hundreds into it! That was an awful experience so I have purchased 7 of the triangle escapes to try this year!

I was using fume boards at first but really don't like them. I wouldn't use enough, or I would use too much honey bandit. Plus it never seemed to clear the edges out completely. I made about 50 triangle bee escapes and love them. I use a battery-powered blower for the stragglers. I also added an empty super below the escape board. It's just me, so I try to harvest just before the end of spring and summer flow to keep the robbing to a minimum.

I tried the triangle escape boards and the expensive Ceracell bee escapes that use the conical cones. The cones worked much better than the triangle boards. I under super and harvest multiple times a year and take one super off at a time. The Ceracell bee escape will take 95% of the bees off in one day. I brush off the remaining straglers.

I use triangle bee escapes and a blower when I pull supers. I also keep an air compressor with a trigger nozzle at the honey house door for stragglers. I put duct tape over wide cracks or knot holes in the field to prevent robbing. When I pull and transport full supers in my truck, I put the escapes on top of the stack but upside down to prevent robbing and allow stragglers to exit. The fume board chemicals smell awful to me. I don’t want that wafting through my supers.

I personally use the triangle escape boards and just brush off any remaining bees.

Good morning Bob. I used fume boards and don’t like the stink. It gets over everything. I generally use the leaf blower into evening. It reduces the robbing. But then I needed to keep them empty overnight to take them to my friends extracting facility. The morning became a problem with robbing. I never used an escape board and was going to do that this year. Had old bed sheets to go over the supers to prevent robbing. But this year is a no honey year. After commenting last time about my field bees in my apiary just disappearing I contacted my mentor who was a pollinator himself. He’s retired and gave some insight to the issue. I had to move my colonies to a different spot on the farm a couple months ago. It’s exposed to public view. His thought is that someone may have used a catcher hive to steal the worker bees for their hives or pollination program. He’s seen it before. My colonies still have the original queen and so they turned my colonies and put theirs in front. The field bees go into the hive entrance they’re used to and that night the thieves come back and leave with the field force from my hive. He told me it happens in the pollination business. I’m trying to stay more positive and think people are honest and good. I’m still going with they got hit with an arial spray of some sort. One other farm years ago caught a beekeeper in my hives ( he had them there too) taking my queens for his hives. I couldn’t understand why my colonies were superseding so often. He was thrown off the farm for that one. So, it does happen. Sad, but true. On a positive note I’m going to use the situation this year to divide up the hives and produce nucs for next year. Were you ever a victim of bee theft?

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

So far I've never had a problem but I hear many stories.

You should look into carrying Honey Bandit. Smell is strong but not unpleasant. It can be mail ordered. It also works very well.

50 TO 60 hives in Fort Wayne. Threw bee brush away, just makes them mad. Use bee escape for Ross Round supers. Extracting supers I use fume board with Fischers Bee Quick which works well if temp is 80+. Keep a leaf blower handy for any reluctant stragglers.

Hi Bob, I use Honey-B-Gone, the label says it contains only natural oils, it smells like apricot kernels and is not unpleasant.

We pulled our supers a couple days ago, I bought a good brush and tried that. My result was alot of confusion, thousands of bees flying everywhere. It seemed to trigger robbing behavior for some reason. I did one hive like that and switched to my fume board with honey robber and it was like nothing was even happening as far as irritating the bees. I haven't really tried a triangle board yet, I'm kinda scared because of the robbing potential you stated. Some of my boxes aren't as flush as they should be. Fume boards are fast but you covered the cons.

I think we used to use Carbolic acid before bee go came along . And benzaldehyde .we would apply chemical to the boards in the morning before heading out and start on one side of the yard starting with the tallest hives taking off a super once the bees move and putting it back on tha super below and keep moving the boards as we got down to brood chambers we would go to the next hives . 20 boards in use for 40 hive yards kept you busy . I see Ian uses a custom covering stretched over the hive when using bee escapes to keep robbing fr happening if there are holes cracks etc in the honey supers . So picking up the honey supers and putting on an empty super then the escape board then the supers back on wait a few days is the M.O. Either way a hive attached to a window in the hot room or extracting room will pick up all the bees you drag home with you .. Fun in the sun !!!

Hobby beekeeper- I have always used a fume board and the almond smelling natural solution you spray on a fume board. There are several brands out there I just don’t want to call a brand name. You can even do a hom

Honey Bandit works really well!

I brushed bees for a few years then went to triangle bee escapes. Ill never go back. Love the triangle bee escapes. Would love to find a company that makes conical bee escapes like Ian Stepper uses though.

Good morning Bob! Working honey coming up.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

I'll be watching. PS. Darn rain but its necessary.

