10/16/10: Honey Removal and First Extraction

Conditions: Sunny, 58F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 11:30 am. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:

New Hive: Took about 5 more frames of capped honey. All dark honey.

Old Hive: Took an entire super of capped honey. Some of this is fall honey that was light in color, which is surprising. Vast majority was dark honey.

I did not observe any varroa in either hive, though we didn't go down lower than the supers. This is still surprising given the time of year and the fact I have not done any treatment this year (did powdered sugar last year).

A combination of 10 shallow frames were removed from a the hives on 9/30/10 and stored in a large rubbermaid tote. An additional 19 frames were removed the morning of 10/16/10 (frames that were full on 9/30/10, but drying and largely uncapped). All 29 frames were extracted in about 3.5 hours with two people working (though who did the work traded off a bit)

We set up the extractor on a raised platform of cinder blocks and a wood pallet. The extractor was placed on (and later anchored to) the pallet. We allowed the honey to freely drain from the extractor into an intermediate pail from which we dumped the honey into a nylon strainer (course filter). The filtered honey was stored in 8 gallon pails with lids, one each of light and dark honey.

We used a combination of electric uncapping knife and serrated bread knife stored in hot water to uncap on a baking tray, with capping wax/honey stored in a separate bucket for later separation.

It was a blast! The boys (3 and half) even took their turns spinning honey in the extractor.

Lessons Learned (and tips for next year):

1) There are lots of sticky jobs during extraction. A tip I read to keep a bucket of warm water around to rinse your hands or tools was VERY useful. Next year I think I'll do two, one for the majority of the honey and a "second" that just gets the sticky honey water from the first off.
2) The honey will spill and drip. Cover with newspaper all high traffic areas BEFORE starting. This includes around the extractor, uncapping area and work surfaces, and the pathways from uncapping to extractor and from extractor to filter bucket.
3) The extractor sometimes gets off balance and shakes or tips. Screw it down BEFORE you spin anything.
4) Lots of bees tried to get in. We placed a fan in the window on the edge of the building to blow the honey smell in one direction. The bees gathered outside of that window instead of all over the outside of the honey house, including the door where we occasionally needed to exit and enter through. This worked really well.
5) We killed any bees we found in the shed. Sorry ladies, but this was surplus honey and we weren't going to give it back. I was not concerned about a few bees in the honey house so much as a few scouts telling the whole hive the secret to how to slip in and out of the honey house where "the motherload" was hidden.
6) We extracted on a day that is not hot, but warm enough for bees to fly. This meant any bucket, tray, knife, frames, etc that we were no longer needing could just be placed outside for the bees to clean up, which they did eagerly.

Our yield was approximately 65 pounds of honey, 20 light "spring" honey (very fragrant) and 45 dark "fall" honey (mellow and rich). We let it rest 24 hours for bubbles to settle out. I began bottling last night with a ladel and funnel. Next year a bottling bucket with a honey gate valve would be a nice addition, especially if we do lots of little bottles for sale. This harvest will be enough to split with Bud and hopefully get us to the next harvest. I think we'll be increasing the number of hives and might try our hand at marketing some honey. There are a number of neighbors, co-workers, and farmers who have expressed interest in buying our honey.

9/30/10: Inspection and honey removal

Conditions: Sunny, 65F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:

New Hive: Took about 5 frames of capped honey. More frames of uncapped honey present. Will return again before extracting for the fall. 2 more weeks?

Old Hive: Same as new hive. Also removed a super that was nearly empty with no real new comb to speak of.

The weather has been good with enough rain and plenty of warm, sunny days. We're going to have a fall harvest after all!

10/1/09: 11th Inspection and Sugar-Dusting

Conditions: Sunny, 61F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: Removed honey supers (empty). Installed screened bottom board on Russian hive.
Activities: Smoked hives about 4:45pm. Inspected all frames in honey and food supers (directly above the deeps where the brood nests are). Sugar-dusted for varroa control.
Observations: We finally had a break in the cold weather to make some needed equipment changes and check on the bees. It's been cold and wet for many days, and today was a window of 60s and sun, with rain forecast for the next week or so.

The Russian colony had not stored anything or built any comb in the honey super we put on it. It was overly optimistic to get some honey from them in this first year. We removed it and replaced the old plastic bottom board with a screened bottom board for varroa control. We used the bellows to sugar-dust them for the second time (first dusting 8/29/09) to encourage mite-drop through the bottom board. I did spot a live varroa which dropped through the screen bottom board once grooming had started after the dusting. The food super directly above the deep was packed with capped honey, wall to wall. They are taking sugar syrup from the pail top feeder, but not very aggressively. We saw a few drones on the old bottom board when we swapped it out, but much fewer than earlier in the year. They appear to be getting the boot from the ladies, which is typical with the onset of cold weather. Looks like all is well.

The Italian colony had built some small areas of comb in the top honey super on maybe 4 or 5 frames and began to fill it with sugar syrup. Nothing was capped yet. We removed this as another "empty" super and, since it was not cured and not honey from nectar, will allow the bees to clean it up outside the hive and bring it back if they see fit. If they are still flying once the rain stops, that is. This colony also had filled the food super directly above the deep with capped honey. There was some brood up in the center frames of this super, one larvae still being capped, so if the queen has stopped laying, it was within the past week. We thoroughly sugar dusted these gals, too. They previously received a screened bottom board during the first sugar dusting on 8/29/09.

We did not delve into the deeps (brood chambers) of either hive in order to be minimally disruptive on this cool day and therefore not chill any brood. With the food supers filled, we suspect whatever is not currently filled with brood is also capped honey. Both hives are ready to be relocated about 10 miles away to our new home. We have less than 2 weeks to move them, so the next post will be our hive moving adventure. Glad we got in today to take off empty supers and swap out that bottom board!