Blowers or patience?

[Crazyhorse]

I’ve seen a number of clips on various platforms which show keepers using leaf blowers to clear supers…
Does this potentially damage the bees?
It looks effective but is it poor preparation in adding clearer boards?

What are people’s thoughts please? Any experience on them?

 

[Ian123]

Take both I’ve often used boards then blown out a few stragglers, and often used a blower on its own.

 

[JamezF]

I'm guessing this is a rather more gentle blower than the one my father-in-law has which is powered by a two-stroke engine.

James

 

[Newbeeneil]

I'm guessing this is a rather more gentle blower than the one my father-in-law has which is powered by a two-stroke engine.

James

I have one of those that blows the bees into next week if you are not careful but also one of these which works but takes a little longer to remove the hangers on.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ryobi-R18T...8&sprefix=ryobi+blower+one8+tb,aps,253&sr=8-4

 

[enrico]

I use an air compressor. You can easily regulate the ' blow' strength. It is in my garage and if there are any stragglers on frames I just blow them out through the garage door!

 

[fian]

It all depends on the quantity. In any case, prevention is better than precipitation. The order of best management would be:
1. Placement of exhaust two days before harvest but has the drawback of disassembling the castle. Counter argument. Harvest more times with only 1 or 2 lifts.
2. Patience, frame by frame. Advantage uncapped squares remain in the hive. Very low damage to bees that stay in their hive. Disadvantage very slow procedure and once the environment is above 20°C there may be difficulties (aggressiveness, return of foragers and theft).
3. Blower, faster but with 2 drawbacks (crippled bees, not as effective).

 

[jeff33]

With only 2 hives I wouldn't even contemplate a blower! Just make a rhombus board, bleed bees 24h before extraction, brush the stragglers and job done.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

With only 2 hives I wouldn't even contemplate a blower! Just make a rhombus board, bleed bees 24h before extraction, brush the stragglers and job done.

I seldom get any stragglers after 24 hours with a rhombus escape - even with the most powerful colonies

 

[Erichalfbee]

I seldom get any stragglers after 24 hours with a rhombus escape - even with the most powerful colonies

Yes they work extremely well. Usually I get none

 

[blackcloud]

Plus you can hardly call it being patient-put the clearer on in the evening and take it off in the morning.What else were you planning to be doing in that hive overnight!

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

As already mentioned,

We put boards on evening before removing supers, wheelie bin liner over the top as quite a few boxs have holes.
The aim is to start removing at dawn following day, blower is back up as there's always stragglers.

 

[deemann1]

I use a milwaukee cordless blower for the stranglers

 

[blackcloud]

I use a milwaukee cordless blower for the stranglers

Are Milwaukee tools red or Golden Brown?

 

[user 20297]

If You Tube is to be believed, rather than smoke Japanese beekeepers often use small, battery blowers that sometimes look smaller than a hairdryer. Often, before that you see them rapping on the top or sides of the hive to push the bees down.

 

[Antipodes]

If You Tube is to be believed, rather than smoke Japanese beekeepers often use small, battery blowers that sometimes look smaller than a hairdryer. Often, before that you see them rapping on the top or sides of the hive to push the bees down.

You can blow (with battery blower) many of the bees down into the lower boxes before lifting the box . Further, lifting the box at one end only and blowing down before lifting it completely off is a good strategy. Once lifted off completely, blowing through the frames at the front of the hive (whilst the frames are still in the box) removes the rest and they soon go back in the entrance. On a strong colony, as you get to the lower supers it becomes more difficult as the bees are really packed.

 

[Moobee]

Yes they work extremely well. Usually I get none

Made a rookie error first time I used a rhombus….. forgot to give them space to go into so half the bees were still in the supers when I went to take them off. Doh! Hopefully I’ll remember next year to add a deep eke or an empty super…..

 

[fian]

Made a rookie error first time I used a rhombus….. forgot to give them space to go into so half the bees were still in the supers when I went to take them off. Doh! Hopefully I’ll remember next year to add a deep eke or an empty super…..

Reflection for those who have several supers in many hives.
d-1. Place the crown board with the rhombus escape between the last and penultimate supers, for all the hives.
d0. Harvest the top super from all hives. When removing a sight, reattach the crown board to the bottom sight.
Process these frames in your extractor.
d+1. Repeat the process until only one super per colony remains.
d+n. Option 1. Harvest this super alone, to do this take an empty super and arrange the escape board between the empty super (so that it is between the nest and the full super) and the full super.
Option 2. Harvest the super later, when the number of bees decreases.
Additionally, the placement of wet supers in the weakest hives could be taken into account in order to reinforce them, and even use these as a wild card to balance the populations by shortening the days of processing.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hopefully I’ll remember next year to add a deep eke or an empty super

My rhombus boards all have a deep eke built in. Makes it much easier to do the whole lot in one go if you can
I don’t bother putting the wet supers back on the hives. They are stacked up and stored wet.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Any experience on them?

No. I shake & take. Easy when taking supers off on a flow as bees are not interested.

Likely to have a hundred or so bees in the vehicle, but a short way down the road I stop and open the back door to let them out. Do this a couple of times and by the time you get to the yard the vehicle is clear (almost; there's always one more).

Concerned to reduce your carbon footprint? Petrol gardening is on the way out and there's plenty of info out there (emissions from one hour of a petrol lawnmower = 100 miles by car!) to reconsider; solar-powered battery blower should be OK, but it's just another thing to buy in a world where buying things is part of the problem.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

It always looks a bit mean blowing uncleared supers onto the ground but if your a commercial beek without the time or manpower or profit margin to make repeat visits to use clearer boards I guess . . ..
Ian Steppler on the YouTube out in Manitoba manages to use clearer boards and he has hundreds of hives. But he has a lift machine to help. ?

After using clearer boards I usually get a few thick stragglers left behind that didn't get the message. Brush or shake them off.