Smoke and or Sunlight to calm honeybees.

[van from Arkansas]

Very common for a beek to use smoke to calm honeybees, a standard practice utilized since early man.  However, I rarely, almost never, hear of a beek using 5-10 minutes of sunlight on exposed frames to calm honey bees.

SUNLIGHT
I have combined frames from deferent queen rite hives; making sure to take only one laying queen and successfully created 5 frame nucs without any fighting.  This is my standard procedure for creating nucs from 2 frame queen castles.  Some would call my queen castles mating nucs, but there is a difference.  My queen castles are a 10 frame deep Lang body with 4 compartments each with 2 standard deep waxed out frames.  I add bees and a virgin queen or queen cell, thus, I can obtain 4 mated queens with 2 frames.  Then as described I combine without newspaper, rather directly adding 1 or 2 frames of bees from the castle with 1-2 frames from support hive to create a new nuc.  The single queen combined is always added with her frame of brood.

The point is: I was taught to always provide 5-10 of sunlight before the combine, smoke is not used nor needed.  The bees remain calm, the entrance is normal and I can see the bees in the frames are not fighting as I grab different frames from different hives, I always peak at the bees.

A year ago, only one person, a well know fella here, was to point out above combine was standard procedure with Brother Adam.  Although a different topic and Brother Adam was directly releasing MATURE queens.  On Beemaster, that single fella was the only one I have seen refer to light as calming down on honeybees.

SMOKE:
The effects of sunlight calming bees is not well understood, Smoke is more understood.  Smoke causes a honeybees stomach to enlarge, this is fact we can see.  From an enlarged stomach we postulate the honey bee is preparing to gourge on honey in preparation of an emergency evacuation flight to elude a forest fire and total devastation of the hive.

Further smoke is believed to mask defensive pheromones.  There are other methods of calm such as slow moving, no vibrations as bees immediately react to hive bumps.  Work bees Bees on sunny calm days, wear light colored clothing, clean gloves from previous pheromones, especially stings.

My focus is on light, sunlight exposure calming honeybees to which I seldom see or hear about.  Google search returned one positive post, just one.
Your thoughts??
Blessings

[texanbelchers]

That's interesting,  Van.  Do you set the frames out individually or just open the top?

[BeeMaster2]

That is interesting. Makes sense. I have used the trick of placing the frames that I want to add to a hive in an open box and let them sit there for 10 minutes or more. My thought was that the field bees go back to the hive and only the nurse bees are left. Nurse bees readily accept a new queen.
Jim

[Michael Bush]

>The effects of sunlight calming bees is not well understood, Smoke is more understood.  Smoke causes a honeybees stomach to enlarge, this is fact we can see.  From an enlarged stomach we postulate the honey bee is preparing to gourge on honey in preparation of an emergency evacuation flight to elude a forest fire and total devastation of the hive.

I don't believe any of that is true.  I open mating nucs all the time without smoke, looking for queens, and the proportion of bees with their heads in cells is no different than when using smoke.

>Further smoke is believed to mask defensive pheromones.

That is what smoke does.

> There are other methods of calm such as slow moving, no vibrations as bees immediately react to hive bumps.

These things don't calm bees, they just don't upset them... there is a difference between not upsetting them and calming them.  Smoke calms them.

> Work bees Bees on sunny calm days...

A nice idea.  But when you're raising queens you work them on the day that the work has to be done even if its raining.  Also I've decided working them early in the morning seems to work fine, even if the sun isn't up yet (light, of course, but not up).

> wear light colored clothing

Of course.

> clean gloves from previous pheromones

I only clean the gloves when they have so much propolis on them that I can't let go of the frames...

> especially stings

I just pull them out of the glove...

I have no issues with hot bees.  Moving gracefully and using judicious smoke is quite effective at keeping them calm almost all the time.   I usually wash my beesuit about once a year...

I find leaving a hive open leads to robbing at worst and them getting more upset at best... neither of which is good.

My focus is on light, sunlight exposure calming honeybees to which I seldom see or hear about.  Google search returned one positive post, just one.
Your thoughts??
Blessings

[van from Arkansas]

M.Bush:I don't believe any of that is true.  I open mating nucs all the time without smoke, looking for queens, and the proportion of bees with their heads in cells is no different than when using smoke.

