BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER > EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS
Coveralls?
Anonymous:
During inspections I only wear helmit & Veil and gloves. One piece of equipment I have found indespenceable is the frame grip from Kellys.
Loosen frames up with the hive tool slide the frame grip onto the top bar and it gently moves the girls out of the way with it's blunt nose. Lift the frame with out fear for smashing one of the girls You have cofidence that the frame is not going to be dropped when turned so many more ways for viewing. The one piece of equipment I highly recommend.
:D Al
beemaster:
I hear what you are saying Jas... I've had to grit my teeth and bear a few stings before, but there isn't any reason you can't single hand a frame and go after a stinger bee.
I don't use the Beekeeping for Dummies frame flipping method - maybe because I'm left handed (but doubtful) I just get it pryed out of place, left it with two hands and I look at one side the "Rotate my wrists" doing a complete upside down frame in my hand - again, side on is right side up, I rotate it bottom toward top and side two is upside down.
It's not recommend I guess, but I don't get a flurry of bees flying around. I then stand the first frame VERTICALLY against the hive off to the side so I have room to pry other frames out.
But if I have to handle a frame single handed, I hold the frame by a side rail toward the top rail, letting the bottom of the frame rest on my fore arm and I can hold it like this for a long time in its horizonal position. But if I'm going to just let it dingle downwards while I'm pulling bees out of my hair, I'll keep the same grip, but rest my arm hanging the frame low and away from my body or if I have to "again" set it down on the side rail up against the hive.
If I end up having more than one frame out of the super, but I don't have an empty super near by, then I'll lean them agaist trees if I need to - afer a minute, the bees on the frame are so into their bee-duties they hardly recognize that they are NOT in the hive. They also return to the super easily this way by just grabbbing the side rail, raising it back up, getting two hands on to it and slowly replacing it in to the hive.
I do agree though a hat (any hat) may come in handy. I keep my hair short so they rarely get tangled in my hair - but then again, I do everything I can to keep the bees in the hive when I'm working it.
EVERYONE gets a worker with an attitude, they love to buzz your face and make life annoying while you are inspecting - when this happens, or ANY TIME bees are a bit too active, walk away and come back with a little more smoke and give it a good 5 minutes and then try again.
beefree:
i have recently gone from COMPLETELY suiting up (hat, veil, cotton coveralls, looong gloves, and jeans under coverall tucked into tall socks under hiking boots and smoking every hive i open) to just wearing the boots with long socks and jeans tucked in, a long sleeved white t-shirt pulled over rose gloves and the hat and veil. and foregoing the smoke if i am not harvesting honey or rotating boxes or other such things likely to really disturb the bees. this has worked so far. i would like to get rid of the gloves next, but as long as the mosquitoes are this bad, i probably won't. i can't even garden in broad daylight without having them all chomp my knuckles, and they aren't any better near the hives.
beefree
Anonymous:
I too, am plagued with mosquitoes. I have a nearby stream, and ivy growing in my back yard. LOTS of mosquitoes.
You should research the benefits of making a bat box. Unfortunately, you can't just buy one from the store, put it on the side of your house and have a high probability of bats. You have to paint it the right color for where you live, and keep it in the right amount of sun. The best thing is to make it yourself, if you're handy.
One house can hold hundreds of bats, each bat eats hundreds of mosquitoes every night.
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