Beekeeping in hot climates - ventilated suits and other hot gadgets!
While beekeeping in Australia surface temperatures in summer can get up to 73 degrees celcius or 163 degrees farenheit, things can get a little hot. You can simply burn yourself on a hive tool left on the back of the trailer exposed to the sun, just to give you an indication. Just imagine yourself walking along the boggy beach having a bee suit on and lifting 20-30kg worth of honey over the sandy soil.
Well, one way to stay cool is to first invest into your quality ventilated bee suits and pants.
You can get beekeeping onesies, however we do quite a few different tasks within the yard, hence would need to get in and out of the onesies every so often, hence are using ventilated bee jackets and pants instead.
Funky hats which look, as said "funky or not", however while beekeeping I would rather look less funky but keep a cool head under the harsh Australian sun, then needing to look funky and overheating or getting to the point of heat exhaustion... so, funky hat and other funky gadgets it is. They come in all shapes and sizes, solar power and battery powered. Send me your recommendations and suggestions or send us some hats and will be happily testing them to.
Just a thought, lithium based power banks with funky hats like seen on the left, can make funky hats last nearly for ever!
Another gadget however has made quite a difference for us in order to stay cool. We have started using Neck fans also sometimes referred as sports fan. You can buy them for 30 bucks or so on eBay, using them with a magnetic USB charging plug works great.
I definitely feel the difference the following day, on really hot days where I had not been using the neck fans to keep the head cool versus days where I forgot to charge the batteries, or only had one unit with me. Most of those fans last for probably 1-4 hours depending on their settings used. Generally however you can use most on the medium setting for at least 2 hours. Having multiple batteries or units just help you to make it through the entire long hot day keeping a cool head. And trust me, you can end up doing lots of stupid decisions when overheating or when you failed noticing you have overheated! Also you don't seem to notice all the really upset bees buzzing you on the veil due to the hum of the fan in case you are dealing with some unfriendly mob...
Use only with well-mannered bees!
When you have well mannered bees then you may also get away with a light version of a bee suit like the ones we weir during summer, such as the Bug Jacket shown below.
However I would be cautious to use those in early spring or in a winter setting, as even friendly bees can turn into an unfriendly species!
Please let us know if this information had been useful on your journey to your first set of bee hives!
Feel free to browse to our complimentary Youtube channel which goes hand in hand with this blog.
Happy beekeeping,
----------------------------------------------------------
Our content is for informational purposes only and do not form a professional relationship.
Please refer to the full disclaimer on Quickwings pty ltd’s website found here:
https://quickwings.com.au/policies-and-tcs/
----------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment