Next Sat. I will bee harvesting my honey!! I have been keeping bees for 4 yrs. now BUT the first year --no honey because of new foundation and new pkg. bees...Second year--I had two great hives BUT it rain everyday for what seems liks 5 months-- not much honey at all (30 lbs.).. Third year--I split my hives,added a couple more, feed them for months, added new queens and started out with a bang-BUT there was a heat wave with the drought and no one in NC made honey. This year--I added more hives, requeeened, had drawn foundation for almost all my hives, the weather has been perfect AND now I have approx. 30 med supers (completely full), and approx 25 frames (that I will pull from other supers), 4 deep supers and even my two nucs have med supers on them that are full. :D
PS remember- I have one really hot hive that is going to be requeened before the robbing.. How would you handle this???Week ahead, week later, day before????????
Now comes my questions: How do you prepare for you extracting day? Do you rob your honey and extract it on the same day? Do you have a tried and true method? What is the best way to rob, extract and bottle this much honey?? I have a little 'house' that is set up. I have an extractor (9 frame), I have purchased my jars, labels, decapping knife, pans, strainers, plastic 5 gal. buckets etc,etc...
Thanks for your suggestions, comments, and advise.. Thanks Debbie