Mr. Bush, good morning.  Are you serious, you have never noticed bees feeding on honey after being smoked.  The bees that are smoked immediately go down into the frames and begin feeding, I see this every time I smoke, common knowledge.  You are kidding, right???  Just employing humor about smoke and bees gourging on honey. 

BTW, agreed, in a dearth I don?t even like to open a hive, much less expose to light.  But I was not referring to dearth conditions.  I never mentioned the word dearth.

[van from Arkansas]

M. Bush: I have no issues with hot bees.  Moving gracefully and using judicious smoke is quite effective at keeping them calm almost all the time.   I usually wash my beesuit about once a year...

I do have issues with hot bees if hot mean being stung just walking close to a hive.  I have one hive that fits this definition, defensive or better stated mean little buggers.  I will split and requeen this particular hive this spring.  Unless it is raining, I don?t work bees or queens in the rain.

Bet my queens are better than your queens.  They are happy queens because they are not worked in the rain.  OK, I am kidding, only joking.  I?m sure the queens of M.Bush are very impressive.
Blessings

[van from Arkansas]

That's interesting,  Van.  Do you set the frames out individually or just open the top?

Hello Texas, I open the top, pull and carefully inspect each frame one at a time and place the frames into a new nuc body.  The new nuc is in a different location and I take my time taking each frame one by one to the new location.

[van from Arkansas]

That is interesting. Makes sense. I have used the trick of placing the frames that I want to add to a hive in an open box and let them sit there for 10 minutes or more. My thought was that the field bees go back to the hive and only the nurse bees are left. Nurse bees readily accept a new queen.
Jim

Yes Sir, Jim, field bees return to the old location.  However there is a slight difference.  The queen castles are made with nurse bees as the field bees do exactly as you say from the previous move when the castle was created. So when the frames of the queen castles are moved into new nucs there are very few field bees.

The queen castle is moved to a new location, again given a frame of bees from support hives and a queen cell or virgin queen is presented to create four more mated queens.  The process is repeated all through the spring until the dearth starts.  Taking frames from support hives also reduces the chance of swarming as the support hive is given an empty waxed out frame.

[Michael Bush]

>>Mr. Bush, good morning. 
>Are you serious, you have never noticed bees feeding on honey after being smoked.  The bees that are smoked immediately go down into the frames and begin feeding, I see this every time I smoke, common knowledge.  You are kidding, right???  Just employing humor about smoke and bees gourging on honey. 

I am serious.  I open about a hundred hives/mating nucs a week.  I generally smoke the hives and generally don't smoke the nucs, but occasionally I don't smoke a hive because I'm looking for a queen or I do smoke a nuc because they are being a bit defensive.  I seen no difference in gorging.  None whatsoever.  You can also disprove the idea that they are preparing to abscond.  I've often TRIED to make bees abscond from a wall or a tree and never succeeded no matter how much smoke is used.

>BTW, agreed, in a dearth I don?t even like to open a hive, much less expose to light.  But I was not referring to dearth conditions.  I never mentioned the word dearth.

Usually you find out there is a dearth when they start getting robbed...

>I do have issues with hot bees if hot mean being stung just walking close to a hive.  I have one hive that fits this definition, defensive or better stated mean little buggers.  I will split and requeen this particular hive this spring.  Unless it is raining, I don?t work bees or queens in the rain.

When I'm queen rearing and something has to be done, waiting another day results in a lot of destroyed queen cells.  They often get worked in the rain.

Bet my queens are better than your queens.  They are happy queens because they are not worked in the rain.  OK, I am kidding, only joking.  I?m sure the queens of M.Bush are very impressive.
Blessings

[van from Arkansas]

I was just thinking,  I should point out I am a hobbyist with max 20 hives and my methods vary from HoneyPump.  HP stated in another post, not to rob from production hives to support nucs.  I agree and are the impressed with the methods of HP, considering his 1,000s of hives.  However, with only 20 hives, my methods works fine for small scale queen rearing.  Brother Adam made regular use of light and smoke.

M. Bush, thank you Sir, for your comments.

[iddee]

Let's look at a third possibility. When I do a removal, I try to expose the whole hive as quickly as possible, The sooner I do, the calmer they become. I contribute it to being like tearing down the gate to a castle. As soon as the defense area is too large to protect, the guards give up and surrender, whether in the sunlight or shade.

