Comb Honey

[SherryL]

Hi everyone!  

It's me, the DE Hive girl   ... I'm back!!!

Hey, does anyone out there do comb honey?  I'm going to give it a shot this year, wondering if you have any tips.
I've ordered a Ross super (will use a conversion board to modifiy the fit to my hives) and some extra frames and rings, ect.  Anything special I should consider?

sherry

[Horns Pure Honey]

I havent personaly tried comb honey but there are a few people on here I know that do, I am shure they will all give you great info, bye :D

[Michael Bush]

>It's me, the DE Hive girl  ... I'm back!!!

I have four of them.

>I've ordered a Ross super (will use a conversion board to modifiy the fit to my hives)

What does your adapter look like?  Mine is just some 3/4" by 3/4" boards with two underneath the ends of the Langstroth super and two on top of the DE box (and on the sides of the Lanstroth) with a drilled and countersunk screw in each corner to hold them together.

> and some extra frames and rings, ect. Anything special I should consider?

I haven't tried it on my DE hives.  But the main secret to any cassette system is to crowd the bees into the supers.  A cut down split is the standard method to accomplish this.  Basically you take all the open brood and all the honey and put it in a split.  Leaving all the capped brood at the old location.  You now have only one brood box at the old location with all of the field bees and half the nurse bees and all of the emerging brood.  This crowds all of the field bees up into the supers.  The old saying "you can raise bees or honey" is not quite true.  If you do a cut down split it you can make one hive raise bees (the split) and the other raise honey.  :)

[SherryL]

So Michael, if you don't mind me asking, how is it you have 4 DE's?  Do you love them?  I don't own any Lang. so I can't really compare.  Well, that's sort of true - when I got my bees last year, they came in a nuc, so I rigged up a conversion board out of plywood right off the bat.  But, for comparison sake, I only know a DE hive.  I've had no problems with them.  I started with 2, I have 3 now, and if I decide to increase my hive numbers, I'll stick with the DE's.

I keep my bees on my property in far N. Wis., so I was primarily concerned with them wintering well (the reason I opted for the DE's).  Well, only 1 of my 3 hives made it through the winter, the two that died, died of starvation (bees facing into the comb - not an ounce of pollen or drop of honey left).  I feel so badly, like it was my fault, but I had 3 deeps on the one hive, heavy, heavy, loaded with honey in Oct. (when I wrapped them), and second one was only 2 deeps, but it too was loaded.  The hive that survived was only 2 deep, but had fewer bees.  In the end, I guess the smallest hive (the one I would have guessed to go first) had the advantage.

I unwrapped the hives last week - per my neighbor, the surviving hive had been flying for a couple of weeks prior to that (she also mentioned that there was no activity from 2 of the hives back in March already).  The surviving hive was loaded with bees.  I did a very brief check as it was a cool morning and they weren't flying yet, but I had to leave (a 6 hour drive in front of me).  I checked a couple of frames, covered them back up, added another deep with drawn frame, put a 5 gallon top feeder (bucket) on and kissed them goodbye.

As for the adapter board .... last year I used one to accomodate a nuc.  Made it out of plywood, it worked fine until it got too wet and started to warp.  I'll go ahead and use some 3/4" this time and make up something a little (alot) more permanent.  

Not sure what you mean by "cut down split".  Are you saying insert the Ross box between the brood boxes?  :shock:  Also, I haven't read any information about this next question either way, but do people put more than one Ross super on a hive at a time?  There are 32 rounds in a box.  I'll for sure be starting with just the one, but for future reference, just wondering if they can (or should) be stacked like you would regular honey supers.

Thanks for your imput Michael!

sherry

[Robo]

Hi Sherry,

Long time since we've seen you.  Like everything else in beekeeping, there are tons of different methods used to do the same things.  As Michael stated, most methods share the same principals just different ways of accomplishing it.  For successful comb honey, you need to crowd the bees,  and at the same time try and prevent them from swarming.  This is usually done by removing the brood and nurse bees to a new hive/location (i.e. split) and just leaving the field bees and queen with your comb honey.  

I would highly recommend spending the $10 for "The Comb Honey Book" by Richard Taylor.  It explains a few different methods that he used to raise comb honey commercially.

I just finished building 5 new ross rounds supers last night,  now just need to paint them.

click image for larger view

I'm using his shook swarm method where remove all the supers from the bottom board, and then place a normal honey super with just foundation on the bottom board, followed by three comb honey supers.  You then shake 2/3 of the bees in front of the hive and make the queen goes in.

Place a second bottom board behind the hive facing the opposite direction and place the original supers with all the brood and 1/3 of bees on it.

You now have all your field bees returning to the old location (comb honey supers now) and no brood,  so they believe they have already swarmed.  In the old supers, you have all the brood but no queen.  They will raise a new queen from the brood.

Of course, all this assumes there is a flow, otherwise it won't work out.

[SherryL]

Hey Robo!  Long-time-no-chat!!!  

