Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: romduck on October 13, 2004, 02:28:19 pm
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I am a beginning (2nd year) beekeeper in Western Connecticut who has some questions about my first time honey harvest.
1) The frames of the shallows that I have just taken off the hives have about 50% capped honey in neat, even rows in the middle and 50% uncapped honey in very deep comb (much deeper than the capped honey) all around the outside of the frames. I had to take my shallows off this week because I have found someone who is willing to help me spin the frames.
a. Is the uncapped honey indicative of a late honey flow, or something else?
b. Is there anything else that I should be doing for this late honey flow, if that’s what it is?
2) Using the bee escape for the first time has gone well. Boy, do the bees seem really packed in there after I’ve taken off those honey supers. As I set the hives up for Fall/Winter (medication, wrap, etc.) is there something that I should be doing about this too?
3) I have seen posts suggesting taking Deeps partially filled with honey and placing them about 100 ft from the hives so that the bees can pick out the honey and tuck it away in the Deeps that are still on the hive. The idea here being to
a. Not waste the honey.
b. Not leave a great deal of extra space in the hive for wax moths.
c. Not cause the bees to work their way up into a super only partially filled with honey.
Any thoughts here?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Locally I’ve received conflicting information from only semi-reliable sources and this forum has been a great help in the past!
Rom Duckworth
:?:
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Never remove any honey from the brood chamber.
The uncapped honey is most likely from a late flow or it could have been previously capped and ripe and the bees are taking it down into the brood chamber. Some will say, 'never take any uncapped honey - it's not ripe.' What I do with uncapped honey frames is to shake them with the comb facing down -- If any honey comes out - ANY - even a small drop, I do not extract that frame.
After extracting the honey, I put the empty supers with the sticky frames back on the hive --over the inner cover. this is better than 100 feet away because the bees don't have to fly to get to it and it would be a real nucience since there will be a few thousand bees flying around the supers
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I agree, never remove any honey from the brood chamber. Take only surplus honey that the bees have placed in the supers.
As far as extracting honey from partially capped frames, I only do rhis if 90% or more of the cells on a frame are capped. The only exception that I allow to this rule is if I have 10 fully capped frames, I will throw in an uncapped frame if the honey is as stiff as leominsterbeeman describes. This way I'm still only allowing 10% of the honey to be uncapped.
Today I removed from my five hives 92 fully capped frames of honey. I also have about 10 to 15 frames that are at least 50% capped. As I extract from 10 of my fully capped frames I'll throw in one that is only 50% capped. This assures me that my honey will not have an excess of moisture in it and therefore won't ferment in storage.
Like Leominsterbeeman, once I extract the honey from the frames I replace them in the hives above the inner cover. I do this in the hives that I fell might need a little extra to see them through the winter. This allows the bees to fill up any less than full frames in the brood boxes. It also prevents the bees from fighting it out in the field for any frames that I might put out for them. It's been shown that when you place food out in the open for the bees, the stronger colonies are the ones that get the most from it and this is not what I want.
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I have allways taken honey from brood frames. It depends if it is worth doig. If frame has open larvas, do not take them. If all are capped, you can extract the honey. If frame has a lot of pollen, it is no use to exctract it.
If honey is uncapped and bees do not get honey outside any more, it is better take away. Uncapped honey has too much water and you can dry it if you put in the little room, where you put thermostate managed 2000 w warming with propeller air mover,. If you give 2-3 days 35 C "dry air handling", exrta water is gone. In the room it must be a little ventilation. I have warming champer for honey before spin, and it dryes upp too much if it is 5 days in the champer.
To put honey outside is not good at all. Bees lick honey from combs, if you put tha box on the top of hive and youi close all entrances taht no robbers can go in.
If you put honey in the open space other bees fron the distance 1-2 km will come to rob combs and you get a mesh. Also your own bees fights against each other and that is not good at all.
And afteter robbing all honey just give 15-20 kg sugar for winter :D
Do not think bees' emotions, they are slaves, not your lovers.
I live into hive about 5 kg honey for winter and give 20 kg sugar. Our winter is at least 2 moths longer than your in USA. Just now we have had a little bit frost here all the week.