Feeding Frenzy

After the harvest, I always put the dripping frames from crush and strain back onto the hives for the bees to clean them up.  So last week when we harvested, I did that - put the frames back onto the hives.  Probably this week I should take those boxes off of the hive because the bees will not draw any more wax this year.

Left in the filter buckets is the comb from the crushing and it always has some honey left on it.  In past years I've washed that comb and then put it in the solar wax melter.  For the past two years I have been putting the crushed comb out for the bees to clean up.  I put it far away enough from the hives to keep robbing from happening but close enough for them to find it (hopefully my bees find it and not bees of my neighbors).

Here's what it looked like at 7:24 this evening in the pan that I left out for the bees to clean:

They are upside down in the pan and having a field day cleaning up the comb from the harvest!

Harvesting the Stonehurst Honey

I had a great time harvesting the Stonehurst Place honey.  Caroline, the innkeeper, took some photos at the beginning (so I am in the photo for a change!) and then I took some pictures of the frames and the rest of the process.  We got about 80 pounds of honey from the two hives (from the two harvest visits) which is remarkable since the hives just got started this year at Stonehurst.

Click on the slideshow to see it full screen and with captions.

What Not To Do .... When Harvesting Honey

I think it's funny that there's a current TV show called "What Not to Wear." This is a post about What Not to Do.....

I harvested today and my honey was various colors, so I decided to keep the light honey separate from the dark. Then I found some frames that seemed like maybe medium honey - neither dark nor light. I have two set up harvesting buckets. I also have a bucket that my brother gave me.

I ran to the sunporch, screwed in the honey gate which was lying in the bottom of the bucket and set the filters on the bucket. Then I put what looked like medium honey crushed into that container. I carried all three outside to let the Hotlanta heat hasten the filter process.

A few minutes into it, I went outside to put out the dripping cardboard for the bees to clean up. I looked over and there were way too many bees flying in the vicinity of my filtering buckets.



Horrors! The honey gate on Barry's bucket was open and leaking. I picked up the bucket, tilted it so the honey would not be pressing at the gate and redid the closure on the bucket. Meanwhile all of this honey was on the ground and the bees were all over the place, sucking it up.



My clean up after harvest included bringing two sheets of cardboard out to the carport for the bees to clean up and putting out the silicone mats I used for crushing for the bees as well.



I also put the dripping frames into an empty super and put them over the inner cover in Lenox Pointe for the bees to clean up.

And I hung the towel on the porch railing that I had draped over the nucs for transporting honey into the house.  The towel had drippings on it from cappings that got damaged in the transfer and the bees had a field day.

Second Super Harvested This Season

Collecting honey from the beehives was a challenge because since I unexpectedly have eight (8) hives (!!!!!) I don't have any extra medium boxes.

When I take off a super from a hive, I shake each frame to free it of bees and put the bee-free frame into an empty super to take inside. When the super is filled, I carry in the frames to harvest. Because I have NO empty boxes, I didn't know how I was going to clear out the super from Mellona today. Looking in my bee equipment in the basement, I found this box from a bee order that was just the right size to hold honey-laden frames. It saved the day!



Mellona makes gorgeous honey - this hive produced lovely honey last year and this year is no exception. The frames from this super were perfectly capped frames of honey - what great bees grow up in this hive.

The frame below is sitting on top of a queen excluder because I am about to make cut comb honey with this lovely comb and the queen excluder is the best drain rack there is. The wires are close enough together to avoid causing damage to the comb.



When I cut the honey comb off of the frames I stacked the dripping frames in an extra honey bucket. The small amount of honey that drained off into this bucket will be unfiltered. I don't want to mix it with my beautiful filtered honey so I will save it to be fed back to the bees. The opaque looking sheet is my flexible cutting board from the crush and strain I did today. (Note: less than 8 ounces of honey drained into this bucket and I put it in a small bottle to give to the bees, when needed)

After I had harvested all 10 frames from this super, I put the dripping leftovers into my only empty medium super (the one I took off of Mellona to harvest these). I put the medium box with the dripping frames on the new swarm hive (whoops, need a name for this one!) The bees there will have the advantage of the dripping honey since I am not feeding them and they can use the frames to build new comb and work hard.