I'm not sure if this would work for fume board stinky stuff; but, as a former trapper, when we caught a skunk, we would wash the hide and everything that came in contact with the essence of skunk with gasoline. It would neutralize the essence and then we could wash the gasoline odor out.

I like the conical style for my 5 framers, the triangle style might be a bit small for5 frame boxes but I might build one and see and I also use a mini blower I also tried the fume board that will never happen again

I’ve been using honey b gone for years now. I don’t miss bee go one bit. For me, it’s almost as effective without the horrible smell.

Blackberrys are just starting to open up here in Oregon. So far things are looking good… 🤣 other than one of my hives swarmed…. They out smarted me 🤣

Always looking forward to the videos from you. Hoping the sourwood crop will be significant this year.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

Thanks, our fingers are crossed.

you can ship liquid ground service only.

Love the video. I never liked the fume board method.

Hey Bob, always great information. When a queen excluder is used, should it be removed when installing the bee escape?

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

It will work with or without the excluder.

Hi Bob, I really appreciate your videos, keep it up! Next season I will make bee escapes to remove supers. Which one do you prefer: conical or triangular? Thank you very much, greetings from BR

@bobbinnie9872

29 күн бұрын

Greetings. I've not used the conical so I have no real comparison to use.

Good morning Bob.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

Good morning!

Do you take queen excluders off when you place the bee escapes? I used them last year, but left them on and I had a ton of bees just waiting for me when I took it off! I’ve also used the fume boards and used the blower for stragglers. Thanks for another informative video. 😊🐝

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

We generally will take the excluders off if we're done making honey.

I don't know about nowadays but Bee-go would break down concrete into a power. I don't use chemicals any longer.

How long can you leave the escape board on before the small hive beetles start destroying the crop?

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

It depends on whether the comb has had brood reared in it and how much, and also whether there is any pollen in the comb. Without any of this a couple of weeks wouldn't cause much trouble. We try to have the supers off within five days to a week when possible. With a bad beetle infestation I would recommend no more than four days.

@hewetthives6630

Ай бұрын

@@bobbinnie9872 thank you. I didn’t know that.

Hey i know this is off topic from this video but i was wondering what your thoughts are on the yellow legged hornets they recently found down Georgia? Have you had any experience with them yet? I know the fire is still small enough that they are trying to extinguish it right now but i worry about what it will mean for beekeeping in the near future. With Varroa doing so much destruction (10%-50%) and the report i saw said that the hornets can cause up to an 80% loss rate, im very worried about what this is going to mean for us. Im trying to start, i probably wont be able to until next spring, and i was already concerned due to the varroa but now I'm super concerned lol.

❤love your videos. I have always used stinky boards and blowers. I must try the escape board.

Some of my bees are annoying, I don't get what's there deal, I've watched every method. I can't get them to consistently leave. Tried cones, tried trapezoid escapes, tried bee gone, tried honey towers with escapes on top and bottom, tried empty supers under all the escapes. Leaf blower they just hung on for dear life and get sucked through the fan and minced.. It's frustrating

Morning Bob. My concern with bee escape is presence of small hive beetles. We typically use fans and dehydrators to get our moisture right after harvest and that may be a few days. If I add several more days up front for a bee escape to work I am at five days and worry about beetle larva ruining our honey crop. What’s your experience with beetles? Thanks

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

We do a few days drying time also and don't see a problem but we are not in a heavily infested area which probably helps.

Time for some Sourwood prep videos!

@bobbinnie9872

28 күн бұрын

Coming up.

@sunduck1

28 күн бұрын

Awesome! Can you also include a more detailed explanation of "packing the brood box". I want to do this now just don't want to cause premature swarming!

Bob the flow seems to be slowing way down here in East Tennessee and i did a few inspections on some colonies and found no new eggs or brood my question is is there a brood break after a big flow?

@bobbinnie9872

28 күн бұрын

Most colonies slow down if pollen stops coming in. The race of bees can play a part also. Italians may continue to produce some brood in a dearth while darker races may mostly shut down. Unless the queen is old I would at least expect to see a minimal amount of eggs and larvae though.

Hello Bob, further to my previous comment, I wanted to ask, what size hives do you use? What is your oppinion of Modified Dadant hives, and what are the frame sizes you use? Kind regards, Tony Marsh.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

I've not used modified Dadant hives so I couldn't report anything on that. We use only standard deep boxes for a brood nest whether it is one box or two. I like all brood frames to be the same size. I've used one deep and a shallow at times in the past and that worked fine for my needs at the time. All configurations need a different management approach in my opinion.

@tonymarshharveytron1970

Ай бұрын

@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you for your kind reply. All the best for the season, kind regards Tony.