[Michael Bush]

>The sooner I do, the calmer they become.

Some certainly do.  Some just get more upset.  If they are going to get demoralized, they will do it sooner if they are exposed.

[van from Arkansas]

ID, Bush agreed.  I have one hive that does not know any common honey bee standards.  Carefully, gently remove the top and it?s like the bees were just waiting so they can sting the britches off me.  As soon as this hive sees light from lid removal, they come out in force: sting the fella, find a weak point in his veil and sting him, sting his jeans if the material is against his skin, sting the gloves, sting everywhere,, just sting and keep stinging, chase the fella, follow him, teach him a lesson.

This hive is certainly not your average hive so I did not mention in upper post.  It?s supposedly a treatment free hive, but a danger to my family and neighbors or anyone else that walks close to the hive.  This Spring the hive will have a change of attitude, IF it survives winter.

I purchased the hive last spring.  Gentle, hygienic, treatment free was advertised.  There are some beekeepers that will say what ever a fella wants to here in order to sell a hive. 

[BeeMaster2]

Stinger,
Before you get rid of that hive, try using the 10 minute/30 second smoke rule every time you need to inspect this hive. I had a hive like that. It would unload the hive on me when I pulled Honey supers. Once I started waiting 10 minutes and then 30 seconds before opening that hive, they completely settled down and I could treat them like any other hive.
Jim

[iddee]

If you are opening without smoke, I would call that a normal hive.

[Michael Bush]

>If you are opening without smoke, I would call that a normal hive.

:)

As sawdustmakr says, smoke them a little and then wait a little while and give them another puff before you open it.

[van from Arkansas]

Stinger,
Before you get rid of that hive, try using the 10 minute/30 second smoke rule every time you need to inspect this hive. I had a hive like that. It would unload the hive on me when I pulled Honey supers. Once I started waiting 10 minutes and then 30 seconds before opening that hive, they completely settled down and I could treat them like any other hive.
Jim

Thanks Jim.  I am not going to get rid of the hive.  The hive will be split into nucs and requeened.  I use Plenty of smoke.  I would not attempt to open this hive without smoke.  We all have our own personal goals.  One goal is gentle bees.  More like a demand, gentle bees.

Brother Adam raised gentle bees a person could PET the bees.  Shown on his video #3 on YouTube, maybe #2.  Yet the man holds a record for honey production, 770 pounds of honey from a single hive.  To my knowledge, this is still the record honey crop from a single hive.  Yet the bees were gentle, hard working, low tendency to swarm, disease resistant; called Buckfast, world renowned, created by instrumental Insemination.  The original Buckfast bee has faded away slowly out breed by feral drones after the death of Brother Adam.

[iddee]

Here is a quote from your OP.

""The point is: I was taught to always provide 5-10 of sunlight before the combine, smoke is not used nor needed.""

Now do you or don't you use smoke?

[van from Arkansas]

ID, remember I am a hobbyist.  With that in mind, the following.

ID, yes I use smoke on 10 frame mean bees.  I do not smoke the bees going from queen castles going into nucs.

I have some hives that do not require smoke.  My Alpha hive, my breeder queen does not need smoke.

Sorry ID, if I created confusion, from my post I could understand the confusion.  I have 4 different genetic lines in my apiary:

1.  Treatment Free bees
2.  Average Itialian, muts, support hives.
3.  My Cordovans, my personal favorite, my pride and joy, breeder quality, petable bees.
4. One feral swarm hive which I am evaluating.  I don?t like swarm hives, I breed against swarming but this hive swarmed in late Sept and was doomed unless I provided a hive and food.

I have one customer, again I don?t sell queens I give them away.  He insist I NOT use smoke and conduct a hand wave test on Alpha hive, my queen grafting hive. He drives over 100 miles for these queens and wants gentle bees but makes me demonstrate, prove the gentleness.

I am already book up for queens for 2019.  Every queen I produce is already taken.

I am giving one class on instrumental Insemination{II}.  I do not charge for this either.  Standard fee is about $1,000 a day, then $950 a day for one on one problem solving.

II is very popular across the pond, as one mfg of II units sells 11,000 units a year at $2,000 each unit both abroad and US.

Just so there is no confusion, I do not give away my II queens, they are mine.  I give away open mated queens.
Blessings