First Time Harvest

PhilK · January 06, 2016, 07:16:12 AM

G'day,

My mate and I have two hives that we have put supers on a few weeks ago - hive A is going gangbusters and will be ready for a harvest soon. Hive B is not going as well so will take longer.. I have a logistical question about the first time I harvest honey.. they're probably very obvious but I thought I would post them up anyway.

When we remove the super and take the frames out to be decapped and spun out.. what do we do with the hive in the meantime? We don't have any spare frames of foundation or comb or anything. Do we put the empty super back on for a few hours, or do we need to order some foundation frames and put those in? I assume when we spin the honey out of the frames we can replace those stickies in, but in the meantime what do we do? I thought foundation would be counter intuitive because the bees would need to start building comb again from scratch instead of just filling cells.

Cheers

GSF · January 06, 2016, 07:23:04 AM

Some folks set them out for the bees to clean up. In my yard this will create robbing. Others put them back on the hive, this too creates robbing in my yard. I'll put them back on around dark and close the entrance down to one bee. By morning the strong honey smell will be diminished and robbing will be less likely.

iddee · January 06, 2016, 09:41:07 AM

Remove the super and take it to the house. Close up the hive. The bees will be fine.
Remove the honey and return the empty super and frames to the hive afterward. They will begin to refill it.
No need to put anything on the hive while extracting.
DO NOT wait a few days to extract. The SHB will destroy your honey after you remove the super.

PhilK · January 09, 2016, 01:46:10 AM

Do you mean take the super off, and replace the lid onto the brood box? Where will all the bees go that can't fit? Will they just hang around for a bit?

iddee · January 09, 2016, 07:19:00 AM

yes

BeeMaster2 · January 09, 2016, 07:22:56 AM

The bees will have enough space. They will fill the brood nest just packed a little tighter. If there are more bees than space they will beard the front of the hive. When you get done extracting and have the supers back on the hive, buy or build at least 2 more supers and have them ready to add to the hive. Sounds like you need them.
Jim

Acebird · January 09, 2016, 09:58:52 AM

One day won't make a difference but if you got tied up with something else and couldn't get the supers on right away I would want another box on so they don't get the idea of filling the brood nest. Foundation would be great because they would draw it out.

PhilK · January 10, 2016, 07:32:48 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on January 09, 2016, 07:22:56 AM
The bees will have enough space. They will fill the brood nest just packed a little tighter. If there are more bees than space they will beard the front of the hive. When you get done extracting and have the supers back on the hive, buy or build at least 2 more supers and have them ready to add to the hive. Sounds like you need them.
Jim

If you see my other threads I think you are dead right! We are ordering more boxes now. Didn't realise how fast hives can grow!

What is the preferred method to remove bees from the supers? We only have two supers so can probably manually remove each frame and remove the bees from said frame, but I imagine that is a fairly tedious process... I know you can get escape boards but we don't have one. I have seen supers being tilted onto their sides but don't understand how this works. Do the bees just leave?

Joe D · January 11, 2016, 02:07:16 AM

Yep, during a good flow they can build up numbers and fill supers fairly quick. I try to keep a watch on mine and take off enough supers to put one on each hive after extracting. When extracting, you don't want to bee real close to the bees unless you have a place where they can't get to you and the honey. It will make it difficult, been there done that. When you get your first honey it will probably be the best you ever tasted.

Good luck to you and your bees,

Joe D

Dallasbeek · January 11, 2016, 12:40:56 PM

[/quote]

I know you can get escape boards but we don't have one. I have seen supers being tilted onto their sides but don't understand how this works. Do the bees just leave?
[/quote]

Escape boards look like a great idea. I bought one, then read that small hive beetles can have a party when the bees are excluded from the super, so I've never used it. A lot of people use Bee Go or something to move the bees out of the super quickly. I've just done one frame at a time, since I'm not after a big harvest. Good luck.

Gary

GSF · January 11, 2016, 09:51:11 PM

Joe D brought up a good point about being away from your bees or in a place where they can't get to you. I opened my shed doors and it took about 10 to 15 minutes for about a hundred bees to show up.

PhilK · January 11, 2016, 10:07:28 PM

Thanks for the tip! We have a kitchen that can be sealed off from the outside world easily. Will throw a big tarp down to minimise mess too!

We did have some surplus burr comb that we tasted the other day and I must admit I didn't expect it to be nearly as tasty as it was. Amazing!

KeyLargoBees · January 12, 2016, 06:12:33 AM

Leafblower ;-)

D Coates · January 12, 2016, 11:02:02 AM

I first use fume board to get 90% of them out. I then quickly blow out the remainder.

This is what I use for the blowing along with the hose kit accessory. http://www.billygoat.com/Product-Categories/Detail/f6-small-property-residential