We are beekeepers, and we’ve had quite a journey into “how to protect our hands” and “how to prevent cross-pheromone contact from one hive to another” and “how to keep cross-pheromone contact from one hive inspection to another with the same hive.” In addition, we often deal with chemicals (like working on car maintenance, automotive finishes, and deep-cleaning things at home. We are musicians, and our hands are important to us: so, these gloves are an essential bit of kit for many things we do! They’re great for so many reasons. Both of us find the leather/suede beekeeper gloves to be non-tactile and difficult to use for any tasks which need fine touch (handling the Queen, adding and removing components from the woodenware, dealing with lots of direct handling of our bees, etc.). We started out with leather gloves and went straight to nitrile gloves. For the most part, we used the inexpensive ones with which to start. They tore VERY easily, the bees sting right through them with only the slightest effort, they “sweated off from our hands” very quickly and so much more. Not a good thing. We finally worked our way up to the 14 mil Thickster gloves. In our case, the gloves last all day when handling cleaners and oils. No matter how hot or how cold the days are, these gloves are really resilient and strong during honeybee hive inspections. In addition, when the bees get “spicy” or downright “grumpy,” the gloves make the stings much less often, much less deeply inserted, and much easier to remove without squishing the venom sac. I get stung pretty much every inspection (at least once) and these gloves make the stings MUCH less invasive. NOTE: I would NOT say that the gloves PREVENT stings from occurring on my hands: they just make the stings less invasive.
Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]