Avoiding bees while brewing

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DReimerMT

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I have been sitting and thinking about this for quite a while. Last September when I was brewing (I brew outside and Live in Montana) a number of bees showed up during the boil because of the scent of sugars in the steam. I cannot think of any way to not have the bees show during a brew day. Do any of you have ideas on how to not have them show up?
 
I thought the title was 'Avoid beers while brewing" and I stopped by to make the obvious comments. Sorry no answer for that. :)
 
Kill their ringleader and display his corpse as a warning. In seriousness, the only thing I've known to drive them off is smoke. So if you are having a bad problem with them, you can maybe get some wood chips smoldering nearby? Doubt It'll do much though.
 
catch some, cut their heads off and mount them on tooth pics around your brew area, that should work.

OR plant lemongrass all around your brewing area, bees no likey lemongrass.
 
you can try one of those fake beehives. no i dea if they work or not.. my neighbor has one and seems to think it works. i would personally use my electric fly zapper shaped like a tennis racket.. be warned bees sometimes take 2 zaps. nothing like a pissed off bee with a half fried brain!!!
 
You might try brewing later in the day. Bees begin foraging at first light. They keep going until they’re done. You seldom see them after five o clock sun time, which is 6:30 pm here due to stupid daylight savings time and being on the edge of the time zone.

Also I guess Montana is in very early spring, so they may have run out of honey and are really hungry. You could try feeding them. Mix up some strong sugar water, about 1:1. Put it in a zip-loc lay it out on something a few feet off the ground and poke a few holes in it. They should like that better than boiling wort.
Watch out for ants.

I noticed in the 2011 drought the bees were pestering me when I was drinking beer on the patio. Usually they ignore me. The few bees that were still alive were starving and desperate for food.
 
Might also look into some sort of screen to put over your brew kettle. It won't keep them from pestering you but it'll at least keep the bugs outta the brew.
 
The real bees I don't mind. They just kind of float around looking for a way to avoid the steam during the boil. The yellow jackets though are a real pain. They are more aggressive and will do a divebomb. I've thougth about getting one of those screen things to go over my garage door opening.
 
I have a bee box in my backyard. I brew in my garage. The bees come around. They don't bother a thing. What's the problem? They won't sting you unless you try to swat or catch them. They may fall in the kettle. So? Leave the bees alone. They have enough trouble with pesticides and colony collapse disorder.
 
I feel your pain. Down here in the south I have trouble with flies during the warmer months.
 
put out a pan of sugar water ....they will soon take to that instead of the brew.

i had the same problem when burning some honey for brochet mead a couple months ago. had to wear voile over my face in order to contiune...bees by the thousands!!! had 30+ dive into the smokey boiling mass.

didn't even think about the sugar water until it was all over. sugar water is what bee keepers use to supplement the bee's during winter.....

GD:mug:
 
I have my own hive of trained bees to fend off any other bees. But now my trained bees are starting to bother me when I'm brewing, so I might get a second hive of bees to keep the first hive in line.
 
I have a bee box in my backyard. I brew in my garage. The bees come around. They don't bother a thing. What's the problem? They won't sting you unless you try to swat or catch them. They may fall in the kettle. So? Leave the bees alone. They have enough trouble with pesticides and colony collapse disorder.

Are you the bee whisperer?
 
LandoLincoln said:
I have my own hive of trained bees to fend off any other bees. But now my trained bees are starting to bother me when I'm brewing, so I might get a second hive of bees to keep the first hive in line.

If you have train bees then why not train them to brew for you. You could relax with a beer and have the bees doing all the work sounds good to me haha
 
I have this problem all year, being in South Texas. I was brewing in February and had bees buzzing around. They especially like when you open the Mash Tun lid. Here you not only have to worry about bees, but have to worry about Africanized bees.
 
get every bees worst nightmare, Winnie the Pooh. With him around, the bees will be too busy defending their honey to bother you.
 
I spray them with my star-san solution. I don't believe it kills them. They don't like it obviously, because they don't return once sprayed.
 
I have a bee box in my backyard. I brew in my garage. The bees come around. They don't bother a thing. What's the problem? They won't sting you unless you try to swat or catch them. They may fall in the kettle. So? Leave the bees alone. They have enough trouble with pesticides and colony collapse disorder.

Yes, embrace the bees. I have 2 hives in the back yard. Yes, they come around, but they don't bother anything, and they drink much less than my brewing buddies :mug:

It's the yellowjackets you need to worry about. Get a yellow jacket trap for that.

Plus you get to turn the excess honey into mead.
 
I cover the top of the pot with a splatter screen intended for frying pans. It lets the boil roll along while keeping out all the airborne stuff. Got mine at Target: Splatter Screen
 
great idea!,... yet this screen is too small in diameter for a mega pot.

nothing says thought that one can't be fabed to fit.

GD:mug:
 
A screen is a solution in search of a problem ... when bees hit the boiling wort they are instantly killed (sad) and sanitized (good). If you are worrying about the time when you are cooling, the wort should be covered anyway as it's the stuff you can't see that's falling in your wort that will have an impact.
 
A screen is a solution in search of a problem ... when bees hit the boiling wort they are instantly killed (sad) and sanitized (good). If you are worrying about the time when you are cooling, the wort should be covered anyway as it's the stuff you can't see that's falling in your wort that will have an impact.

What about leaves and such?

That said, good point about keeping out microscropic invaders by simply putting the lid back on the pot when it is cooling down.

As for the guy with too big a pot for the splatter screen, how about screen window screen (is that redundant, like hot water heater?).
 
What about leaves and such?

That said, good point about keeping out microscropic invaders by simply putting the lid back on the pot when it is cooling down.

As for the guy with too big a pot for the splatter screen, how about screen window screen (is that redundant, like hot water heater?).
I guess I don't think about leaves falling in. I live in a new subdivision so there's nothing that is over my pot. Window screen would work more than fine, a few dowels or lath strips to make a frame and you are done.
 
I've never had a bee just dive right in to the kettle. They usually just fly around it.

As far as chilling goes I always cover the kettle with foil to keep stuff out.
 
put out a pan of sugar water ....they will soon take to that instead of the brew.

i had the same problem when burning some honey for brochet mead a couple months ago. had to wear voile over my face in order to contiune...bees by the thousands!!! had 30+ dive into the smokey boiling mass.

didn't even think about the sugar water until it was all over. sugar water is what bee keepers use to supplement the bee's during winter.....

GD:mug:

I was at a BBQ once and they put out disposable plants of ketchup around the perimeter to draw the flies to instead of our food. It seemed to work pretty well. I would think something similar would work for bees? :mug:
 
Feed the bees and they will go to sleep. Really I am not joking here. Put some honey out on a board just kind of make swirls so it has lost of surface area and the bees will come. They will eat and then they will go sleep it off. Sugar coma? Have had to do this a time or two when a rouge swarm happened by my house.
 
Apis mellifera might just be more misunderstood than saccharomyces cerevisiae. Give them both the respect they are due and they will treat you very well.
 
Either brew after sunset or let them sacrifice themselve...might acutally add something to the flavor.....might just be the "Bees Knees!"
 
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