Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => TOP BAR HIVES - WARRE HIVES - LONG HIVES => Topic started by: CAHighwind on July 11, 2010, 11:17:48 pm

Title: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: CAHighwind on July 11, 2010, 11:17:48 pm

I hived these bees from a package in mid-April.  Now they have all the bars in the top bar hive drawn out and either packed with capped honey or brood/eggs.  Wanting to give them more room, I pulled one comb of the capped honey yesterday for ye olde crush and strain.  From that, I got 16 ounces of lemonade yellow, very tasty honey.  They are out here on acres and acres of wildflowers.

(http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/5940/honey2010012.th.jpg) (http://img706.imageshack.us/i/honey2010012.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

No one in real life here appreciates my enthusiasm for this so I reckoned I would show y'all.

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: luvin honey on July 11, 2010, 11:56:21 pm

That's beautiful! Isn't that first honey a wonderful experience?

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: buzzbee on July 12, 2010, 08:19:10 pm

We certainly share your enthusiasm. It looks quite tasty! Thanks for taking the time to share with us!

Looking at your profile pic,are you a ghostbuster?

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: AllenF on July 12, 2010, 08:22:14 pm

How long did you feed your top bar bees?

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: hardwood on July 12, 2010, 09:38:42 pm

Wow, that got my mouth to waterin'! Bring on the biscuits!!

Scott

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: alfred on July 12, 2010, 10:06:25 pm

Yum!!

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: CAHighwind on July 12, 2010, 11:32:04 pm

In fact, I did make biscuits yesterday to eat it on!

I fed these guys for 3 weeks after installing them, stopped feeding in the beginning of May.  By then they were going great guns, and my hives have all put on a ton of honey weight since then.  I kept adding more bars to the hive every week until it was all filled out.  This bar had been drone comb, and had been back filled with honey the last few weeks.

As for my pic... yeah, that's me as a Ghostbuster. I reckon I'm a collector of weird hobbies.

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: Hethen57 on July 13, 2010, 07:27:38 pm

Nice looking honey...it looks like mine did last summer, really light and sweet from wild flowers and knapweed.  Next thing you know, you will have enough extra to get into another "wierd" hobby...Meadmaking (honey wine).  That was my progression of "wierd" bee hobbies  :roll:.  Now I have a basement utility room full of cases of the stuff (it's aging)...

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: AllenF on July 13, 2010, 07:31:00 pm

So you are a Ghostbuster in your spare time.   Just where do you find a good working Proton Pack now days?

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: CAHighwind on July 14, 2010, 07:08:29 pm

One has to build their own proton pack these days, unless you wish to spend a pretty penny, I built mine...

(http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/1213/2278610.th.jpg) (http://img684.imageshack.us/i/2278610.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

Back to bees, though...
In my other hives, when I've occasionally had to take out honey filled burr comb, it's all been light like this.  I hope to get more maybe this year.  As for mead making, I'm already very interested in giving it a shot when I have ample supplies of honey going on!

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: AllenF on July 15, 2010, 02:13:59 pm

Who You Gonna Call? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKB7zfopiUA&feature=channel#ws)

Title: Re: First Honey From My Top Bar
Post by: alfred on July 15, 2010, 09:06:32 pm

That was pretty good!