Full But Not Capped Frames

[DrKurtG]

Well it has been about five of six days now that the frames in both supers are laden with honey, but the bees refuse to cap any of it. Actually, of the twenty frames, four in the lower super are capped and none in the upper are. Sourwood should be hitting in the next week or so and I'm afraid that I will miss it.

Should I go ahead and process the uncapped honey? I would assume that it has evaporated to the 18% water but maybe the cells aren't full enough to satisfy the bees.

[Robo]

I wouldn't extract until it is mostly capped.   But if you do decide, a good rule of thumb is to give the uncapped frame a shake.  If you can't shake any honey out, it is usually safe to extract.

[DrKurtG]

Thank you Robo. That is great advice. The other thing is using my fume board. I have Bee-Quick so it doesn't have the nasty butyric acid in it. However, if the cells are uncapped, could it affect the taste of the honey? I generally only use two or three squirts on the entire fume board felt.

Thanks again for the help.

[KONASDAD]

you can also provide additional ventilation which will help bees reduce moisture and cap more quickly. When its really hot and soupy I have to crack my woodenware a litle to get the last frames capped. I also remove capped rames, which means more bees per frame and this also helps capping. I do this about 4 days before i extyract, remove capped frames, reduce boxes and uncapped frames into one box, put them on biggets hive and they will cap it quickly.