Harvest time

[Shawn]

So for the past two days I have been trying to harvest. I checked on the supers, 4 on one hive 3 on the other, and all were about full. The first day I pulled three off I found some of the honey was missing. I noticed the bees were packing in pollen and making room for brood. Does the queen not know she is not allowed in the supers? Does she not think 2 deeps is enough room for her to lay? Well I gues they know what they are doing, probably laughing at me. I took the supers off, except for the one I found capped brood in, and just cut around the pollen areas.

When I got to the super that was fully capped with honey I started scrapping it off and found pollen packed in behind the honey. Is that normal or did they just run out of room for honey and just packed it in where they could? I knew I should have taken the supers off when I noticed they were fullt capped. I figured I could just leave them on and add more to the top and they would just keep building away.

I am thinking I will end up with about 150lbs out of the two hives and one deep from a hive that was combined, requeened, but still died out. I guess the 150 is a big imporvement from teh 13qts I got last year. I will hopefully be able to get some photos of the process posted soon.

[Shawn]

Ok so I got 4 boxes of all capped honey that looked like this:





I brought the deep inside and thought it smelled a little funny. As I was working on the medium super I saw a little worm looking like creature crawing on the floor. I new exactly what it was and my worst nightmare came true. I started pulling the deep frames out and saw the below on almost every 10 frames:



So Im taking the deep back outside and letting them rob it as much as they can. After they are done with it I will scrape it all off, clean the frames and wood and prepare for next year. This is the first year in the four years of beekeeping that I have had wax moth. I HATE IT.

Ill post the end results of the process in a day or so.

[Scadsobees]

Mmm...I love look of a fully capped white frame of honey!!!  Looks like nice dark honey.

Yeah, those moths...they seem to have a thing for pollen, and I see that frame had pollen in it....sure hate to waste all that honey, but then again don't necessarily want caterpillar poop in it either... :roll:  Just freeze those frames after the bees rob them out (or before) that should kill the existing worms and eggs.

[Kathyp]

what is the overall condition of the hive that had the wax moth?  you might want to do a really good check before winter.  wax moth usually takes advantage of a weak hive.  if the hive is strong, the bees keep them cleaned out.  had the only wax moth i've ever had in a underpopulated observation hive.  it was great fun to watch the bees clean them out as the hive got bigger/stronger  :-D

[Shawn]

The hive that has the wax moth was an extremely weak hive. It was a combination of a swarm and a cut out. Each lost their queen, I combined and tried to requeen but that queen died shortly after the introduction. Im guessing there were only a couple hundred bees for the two deeps.

All the honey was extremely dark except for the last super. The honey was almost as clear as water. Well it kind of looked like mellow yellow, wonder if that drink is still around? That super was the lst to be filled so Im sure they found some source that caused that. I am waiting for gravity to take its course and Ill snap a photo of all the bottles. Well Not all the bottles because once the word got out that Shawn had honey people were knocking on the door and calling asking for some  :roll:

[AllenF]

You may want to freeze those frames to kill out the bugs before taking them outside. 

[Shawn]

Ok here is the results:







It is now about 8pm and I thought it was safe to go outside, dark and cool. I was trying to wash down everything I could and WHAM! Right in the lower back. As I jumped from the ground and started looking, well maybe twitching and jumping, and flinging I noticed bees on my shirt. No idea where they came from. I did notice the bees were still flying around the open supers so maybe they thought I was coming back for some more. Well Ill post later when I come back from the ER.

[AllenF]

The ER?  That stinks.   Those jars look good.  Are the lids one piece lids or a lid and a ring? 

[Shawn]

Didnt go to the ER although my lower backs looks deformed. The lids are just rings. I stearlize the jars, crush and strain, and let gravity do all the work. I dont do anything else to the honey before its bottled.

[KD4MOJ]

Good job Shawn... great lookin' honey!

...DOUG
KD4MOJ

[luvin honey]

Beautiful!!! (weeping tears of envy)

[Boom Buzz]

Great looking harvest Shawn!
How many supers/frames and of what size (deep?/medium?) did you harvest to produce the bottles in the pic?
And do you know from what plant/flower was your primary flow?
Thanks

John

[slacker361]

great job on the harvest, and the bees even did acupuncture on you too, what a deal


what was the total poundage of your take?

[Shawn]

120lbs total. I didnt count the deep that I tossed because of the wax moth. I still have two supers on but I cant get the bees out. I need some bee gone stuff. For some reason the bee escapes are not working very good. The two supers on are also divide up with honey on teh outside frames and borrd on one frame.

[winginit]

Beautiful! Good job.

Green with Envy

[JD]

Nice harvest. I got stung last year cleaning up also. Heard the buzz and bamm. My ear swelled up big time. I wait till after dark now. I don't like getting stung. Just when you thought it was safe to go outside. JP