Jar comb honey

[beehappy1950]

Anybody put jars on top of hive and let bees fill with comb honey? Would like to know how you get the bees out of the jar so you can fill with honey. Harold Thanks.

[biggraham610]

Saw a nice spread on it on another site, will try and find the link. G :chop:

[Spear]

I'm going to try this next year and use an escape board to get the bees out the jars...

[AllenF]

A little smoke to blow the bees out or they might leave on their own after the cells are capped.  You will have to crowd the bees a bit to make comb honey in jars.  Like when making ross rounds. 

[poited]

Fat bee man
youtube.com/watch?v=Dl9iGjP_Lu4
You would think when the honey is capped the bees will no longer go into the jars, if they do just use an escape board.

[BeeMaster2]

Fat bee man
youtube.com/watch?v=Dl9iGjP_Lu4
You would think when the honey is capped the bees will no longer go into the jars, if they do just use an escape board.

Just use a fume board with some Bee Quick on it.
A qlass cake dish cover works real nice. It is easier to get them to use than a small jar. Keep an eye out at yard sales for them.
Jim

[oliver]

With little air circulation, how does this cure?

[D Coates]

I did it last year and I'll be setting up one of my hives for it this weekend.  It's specialized and definitely unique but not that hard to do.  Not a huge seller but I do charge $25 per jar.

[beehappy1950]

Yes bigrahm610. I seen one somewhere but cant find it now. Didnt have enough hives to play with much back then but times have changed.

[asprince]

I made a super several years ago that will hold twelve wide mouth jars but never used it. I read where you may have to put a thin layer of wax in the bottom of the jar to coax them into building.


Steve

[BeeMaster2]

I made a super several years ago that will hold twelve wide mouth jars but never used it. I read where you may have to put a thin layer of wax in the bottom of the jar to coax them into building.


Steve

I tried putting a thin line of wax in the bottom of the jars. They did not use them. I did not pack the bees I tight enough to get them to go into the jars.
Jim

[asprince]

Maybe D Coates can give us some pointers.


Steve

[Dallasbeek]

Look at the detailed description at the website Honey Bee Suite, in a thread called Comb Honey in Glass Jars, where Rusty also has a link to a paper by Oregon beekeeper Morris Ostrofsky.  Rusty's husband drilled out a Mann Lake winter cover to take small-mouth mason jars and cut pieces of foundation then formed starter strips inside the jars.  Good photos and description on doing this trick.  I think the starter strip idea is the key to giving the bees an idea of what to do in the jars.

Gary

[RayMarler]

Link to comb honey in glass jars...

http://www.honeybeesuite.com/comb-honey-in-glass-jars/

[D Coates]

Maybe D Coates can give us some pointers.

Steve

All I do is get some white comb or foundation (+/- 1" x 1"), put the bottom of a jar in a shallow pan of simmering water (no water inside the jar).  Let the glass heat up.  After a couple minutes pull the glass and put it on the counter.  Immediately put the wax in there standing straight up (I use chop sticks to hold it upright).  Hold it until it cools and stands there on its own.

Get a sheet of plywood and drill as many 1.5 inch holes in it as you have glass jars that will fit.  I can only do 1 dozen pint jars per hive.  Make sure they have clearance from each other as well as the empty super and outer cover you'll put over them to keep them protected.  Put the plywood on and turn the jars over so the bees have access to ONLY to the inside of the jars.  They'll use the wax melted to the now top as a starter strip.  Cover the whole set up with an empty super and outer cover and walk away.  You can check them all you want by popping the outer cover off and peering down in there.  Like any comb honey they've got to be pressed for space and the flow has got to be going for them to draw it out.

If the flow ends before they are finished, get some honey add a little water and put in a feeder jar.  Replace the least drawn jar with this feeder jar.  Keep refilling this feeder jar until they are finished.  Once capped, invert, fill the remain space with honey and sell.  The novelty alone gets attention and sales.

[Dallasbeek]

D Coates,  what kind of premium over extracted honey are we talking about?  Sounds like a lot of work (and risk of swarming) unless the reward is worth it.  But it sounds like fun :bee:

[D Coates]

Depends.  I was selling my 1# for $7 and my 2# for $12 and my 24oz jar drawn comb for $20 (I was wrong claiming $25, that's what my 5# goes for).  I'll be going up this year to $8, $14, and $22 respectively as I sold out too fast last year.  Again, I don't sell a ton of them but the novelty alone draws customers in.  Once there, they normally end up getting something, honey, soap, wax, candles etc.  I've not had swarm issues with using them.  I put them on double deep hives with 2-3 supers that are at least mostly capped.  Remove one of the supers to condense the population (put it on a weak but queenright hive to defend) and put this on.

I just put mine on yesterday above a capped super and a comb honey super that's 90% complete and they're fast at work in there