Ha Bob I have always used fume boards last year I also used the leaf blower to remove the bees left in the supers not all leave. and because I do the honey extracting in my house it was loaded with bees. I use bee quick I like the smell it does not stink to me. I enjoyed your video. Using the bee escape do u find hive beetles to be a problem. Thanks and have a blessed week. How do u tell when the flow is over.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

Hi Frances. We don't have trouble with the beetles but then we don't have big numbers of them in the first place. If the flow is on there will be plenty of new white wax around. It only takes a few days of no flow for travel stain to change the color.

@framcesmoore

Ай бұрын

@@bobbinnie9872 cool thanks.

Hello. Last year, my first year harvesting honey, I used a combination of a leaf blower and a bee brush. Only had three colonies and did one frame at a time. This year I'll have four colonies and maybe three to four times as many supers to harvest. In one of your videos, I saw you use a battery powered Makita blower. Bob, would you be willing to disclose the model that you used? Thanks.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

It's no longer in use and I don't remember the model. We're back to using a gas blower for now.

Bob, on an average how many supers of honey will you take off of an individual hive during the honey season.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

Nuc production brings the number down to anywhere from two to six depending on the season.

Dream Big brother 🙏

Went from fume boards to escape boards, I prefer them.

I know this is a bit off-topic for this video but either you haven't said or I missed it in your videos. What size are the holes in your double-screen boards?

@bobbinnie9872

27 күн бұрын

2 holes at 71mm but anything that big or bigger will work.

Leaving the super “unattended” not only exposes for potential robber bees but over here in Texas I would be concerned about small hive beetles. Have you had issues with them when using fume boards?

@bobbinnie9872

18 күн бұрын

I've not had issues with ether method but then I don't have a lot of hive beetles.

Nothing to do with the video here, but what head gear and vail are you wearing? It looks comfortable.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

I use a ventilated hat with a folding veil from Mann Lake.

What about a few hive beetles in the super above an escape, this will be my first season trying escapes, and blowing, I have like 30 hives and like 40 supers and I have to make a change

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

We don't have a problem with a few beetles if only left for a few days. Left longer could be an issue.

Where can I buy probiotics that you guys using for bees ?

@bobbinnie9872

28 күн бұрын

You can order it from our store. 706 782 6722.

Hola 👏👍👏👏👏👏🇦🇷🐝

I use honey bee gone, doesn’t smell bad, works well

I use fume boards and a blower so I can make one trip.

Ive seen fume boards cause every bee in a hive to leave because the beekeeper used to much of it. We don t recommend its use and we do not even carry that In our store.

Good morning Mr Bob. Do you have any trouble with hive beetles in your supers when using the escape boards? Especially if any pollen happens to be in a super

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

Good morning. Because we don't have a serious beetle problem we don't experience issues. I've heard others complain about trouble if supers are left on for four days or more.

I like the escape boards. Least intrusive, never tried fumes but it sounds horrible!🤢🐝🙋‍♂️

Regarding use of the fume boards. Bob, you should be more specific about the compounds in question and not just call them "chemicals" Honey is full of chemicals, including the very dangerous dihydrogen monoxide, which causes hundreds or even thousands of deaths every year. Bee Go and Honey Robber both have butyric acid as their main ingredient. Butyric acid is what makes vomit smell like vomit. If you get the urge to vomit when you smell vomit, that's the buytric acid. Since it's one of the three most common acids in your digestive tract, it's hardly "unnatural." However, there is also no need to use it on fume boards as there are alternatives that work just as well and don't smell as bad to humans. Benzaldehyde is one alternative. It has an almond/cherry odor. Bees seem to not like it either. I prefer a fume board with a sheet metal skin on top. It gets just as warm in the sun as something black. However, if it's cloudy, you can use a propane torch to warm up the metal skin and volatilize whichever compound you are using.

@kiddfamilyfarmllc9962

Ай бұрын

dihydrogen monoxide is water

The first

I believe I lost a queen blowing bees out of boxes...

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

That can happen without excluders. I've done it too.

Do you know of any Cordovan Queen Breeders East of the Mississippi? If you do could you send me their contact information?

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

Sorry, I don't.

@TheFamilyFarmHomestead

Ай бұрын

@@bobbinnie9872 That is Okay, Thank You.

Guy I buy a lot wax from uses fume boards.. he must use a lot ruins the wax for candles burns my eyes . Fine for waxing recycled foundation. If I was doing candles Id use the escape boards blower or brush .. chemicals are must have doing cut outs imo and a flir

Have you tried threatening their families? 😀 Mafia beekeeping.

@bobbinnie9872

Ай бұрын

Have not tried that yet.