# Fume board vs. blower who is the champ



## Brent Bean (Jun 30, 2005)

I have seen the blower in action and it indeed gets the bees out of the box, but it has to cause the loss of a lot of bees. 
I have made a modification to one fume board. I added a one inch spacer between the top of the fume board and absorbent cloth use to soak the honey robber. Stapled some window screen in place of the old fume board cover. And add a old smoker bellows to the top.
After using it since last season, I am planning on making another, you place it on the hive give the bellows a couple of pumps and Walla the bees evacuate. I can work about three hives at a time using the traditional fume board. but had to drop to two because the one with the bellow works so much faster.


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## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

I do the fume board followed by the leaf blower to knock out the stragglers.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Ross said:


> I do the fume board followed by the leaf blower to knock out the stragglers.


Ditto,

I have 3 fume boards going at a time. I place them on the colony and then follow up with the blower. Works very well for me. I just use a gas leaf blower. I think it cost me around $100. It's not necessary to use the fume boards but I'd rather be blowing out stragglers than the whole lot of them.


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## King bee apiary (Feb 8, 2005)

My bees seem to like the fume boards and will climb to the top to lick them. I use a brush but am thinking about a blower!


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## BeeAware (Mar 24, 2007)

I use a fume board with Bee Quick and then brush the few which are left.
After a few uses, I figured out how much B Quick to use and how long to leave it on. One time I placed the fume board on a hive and had a visitor show up and got me distracted for too long. The entire colony vacated the hive and were air borne everywhere for a time!

I place my fume board inside a closed up truck to get really warm before I use it the first time on a given day. This seems to make it work faster.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

*38 years*

Leaf blower with a 2 1/2" shop vac hose and crevice nozzle attached. The kill rate is low and it's the end of the honey flow, so a few bees won't be missed. The big argument - I blow from the top bars out first, less blow back, my buddy insists blow from the bottom bars out first.


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## notaclue (Jun 30, 2005)

Use fume board with Bee Quick, wait ten to fifteen minutes and viola! Not had any bees unless there happens to be brood. Then they hang on. Then I don't pull but apoligize and let them get back to work. heh heheheheheh


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## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

Paint your fume board flat black to make it work better.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

yea I pulled a box with some brood the other day with bee-quick. I thought most
of them where out, but there was lots more than I thought! They defended the
colony even inside the honey house. I ended up working around them. They capped
the brood in the few days in the honey house and I put it back on a hive. There sure
was a big mess of dead bees by the window. Next time I'll
1. avoid pulling brood.
2. use more queen excluders
3. use more bee quick. I was stingy since its hard to find this year and I had to save some
for another extraction.

I blew bees one year on just one hive, and I didn't like it. I watched some friends
use a blower, and it looked like more trouble then 'normal' use of bee quick.


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

I think with a few hives you would be ok using a leaf blower. If you are extracting from more then a few I think you would have a nightmare in the beeyard. I know with pulling with fume boards on 30 to 40 hives on pallets by the time we are finished there are tons of bees everywhere and they are pretty pissed. I can't imagine what it would be like if you were blowing them out of the supers.


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## honeyman46408 (Feb 14, 2003)

Well BQ dont work well for me and BG stinks but moves bees, last year a friend introduced me to a bee blower and this year I have a nice new leaf blower gased up and ready, trouble is the fume boards don`t even make good fire wood.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Blowers work fine if you have a few hives to harvest. Same goes for bee escape boards. If you want to harvest a couple tons of honey a day, forget the blower. You may smell like a drunken bum in the gutter, but BeeGo works best. Clears all the supers on a hive...even 150 pound crop...fast.


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## riverrat (Jun 3, 2006)

eaglesbee said:


> Repellant vs. Blower Who is the champ!
> Lee


I use a Fume board with Bee-Go then use a leaf blower to take out the few that did want to leave.


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## eaglesbee (May 3, 2004)

If one was to get a bee blower which one would you get the one from Dadant or I have herd of one that can go on your back???


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## riverrat (Jun 3, 2006)

Buy a gas leaf blower. I bought one last week for 85.00 at ace hardware. they work great not as bulky as the dadant and a whole lot easier on your wallet



eaglesbee said:


> If one was to get a bee blower which one would you get the one from Dadant or I have herd of one that can go on your back???


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## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

Yep, hit the yard sales for a cheap gas leaf blower.


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

*Boards for me*

I use from 12-20 boards with bee go. A little smoke starts em down to prevent drunks. Turn sideways a little while putting them on then straighten. Alone I take 100 to 120 deeps in 4 or 5 hrs. 

In my old age I hate noisy machinery. After a while you don't even smell the b go!


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## Jeffzhear (Dec 2, 2006)

I too use fume boards. I thought about using a few at the same time. Now that I read that others are doing that, I know I will also.


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

When you are working a yard with 40 to 50 hives, you have to use fume boards. With a system of taking off the tops, throwing them on and then moving back to the first you can do a yard pretty quick. Pull the first super and put the fume board on the second...keep driving um down. Once you pull all the supers on one hive you move the fume board to a hive that doesn't have one. Get er done and re-super the hives and you are out of there. Doing 4 to five of these yards a day...it only makes sense to use fume boards. Also any bees that are still inside and a quick thump on the hive body or the bed of the truck gets rid of about 95% of the clingers...and they wonder back to the hive no problem. Bees are pretty tough critters I have found.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

We too run 3 fume boards with a leaf blower follow up. Usually in the spring and summer pulls (like right now) the honey is not well capped in many supers. Fume boards often won't drive bees off uncapped honey so quite a few have numbers of bees who get blown onto the ground. I don't see much if any loss from blowing bees. In the fall honey harvest most of the honey is capped and with 3 fume boards on a sunny day it is all 3 of us can do to keep up with the fume boards and not much blowing is needed. Using a blower late in the season after the honey flow is over is tantamount to a declaration of war as far as the bees are concerned so pull honey early and pull honey often.

I would be careful using a blower if you have brood in a honey super as you may also have a queen who may get blown out and not find her way home or more likely be killed by the competition where she gets blown out.


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