# Need a bee suit that works.



## FrankRichards (Dec 9, 2004)

Maybe I should give up beekeeping. I keep seeing pictures of bee beards, and people using gloves or a veil but not both.

But, in my world, about one hive in four, and always the one that is laying down honey, decides it really, truly, wants to kill me if I pull a single frame out of the brood nest.

I bought J. Random Bee Suit a couple years ago. If I use ductape on the helmet and zippers and wear long underwear, flannel and knee boots in July I can get in and out with only a dozen stings. I currently have welts on my arms from stings straight through the suit and a T shirt, just above the gauntlets. I did not pay good money for a bee suit to have the bees sting straight through it. I had a perfectly good white flannel shirt for them to do that to.

Is there a suit out there that they simply cannot sting through? And, if not, why not?


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## BjornBee (Jan 17, 2011)

Frank,
I'm not sure if from what you describe, that it is a bee suit issue. It simply leads me to think that something is not right about your hives.

Do you use smoke? Are you prepping and entering the hive correctly? Are you skilled at inpecting the hive knowing the small delicate things that set the bees off? Have you tried requeeing the hives?

Not just my own hives, but as an inspector looking at other folks hives, numbering a few thousand in number, you just don't run across hives very often like the one you describe.

If I was closer, I would drop by and check them out. Perhaps you can have another experienced local beekeeper stop in. It just sounds like something is wrong beyond the bee suit you wear.


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

is your suit a tight fit , I do not think they should not be tight fitting , but the old keepers may say different , do you a after shave that upsets them , as others have said that some smells set the hive off . I have a suit from mann lake wear it twice and no stings ..


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## Judy in IN (Nov 28, 2003)

Get an Ultra-Breeze suit. It's pricy, but worth every penny. You'll stay cooler, and I've yet to have a bee sting through it. For the cut-out I just did, I wore short sleeve shirt and shorts underneath my Ultra-Breeze. ( I did wear shoes, lol) Get one a size bigger than you think you will need. 

As for the bees, are you working them between the hourse of 10 and 2? Are you using smoke?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

We havn't had less than 50 colonies in 10 years. I've never owned or wore a bee suit in all the time we have owned bees. Very rarely do we use smoke on the bees during inspections, if they seem roudy we first mist them with syrup which usally calms them down.

I fully agree with Bjorn bee on *they need a new queen*. Still takes a while for them to calm down since the old queens geanes are still in every thing in the hive for close to 30 days.

 Al


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## FrankRichards (Dec 9, 2004)

Alleyyooper, the hive that is currently trying to kill me indeed changed character after a swarm. Unfortunately, I don't actually envision myself surviving the exercise of finding and killing the existing queen, whether I buy a new one or have them raise their own.

I had two packages from the same source, that came with horrible horrible workers. In one the queen took and is now raising very nice bees. The other killed not one, but two, queens, and ended up as laying worker's drones. (In an outyard in a rainy year so I didn't get back when I should have.) I have a really bad feeling about who my virgin queen mated with.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Well I say it has to be done or your going to get chased from the bee yard every time. Smoke them up good wait about 15 miniutes then go looking for the queen. Keep that smoker handy and give them a nother dose of it if they start getting cranky again. 
Go slow find the queen and take out revenge on her, then install a new queen. I don't think I would let them raise their own as those ----y geans may be with the new queen they raise too.

 Al


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## Gailann Schrader (May 10, 2002)

I started with hot hives. I got stung before I understood how to batten down the suit.

I had just plain DARK BLUE coveralls, tucked them into tall rubber boots, had a secured properly bee veil (I have a full length mirror to look into as I'm by myself) and wear kitchen rubber gloves that cover my hands and tuck the coverall sleeves into them. NO BEE STINGS. 

Move slowly and purposefully, don't put on aftershave, don't work them when it's windy or uber hot... I'm not sure how they are getting through your suit! Don't wear flannel, they get tangled in it somehow... They don't let loose... 

How are they getting to you? Under the veil? Under your gloves? kitchen gloves work well and you don't drop frames.

You can wear rubber bands to keep them from crawling up your pants legs if they're that hot.


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## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

I'm not exactly miss experience here, just got my first hive recently. But I've been in it 4 times and only got stung one time and I think I squished him. Got me right on the tip of my thumb. I've been stung two other times but that wasn't while I was in the hive but just in the garden, and one of the stings was a wild hive that's been mooching off my sugar water. I squished them on accident. The goofy things get all over me, like I'm some kind of bee whisperer lol. I guess they know I feed them sugar water. 

So yea, your bees sound way aggressive to me! I love my bees. They act like I don't even exist while I go through the hive. Suiting up seems like overkill, and I'm just wearing a super thin white shirt, thin pants, flip flops and my veil. Mine are Carnolians which the beekeeper I got them from said they are the gentlest he's had.


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## pheasantplucker (Feb 20, 2007)

I used to use a pair of thin white painters "coveralls" but that wasn't getting it. I too was getting my share of stings. I ordered a full suit from Brushy Mtn. two years ago, and I don't think I got stung once last year, and I know I haven't had one sting thus far this year. Good luck. It makes all the difference!


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

southerngurl
The goofy things get all over me, like I'm some kind of bee whisperer lol. I guess they know I feed them sugar water. 
No ,, they just go for the sweet things ,, ( flirt ,, flirt ) :shocked::shocked:
At times we can come home and Bon will go sit in a chair in the yard , and the girls will be all over her .. this spring they were real bad about that ,, any time we were in the yard there was 10 15+ around us ,, if you felt some thing land on you , you looked before you swatted ,, it was funny to see the grand kids ,, they would be playing and stop dead . then stand looking at the bee ,, and when the bee went they would start playing again like nothing happen .. now they don't come around much ,, in fact very seldom .. Bonnie found a nest of Bumble bees , so I have another bunch of pets .. we both like the honey bees and the Bumble bees ..


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