I was checking my supers yesterday and found only about 20% of it is capped. Here in wisconsin at this time of year it is normaly farther along. I talked to anothe beekeeper and he said he also was concerned about this. Any ideas?? It has been very cool and wet this year and I'm thinking that could be the problem. Thanks for the input
:) Hello there,
I too am having the same kind of situation, the supers are full of honey but only 20 to 30 percent capped, and we have had a VERY RECORD breaking wet season this year...does that affect the capping of the supers? I would love to know the answer to this too....and should we just go ahead and take it off the hive and spin? I know one year we did this and it leaked a bit but not much at all...and wondering if we shouldn't just go ahead and pull....and spin ....i so want that honey tehee...but any help at all on if the supers have to be a certain percentage cappedbefore recommended pulling would be great...i know it makes them work more to cap and wondering if it would just be as efficient to go ahead and pull and place another for them to work on filling.....any ideas?????????????????? :?
thanks everyone and thanks for all the sharing of great knowledge on here....
atthelake22
I was always told it should be 70 to 80% capped before extracting. otherwise the honey is to high in moisture and will not keep. Anybody have other thoughts please advise. I still have plenty of time to harvest but I'm getting greedy to catch some of the late summer sales. Dan
Give it time, they'll cap it when it's ready. Also, shift a few boxes on your hives so that there is a gap between them. This will let more air circulate through the hive, thus speeding up the honey's curing time.
they will cap it, I got in the habit of never pulling uncapped honey, I only pull frames that are 90%+ capped, never had a problem with fermenting honey.