a new member here (scott derrick) produces this product to clear bees from supers, and we have all watched jpthebeeman use scott's honey-b-gone in his videos. in the past i have used all the smelly products before switching to fisher's bee quick. i decided to try scott's honey-b-gone.
i am impressed with this. this stuff works quickly and works like a charm! i used this today and i will use this in the future. i couldn't believe how quickly this worked. i didn't use it to clear honey supers, but to chase bees out of a deep placed on a hive with feeder frames in it.
i took my honey supers off in early september. i fed the bees back some mixed frames of honey (medium/deep frames) housed in an empty deep over the 2nd deep and an inner cover, and have been doing so since then. 2 weeks ago, i knew the weather was going to get cold, the bees needed a little extra weight, so i placed an empty super on top and moved the 'feeder' deep up on top the empty super with some additional feeder frames. i knew i would need this space to drive them down into, and maybe lay a couple frames in that empty medium box. so today, i needed to get that 'feeder' deep off. it was a little chilly, the sun was shining, and about 52 degrees. i wanted to work quickly to minimize any chill to the bees, and i did not want to remove the inner cover on top the 2nd deep. i tipped the outer cover off enough of the top feeder deep to see it was full of bees on the frames. i sprayed the honey-b-gone on a fume board, popped the outer cover off and slid the fume board on and hit it with a torch and waited a few minutes, and hit the fume board again with some heat. waited another few minutes. i could hear the bees moving down. tipped the fume board, looked in, the bees had moved down. used a heavy canvas cloth over the deep and removed frames one by one, to brush any bees off back into the hive. i realized i didn't need to do this, but not having used this before, i didn't know. a few stragglers, that was it. there were some bees (not many) i brushed off the sides of the deep down into the medium super, lifted the deep off, stuck a few additional frames in the super, replaced the outer cover and i was done!
in a week or so, i will remove these feeder frames, remove the super and replace with winter patties and an insulation box for winter months.
thanks scott!
(ps.....scott has chosen to advertise with us so look for his ad within the next week or so on how/where to buy honey-b-gone).