Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: Chad S on July 18, 2005, 11:31:43 am

Title: Extraction 7-16
Post by: Chad S on July 18, 2005, 11:31:43 am
This is my second year working with bees, but I had never done any of the extracting.  I borrowed a four frame crank spinner, capping fork, strainer, and a couple of five gallon buckets with gates from my bee partner.  I had five deep frames.  Three shallow suppers, plus a few shallow frames.  Never having seen honey extracted from frames it took me a bit to figure out what I was doing.  I looked in the tank after I had done about 8 frames, and I was wondering where the honey had gone.  So I put the bucket and strainer under the spout, and opened it up.  Out came beautiful golden honey.  Full Bore with no sign of letting up.  I had let the tank fill up to amost the bottom of the basket, and not realized it.  I ended up filling both buckets to with in 5" if the top.  Some where around 110-120 lb. honey given that 5gal. is 72Lb.  Not bad considering that I started on foundation this spring.  

So I went from thinking that I wanted to build up to 10 colonies to wondering what would have happened if all five of my colonies were as productive as my best hive.  I put the wet supers back on, and let them clean out the incomplete supers.  I will use the drawn deep frames for the second hive body of a split that I have to give them a head start.  There are some supers out ther that are about 85% done so I figure in about a month or so I will go back for more honey.
Title: Re: Extraction 7-16
Post by: stilllearning on July 20, 2005, 07:55:57 am
Quote from: Chad S
I will use the drawn deep frames for the second hive body of a split that I have to give them a head start.  There are some supers out ther that are about 85% done so I figure in about a month or so I will go back for more honey.


Useing the drawn comb is a good idea. But if  you have supers that are
85% capped, waiting over a month to check is a long time unless you have
a lot of extra room in the hive. Under right conditions some of my hives
would complete that last 15 % in just a very few days be out of room bearding and probably on the way to swaring this time of year, I took a
nice swarm last week.