Thanks so much for your reply.  I'm primarily thinking in terms of the comb honey to avoid making an extractor purchase this year.  Have only met one other beekeeper up where my girls are and she doesn't have an extractor either (another newbee).  I didn't take any honey off last year, and other than the Ross rounds, won't take any off this year either.

I think the 'cutting' of my surviving hive is actually a good opportunity.  The hive is very strong right now, if I can keep it from swarming until I'm ready to do the split we should be in good shape.  I added a 3rd deep to the hive last week as the bees seemed to be overflowing the 2 boxes that were on there and the end framed I checked were full of uncapped honey.  When I get back up there next Wed., I'm going to see if I can reverse the two lower boxes.

Basically, everytime you commit a hive to the Ross super, you're in a sense committing to splitting it too, right?  Like I said, I think that's a good solution for the hive as it's so strong so early on.  The only thing I'm not comfortable in knowing is about the flow up there.  From what I'm reading I should be looking at somewhere in mid-June, but that seems late to me - is that about right?


I'm very happy with the DE hives.  I don't know if you remember "Snowzerdog", he was from the western part of N. Wisconsin, and starting with 2 Langstroth hives last spring.  I emailed him a short time ago, neither of his hives made it thru the winter.  He said he opened them on a warm day in March when he wasn't seeing any activity, they were full of dead bees and frost.  Very sad.  I have to say, while my 2 hives were as dead as his were, at least it wasn't frost.  The poor girls weren't installed last spring until near mid-May, and spent the entire summer building comb in the brand new hives, so I'm hoping they have plenty of honey this summer and fall, and go into winter with ample supply.

Thanks again for your imput Robo!  Oh, and FYI (I suppose I should post this seperately), there are some Ross round supers (brand new) on ebay right now.  I ordered another 3 from the guy for $95 (doesn't include foundation).

sherry

[Michael Bush]

So Michael, if you don't mind me asking, how is it you have 4 DE's?

I bought them.  :)  They sounded like a good idea so I tried them.  I was going to just keep about four hives and leave it at that.  Then the mites hit and I got determined to resolve that issue and ended up going to about 50 hives.  :)  I'm a bit backwards I guess.  A lot of people quit because of the mites.

Do you love them?

Here's what I like about the DE hive:

o It has good ventilation (but you can use the Lanstroth kit to provide this for your Lanstroth)

o It has the frames running so you can stand behind it to work it. (but you can get this in a Lanstroth by using the kit)

o It has a system that almost eliminates having to break frames loose. This keeps the bees calmer, especially when working the brood chamber. (this you cannot get by using the Lanstroth kit)

o It is nice dimensions from the bee's perspective. It's a square box and has 11 frames that the queens fills out nicely. (this you cannot get from a standard Lanstroth hive)

o The frame design is very light, very strong and very good at keeping the foundation straight in the frame. I wish I could get such well designed frames for a Langstroth.

o The DE frames are really light to handle.

o The DE frames are dimisions such that you almost never have to use a capping scratcher.

o The long end bars are really nice for handling the frames, especially when you're extracting but also when you're working a hive.

o The light weight of the parts. The bottom boards I've gotten last really well and weigh very little. The lid is also very light in weight with the 1/4" Laun plywood on the lid. When I first saw it, I didn't think it would weather well, but it does. You'd think it wouldn't matter that much what it weighs, but it's surprising how often you're carrying a lot of equipment and every little bit of weight adds

What I don't like about the DE hive:

o My biggest irritaion is that it is not a standard size. This is no end of frustration when you see something really useful, but it won't work with them. Like a nice triangular bee escape or a top feeder or a bound queen excluder. I get around it a lot by building things that are universal. e.g. a bottom board with 1 1/2" edges instead of 3/4" that is sized long enough for a Lang. I can put either a Lanstroth or a DE on it. I built several adapters and often mix the DE supers and Lanstroths. Also since it's not standard I can't buy stuff already assembled when I'm short of supers or hives and don't have time to build them.

o There's this space around the ends of the top bars, that the bees can't get to when the hive is closed. The purpose is to keep the bees from popolizing the ends of the bars. My problem with them is the bees run into them when I have the hive open and I can't get them out. Shades of the Arizona, they get trapped in there when I put the covers back on or a super on.

o I did have to modify my extractor to fit them. Maybe some wouldn't but the top part of the rack was spaced too far, so I had to get three threaded rods and replace the ones that came with the extractor. Now it works for either DE's or Lanstroths.

o The long end bars (which are so nice to handle) stick down more so you can't have as much honey in the tank before they hit the honey and bog down the motor.

o It takes practice to not knock off the little plastic spacers on the ends of the bars when you're uncapping. It's kind of frustrating to be looking through a bunch of cappings for missing ones.


As you can see there's more I like than don't, but the big problem is the non-standard size.

As for the adapter board .... last year I used one to accomodate a nuc. Made it out of plywood, it worked fine until it got too wet and started to warp. I'll go ahead and use some 3/4" this time and make up something a little (alot) more permanent.

