Bee Blowers

The blower is the fast route: it clears a whole super in under a minute. A brush takes ten and an escape needs a day. Above a certain number of hives, that arithmetic decides on its own.

When it pays

At twenty supers a day you already notice; at a hundred it is another trade. Especially when the harvest concentrates into a few days and you cannot afford to fit escapes the evening before across the whole apiary.

How to use it without trouble

Take the super off, stand it on edge and blow between the frames from top to bottom. The bees fall in front of the entrance and walk back in themselves. Blowing them far from their hive condemns them and triggers robbing.

Airflow matters more than raw power: you need enough air to carry them, not a pressure that slams them. And it is not used with brood in the super or in extreme heat.

The battery

The Makita® units share a battery with the rest of the brand's tools, and that is a real argument: if you already have a brushcutter or a driver, the blower costs you the price of the body. Carry a charged spare battery — mid-harvest, running out means stopping.

The cheap alternative

The corner escape for inner covers (€1.20) does the same job another way: no noise, no battery and no stress on the colony, but it needs a day's planning.

The other routes are in bee brushes and in bee escapes.