# Russian Mated Queen



## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Peg: are those plastic gloves on your hand??


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## Carolina-Family-Farm (Aug 2, 2005)

*Queen*

Nice looking queen. Did you build your mateing Nucs ?


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

Chef, yes those are gloves, latex gloves, i'm not quite ready to go barehanded yet.

CCF, yup, built those mmn's myself.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Peg:

Why latex versus barehanded? I would think that the thinness of the latex wouldnt offer much level or being conforted. 

You work your bigger hives with latex? I sometimes can go into the mating nucs, depending on population size, barehanded but I would not attempt it with the bigger hives even if I used smoke.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Chef,
I admit the latex makes my hands sweat. And although I go bare-handed often, I also am just as likely to throw on the latex gloves. (thin surgical type)

Yesterday I needed to go into and break up a rather nasty hive that had the queen above an excluder since last year. Had five shallows filled with brood and the bottom two deeps filled with hiney. Rather funny. And although I was stung three times through my sweatpants, and one findings its way in my jacket (no sting), I worked this nasty hive for about twenty minutes until I gave up looking for the queen. Guess what?....not one sting to the hands. And I am quite sure that with bare-handed, I would of wished I would have! But I can't see me going back to the leather gloves, thats for sure! Even for a nasty hive.

I usually start off gloveless for the day till the first couple stings. And if it starts bad, it usually continues. So, after the first couple stings, I'll break out the latex gloves. And I can work almost the entire day without another sting. The bees certainly can sting through. But I think they somehow don't after hitting the latex and move on for a more "natural" material.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

Yes I do tend to work the bigger hives with latex gloves on, if I happen to be out checking mating nucs and want to check some of the larger hives. They can sting through, and it hurts when they do, but there is a small comfort level having something between my hands and their stingers.

The other good thing is when they get sticky with honey or porpolaris, I can just throw them out. You can't do that with leather gloves.


I figure this is just the next step to going barehanded. Bjorn is right though, they make your hands sweat buckets.


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## chief (Apr 19, 2005)

I have been totally converted to rubber gloves. I don’t use latex but rather nitrile gloves. The nitrile gloves are much tougher than the latex and only slightly thicker. The gray variety from Costco seems to be by far the best quality I have found. I have seen bees try to sting through them in vain. Yes they still can sting through them but it is harder and I think after you have handled a few frames and got propolis on them they smell like the hive and not you and bees are less inclined to even try to sting through them. One other perk to nitrile or latex gloves is you don’t spend the rest of the day picking off propolis from you fingers. They are also great for the honey house, to pick up dog poop, handle rat traps, weed the garden, clean toilets, spray weeds or handle chemicals, deliver pups, and just about everything else you don’t want to touch bare handed.


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