Mine is simple.  Just put a Langstroth box on top of a DE box and put it in the center.  Lay a 3/4" board on each side of the Langstroth box on top of the protrudijg DE portion and cut them the length of the Langstroth box.  Now make two 3/4" boards the width of the DE box and put them underneath and put a screw in each corner (with counter sink and pilot hole to keep it from splitting).

Not sure what you mean by "cut down split". Are you saying insert the Ross box between the brood boxes?

No.  I'm saying you do a split.  All the open brood and honey goes in the new split.  All the capped brood goes in the old hive.  The field bees return to the old hive which now has only one brood chamber and so the bees are crowded up into the supers.  You can put the old queen in the split and leave a frame of eggs in the old hive or you can leave the queen in the old hive and let the new one raise a queen.  But the old hive (the one for production) needs to have no open brood to  care for to free up the nurse bees as foragers.  Put the supers on top of the one brood box.  Any book on comb honey production has some version of this explained in it.  It is the standard method for getting comb honey.  Any kind of cassette system requires crowding the bees into the little containers where they don't otherwise want to make comb.

There are 32 rounds in a box. I'll for sure be starting with just the one, but for future reference, just wondering if they can (or should) be stacked like you would regular honey supers.

Yes, stack them up like honey supers.

[Kris^]

No.  I'm saying you do a split.  All the open brood and honey goes in the new split.  All the capped brood goes in the old hive.  The field bees return to the old hive which now has only one brood chamber and so the bees are crowded up into the supers.  You can put the old queen in the split and leave a frame of eggs in the old hive or you can leave the queen in the old hive and let the new one raise a queen.  But the old hive (the one for production) needs to have no open brood to  care for to free up the nurse bees as foragers.  Put the supers on top of the one brood box.  Any book on comb honey production has some version of this explained in it.  It is the standard method for getting comb honey.  Any kind of cassette system requires crowding the bees into the little containers where they don't otherwise want to make comb.

This is what I did with a super for cut comb, and it seems to be working as planned (after a false start).  The bees are so cramped up in the one brood box that they were even hanging outside the entrance last night.  They are definitely working all over the foundation in the super, hopefully, drawing it out and putting their honey there.  

I have a question, though: when the new queen emerges from her cell and takes care of all the other cells (probably Sunday or early next week), then takes her mating flight and returns to start laying (a few days later?),  how vigilant must I be to ensure she doesn't lay eggs in the comb super?  I've had my queen lay eggs in a honey super before, but I hate how a queen excluder seems to stop activity in a super.

-- Kris

[Michael Bush]

They should have freed up a lot of space in the brood nest by the time she is laying.  There are no guarentees even WITH a queen excluder since they sometimes sneak through them, but odds are she'll lay in the area of the old brood nest until she fills it.  I figure if she needed to lay somewhere, I'd rather she'd lay in the supers than swarm.  :)

But if you really want you could probably put an excluder on now that they are working hard at the supers.

[SherryL]

Michael,

One of the 'cons' you mentioned with the DE Hives, the plastic spacers coming off in the extracting process.  I don't know if you think this is "OK", but after having a couple slide off the frames on me last year (and nearly dropping the entire frame), I actually Gorilla-glued mine in place.  

Most of the "pros" you talk about I've not really given any thought to, since I don't have a Langstroth hive, I've only ever know the ease of the DE, but YES, I can see where the lack of compatability with 99.9% of the hive market can get old.  I ran into that right off the bat last spring when I purchased a nuc rather than a package of bees - I needed to rig up that conversion board first thing.

That's actually one of the issues I have with buying an extractor, concern about compatiblility.  David sells extractors on his site, I have to believe those are compatible.

Thanks for your imput, I really appreciate it!

sherry

[out4trout]

could you just take out a frame from your super, place it on the counter, and cut out pieces of comb honey and eat it?  or sell it or whatever?
i am new, i was wondering...just starting this year...my wife just asked me about it, i am not sure if you can do what i described or if you need one fo the "kits" mentioned.  let me know!

[JP]

could you just take out a frame from your super, place it on the counter, and cut out pieces of comb honey and eat it?  or sell it or whatever?
i am new, i was wondering...just starting this year...my wife just asked me about it, i am not sure if you can do what i described or if you need one fo the "kits" mentioned.  let me know!

Not a problem, check this out: https://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=232

...JP

[out4trout]

so there is not anything special about it!  huh...so you just eat the wax and honey and all?  just pull it out, use your cookie cutter, enjoy a nice snack?

[JP]

so there is not anything special about it!  huh...so you just eat the wax and honey and all?  just pull it out, use your cookie cutter, enjoy a nice snack?

You will chew on the wax, eat the honey. You won't want to swollow the wax, it'll be like swollowing spent gum.


...JP

[Michael Bush]

>could you just take out a frame from your super, place it on the counter, and cut out pieces of comb honey and eat it?  or sell it or whatever?

Yes.

>so there is not anything special about it!  huh...so you just eat the wax and honey and all?

Yes.

>You won't want to swollow the wax, it'll be like swollowing spent gum.

If I eat plain comb honey, I usually spit out the wax, you don't have to, but if you put it on bread or biscuits you just eat the wax.