Ziplocks

Catching and killing bees for a health inspection seems wasteful. After crossing fingers, arms and legs that the colony survives the winter, it seems particularly rough to murder even one bee, let alone the thirty or so needed.

Still, the cull was less than expected.

After turning the house up-side down for the beekeeper's Weapon of Choice (empty matchboxes) to catch the bees, it struck me that ziplock bags would be just the thing.

Wrong. Ziplock bags as bee-catching kit ranks right up there with using mothballs to kill varroa.

Catching the first ten is pretty straightforward, and I'm sure that if I had thought it through it would have worked. But that would mean thinking it through, a foreign country peopled with demons. In essence, every time you open the bag to catch a few more... Well, you can guess the rest.

Note to self: don't be fooled by a Good Idea.