I believe I'll call the new hive Hyron² since it is a swarm hive and is exponentially vigorous compared to the original Hyron.

The Small Swarm Nuc Has a QUEEN!

Today I opened the small swarm nuc and was greeted by many happy bees. I crossed my fingers that there was a queen. I checked the first frame from the old nuc - darkest one in the picture - no activity. I checked the second where I found capped honey around empty cells where the borrowed brood from Bermuda had long since emerged, but no eggs or larvae.

Then I took out the third frame and there it was - many, many cells of very, very young larvae, larvae in every stage - in the upper center you can see a larvae being capped. I saw eggs - she is there this very minute doing her queenly duties.

How exciting is that! Between my efforts to give them brood and eggs and their incredible ingenuity that allows them to create a queen - not to mention that the queen survived her mating flight and returned to the hive to start her job, I now have a new hive started!

WOW!

I really feel like a beekeeper now - one year and two months into this endeavor.

Other items from this morning's inspection:

I also returned honey dripping frames to Proteus for clean-up but didn't disturb the hive since it hasn't been a week yet since I put the queen excluder in place. The harvested honey frames I had were from removing 6 frames in the full honey super above Box 1. This meant that I had 6 dripping frames and 4 SC starter strip frames to put on the box.

Since Queen Bee in Box 3 is working on the right side of the hive and mostly laying in the right side frames, I put the 6 dripping frames on the left of the box and the 4 SC frames on the right of the box so it would be over the brood area. We'll see what happens.

I peeked into Bermuda and they were working away.

When I got to Mellona, I took the box of beautifully capped honey that I am going to make cut comb or chunk honey with off of the hive. I did this in a back-friendly way using two empty supers. I took one frame at a time off of the hive, shook the bees off, and put it in an empty super covered by a sheet. When I had five full frames in that super, I carried it inside to my kitchen. I then took an empty 8 frame medium box and put the other five frames into it.

When I do this usually I shake the bees on the individual frames back into the hive, holding the frame over the open hive. I had closed the hive up by the time I got to these last five frames so I shook the frames in front of the door. Bees fell on the deck in front of the hive in the cluster you can see in the picture.

I left the open box on the ground beside the hive so the remaining bees can make their way back to the hive on their own timetable. Within 10 minutes there were no bees on the ground or in the empty super.

It dawned on me as I got ready for work this morning that I need to put a super on Mellona - they now have no space and I won't harvest this cut comb honey until Tuesday night, so I'll hurry and get a box ready for Mellona to keep them having enough room to be happy.

Note: I came home at lunch time and took the now bee-free box sitting beside Mellona and filled it with frames from last year out of my freezer that had comb remnants on them for starters for the bees. I threw a helmet on over my work suit, went out in my sandals to the hives, opened Mellona, and added this super now filled with frames for the bees to use for themselves.

News about the shallow above the inner cover

Well, it's hard to explain what is going on. In the Destin hive, the middle hive body feels heavy and full of honey. They had moved some of the honey out of the super above the inner cover into the medium below. (It was 79 degrees in Atlanta on Friday so I felt safe to open the hives).

As you can see they stored pollen in one of the frames. In one frame it looked as if they were raising brood (above the inner cover???).

In Bermuda, they had moved very little honey into the lower hive bodies and the medium hive body on Bermuda felt lighter than the one on Destin. The last two pictures are from Bermuda where they appeared to have capped some of the honey but have not moved much if any.

I left both supers above the inner cover. I'll consult with the beekeepers at the Metro Beekeepers meeting on Tuesday and see what they advise. I believe anyone would say that it's a relative decision. If the bees appear to need the honey, then leave it there. If not, take the super off.

I plan to leave the supers above the inner cover a little longer. In Atlanta we have days with temps above 65 interspersed throughout the early winter, so I'll get to go back in the hives again, probably after Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving. I'll not be posting to the blog again until after Thanksgiving unless some exciting bee news comes my way while eating turkey!