• Mite Calculator
  • Bee Yard Blog
  • Wildflower Bloom Calendar
  • Honey For Sale
  • Contact
Menu

MiteCalculator.com

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number

Your Custom Text Here

MiteCalculator.com

  • Mite Calculator
  • Bee Yard Blog
  • Wildflower Bloom Calendar
  • Honey For Sale
  • Contact

The Impossible Task of Putting on Gloves with Sweaty Hands

June 18, 2022 Eric Miller

I often wear nitrile gloves in the bee yard. I prefer these over the thicker lambskin gloves worn by many new beekeepers, because nitrile gives you infinitely more dexterity and “hive feel” by comparison. Sure, the bees can sting through the nitrile, but they don’t too often and the occasional sting is worth the upside, at least for me. The biggest problem I run into with the nitrile (or vinyl or rubber) gloves is that they can tear, and when that happens good luck putting on a new glove if it’s hot outside. Nitrile gloves are nearly impossible to pull onto a sweaty hand. Or even a slightly moist hand. Sometimes humidity alone can make it difficult to cinch a glove up without the rubber digits hanging halfway off my fingers.

I use baby powder to easily slip on nitrile gloves in the bee yard

But there’s an easy and cheap fix for this. Just keep a bottle of baby powder in your bee kit. When you need to put on a glove, douse your hand in the powder and rub it around, being sure to get between the fingers. Then the glove will slide up your hand nearly effortlessly. Plus this helps keep your hands dry and delays the onset “bathtub fingers.” Some gloves come pre-coated in powder, but I’ve found those are made more for doctors in air conditioned hospitals than for beekeepers dripping with sweat. There’s just not enough powder to overcome the amount of moisture we’re dealing with.

A travel-size bottle of baby powder goes a long way, and they’re so cheap and small that I keep them stashed wherever I have nitrile gloves—the bee kit, the garage, and the workshop. Just in case I need to glove up on a warm day.

← Can Hobby Beekeepers Make Money?Habitat, Habitat, Habitat →

Previous Posts

  • 2023
    • Dec 24, 2023 Should I Wrap My Hives for Winter?
    • Jan 2, 2023 Can Hobby Beekeepers Make Money?
  • 2022
    • Jun 18, 2022 The Impossible Task of Putting on Gloves with Sweaty Hands
    • Apr 17, 2022 Habitat, Habitat, Habitat
  • 2021
    • Dec 5, 2021 Best Gifts for Beekeepers, 2021
    • Sep 26, 2021 Why I Like Seeing Mites in My Hives
    • Jul 31, 2021 How to Extract Honey
    • Jun 13, 2021 Knowing When to Pull Honey Supers
    • Apr 11, 2021 Improving the Odds of Winter Survival
    • Mar 13, 2021 Oxalic Acid Approved for Use With Honey Supers
    • Jan 23, 2021 Your Beekeeping Calendar
  • 2020
    • Nov 21, 2020 Creating a Native Flower Garden
    • Oct 17, 2020 Best Gifts for Beekeepers, 2020
    • Aug 29, 2020 Beekeeping as a Gateway to Conservationism
    • Jun 13, 2020 Moving a Swarm into a Nearby Hive
    • May 3, 2020 Easy Solar Wax Melter
    • Apr 30, 2020 Invasion of the Asian Giant Hornet
    • Mar 18, 2020 A Quarantined Beekeeper
    • Feb 2, 2020 Skunk Fence
  • 2019
    • Dec 16, 2019 Easy Honey Bee Feeding Stations
    • Nov 17, 2019 Is Honey Vegan?
    • Nov 2, 2019 Best Gifts for Beekeepers, 2019
    • Oct 11, 2019 Mite Bomb!
    • Aug 11, 2019 Beekeeping is Backbreaking Work
    • Jun 15, 2019 Tracking Bloom Dates for Better Beekeeping
    • May 24, 2019 How Many Bee Stings Would it Take to Kill You?
    • Apr 26, 2019 Painted Hive Bricks
    • Mar 23, 2019 Swarm Traps Deployed
    • Feb 18, 2019 If Honey Were Firewood
    • Feb 2, 2019 Migrants: Honey Bees in the Almond Trees
    • Jan 5, 2019 Making Beeswax Candles
  • 2018
    • Nov 30, 2018 Best Gifts for Beekeepers, 2018
    • Nov 12, 2018 Keeping Entrances Free of Snow
    • Oct 20, 2018 Controlling Hive Moisture in the Winter
    • Sep 29, 2018 Goldenrod: Flower of Last Resort?
    • Aug 18, 2018 Are Wild Bees Healthier Than Kept Bees?
    • Jul 21, 2018 Honey is Thirsty
    • Jul 4, 2018 How to Split a Hive (Or Raise a Queen in a Queenless Colony)
    • May 31, 2018 The Sweetest of Clovers
    • May 17, 2018 How to Spot a Honey Flow
    • May 5, 2018 Having a Plan
    • Apr 28, 2018 Deep Deep vs Deep Medium
    • Apr 21, 2018 Specialists
    • Apr 5, 2018 Red Handed
    • Mar 24, 2018 How Bees Fly in Cold Weather
    • Mar 13, 2018 Survivor
    • Mar 2, 2018 Bee Smart Feeder
    • Feb 20, 2018 Catching Bees with a Swarm Trap
    • Feb 18, 2018 Skunk at the Bee Hive
    • Jan 27, 2018 Diagnosing a Winter Dead Out
    • Jan 21, 2018 Horrible Decision Yields Horrible Results
    • Jan 11, 2018 Rotten
    • Jan 11, 2018 Alive
  • 2017
    • Dec 29, 2017 Making Mead
    • Dec 26, 2017 First Test of My Bee Hive Snow Visors
    • Dec 22, 2017 Uh Oh...
    • Dec 15, 2017 A Rafter of Turkeys
    • Dec 8, 2017 Cold Fondant
    • Dec 1, 2017 Bee Paralysis Virus and What I'm Doing About It
    • Nov 25, 2017 Bees in a Construction Zone
    • Nov 18, 2017 Trees for Bees
    • Nov 13, 2017 Butt in the Air, Beekeeper Beware
    • Nov 8, 2017 We Like Our Animals Furry
    • Nov 7, 2017 Total Mite Load Recalculation
    • Nov 7, 2017 Supplemental Feeding
    • Nov 7, 2017 Counting Mite Falls
    • Nov 7, 2017 MiteCalculator.com Featured on Popular Beekeeping Podcast
    • Nov 7, 2017 Winterizing With Snow Visors
    • Nov 7, 2017 Two-Wheeled Honey Deliveries
    • Nov 7, 2017 Bees and Water
    • Nov 7, 2017 Storing Used Frames
    • Nov 7, 2017 Bees Working Cosmos Flowers

POWERED BY SQUARESPACE