Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: dfizer on October 06, 2013, 02:18:49 pm
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Hello all -
I am in the middle of harvesting my honey (today) and I have found one frame with some capped brood - they are emerging as I type this - however this doesn't help me during the harvest of honey.... One side of the frame is packed full of capped honey the other is 70% honey and the very middle has about 60 or so capped brood. I am using pierco frames so cutting it out is really not an option. I'd love to get the honey from this frame however I really don't want young bees / larva mixed in my honey.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I have never experienced this before. Each year before I have used queen excluders however this year I decided not to and nearly doubled my honey production. This decision has resulted in a little bit of a predicament though....
Help please.
David
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Put them back in a hive and wait for them to emerge or pull them out and kill them with a capping scratcher or give them a ride. Those are your options. It is your choice and business how you handle it.
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Your call,
But I would give that frame back to the bees. I am not that greedy. They can use it for winter stores.
I am also very new at all this. I opted going all medium boxes just so I can shuffle things around if i need to.
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I would give it back to the bees also.
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I would give it back to the bees also.
+1 :)
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A question rather than an answer. Could the frame be shifted to another position in the hive and maybe turned ???
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Each year before I have used queen excluders however this year I decided not to and nearly doubled my honey production. This decision has resulted in a little bit of a predicament though....
Help please.
David
David, Give it back. They worked hard for it. This time of year I think they should be rearing winter bees.
Ray
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A question rather than an answer. Could the frame be shifted to another position in the hive and maybe turned ???
If you really want this honey the best bet would be to put it above a queen excluder now and let the brood hatch out. Then harvest it later. I'm not sure about shifting positions.
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It's less than a full frame of honey - just put it back in - you won't miss it!
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Thank you everyone for the responses. I did exactly what was suggested - put it in an otherwise weak hive. Notwithstanding the fact, I don't really have a truly weak hive. This year I started with 3 hives and ended the year with 11 growing the bee yard organically via splits, one trapout, and adding bees from cutouts to the grass infront of the hives so that they join the hives. This year with all the splitting I harvested 19 gallons of honey from the 6 hives that had supers. I didn't think this was too bad given everything the split hives had been through (requeening etc etc).
I learned one very valuable lesson - there was one hive that was not in my bee yard that I couldn't get to easily, meaning I couldn't mess with that one. Well, at the end of the year, it had three full supers that were bulging to the max with honey. Lesson learned: sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing!!!!
Next year, given I am happy with the number of hives I have currently, I will only maintain and not split the hives like this year.
David
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Good call. One bit of advice for next year--Read up on swarm control. :-D
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Not only as swarm control as RHB suggests but mite control.
Splitting the hives as you did this year was breaking the mite's brood cycle (assuming you were letting the hives raise their own queens). If there's no interruption, the boogyman will be lurking!
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I would give it back to the bees also.
+2 :)