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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Swarm Catching
« Last post by Terri Yaki on Today at 12:04:37 pm »I'm still having pretty good activity out there. It's like a mini hive moved in or something. Maybe it's a drone's club.
Is there any detriment to using dish soap to clean them? Will any residue be harmful to the bees? I need to figure out how to get my hands in there to get a good cleaning action.I usually just run jars through the dishwasher, but there is no problem using soap. Just rinse them good.
The hive tool is homemade from a picture that 15thmember had posted and I'm giving it a try. My mentor has the larger tool as you described and I see one advantage for the smaller one so far. I can keep it in my hand the whole time and not have to put it down, then have to figure out where I left it. I wasn't really struggling with it too bad just yet but they haven't really applied the glue yet either. But then, I haven't finessed the using of the tool yet and my handling of it will improve. I do, however, like that step on the back to use as leverage and will probably make one on this tool.I do also have a standard 8 in. tool (without a J hook), and I use that for cracking boxes, moving all the frames back and forth as a single unit, and for cleaning boxes. I use the small tool for all individual frame manipulations.
You might get some frowney faces for switching frames around, but be reasonable about it. I do it all the time. Moving foundation to make comb is fine. Putting a pollen or honey frame in the middle of the brood box wouldn?t serve any purpose.