Quote:
Originally Posted by barnetmill
I really want to repel them.
|
It is very, very difficult to repel bees off of comb if there is brood. This time of year, and in your area any time of the year there will be comb with brood.
There are repellents that beekeepers use to have bees vacate honey supers at the time of harvest. These are quite powerful, and work very very well, but will do nearly nothing to move bees off of comb with brood. It will agitate them and make them defensive. Gasoline, diesel, insecticides will really aggravate them.
Bear in mind that repellents also wear off. The presence of old comb and bee odors however persist and are very attractive to future swarms. (in fact one way to get more bees is set out some old equipment that had previously housed bees!) In other words, unless you get rid of them entirely, and remove the comb and seal the thing up, you are fairly likely to have more bees in the future.
Not least of all is that you will be leaving pollen and honey and bee larvae in the void. All of these, when not protected by the bees are very interesting to other critters. Honeycomb is also very thin wax, and if the colony is no there to modulate the temps, can melt, then there will be a gawdawful mess that is far harder to mitigate.
Not the answer you are looking for, but the best one in 99% of circumstances.
Keith