Monday, October 22, 2012

2012-09-01: The Harvesting

The long awaited day had arrived and the honey was be extracted!
I arrived at my parents in the morning and went to work.  The one way escape boards worked like a charm.  However I had several other hives that had supers that needed the bees vacated.  I was going to do them when I came back to the house for lunch.
I took the frames from Orange and Blue (which had had the escapes) and brushed away the few remaining bees.  I loaded them into the car and drove them over to my mentor’s.  Several hours were spent uncapping and spinning the frames.  Below is the extractor with honey coming out and running through a screen.  You can also see hose wrapped around it.  Hot water is pumped through that to keep the walls of the extractor warm so that the honey will run off of it quickly.
2012-09-01 13.50.06 Extraction Day 
I went back to my parents and worked on placing the one way boards underneath the supers.  I then applied a chemical that is supposed to repel the bees and thus accelerate their evacuation of the supers.  I then had lunch.  Unfortunately for me, it did not work as well as I had hoped.  Many bees were still on the frames.  Much brushing and shaking of (the very irritable) bees later I loaded them onto the back of the truck (all the better to try to get rid of bees) and drove to my mentor’s place.  He then blew the remaining bees off with a leaf blower.
The remaining frames were extracted and at the end of a long day I had several buckets with around a hundred pounds of honey.  Not too bad!
Next year, more one way escape boards.  Setting them up 2 days in advance meant the supers were virtually bee free when I arrived to remove them for extraction and it was a snap.  Taking off the second batch of supers was very stressful and labor intensive.  This was compounded by the fact its best to use minimum smoke during the removal of the supers since the smoke can linger in the taste of the honey and without smoke the bees got very aggressive.  The escape boards at about $13 a pop are a bargain if they will save me aggravation and time on extraction day.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

2012-08-30: Harvest Countdown

2012-08-30 15.05.32 Getting Ready for Extraction

The plan for the day was to add bee escapes under the supers in Green and Blue.  These escapes are boards with one way exits in them.  If placed between supers and the brood boxes (and all other entrances are removed), the workers will exit the supers and not be able to get back.  My other task was to feed Red and the Nucs as well as to possibly swap frames out of yellow to Red to try to make sure Yellow didn’t get too crowded.

Orange:  Top super full.  I put an escape under it.  The top brood box looked full and capped.  I took 2 frames from Red and swapped with 2 in the top box to make sure there was room since the golden rod was in bloom.

2012-08-30 15.20.27 Getting Ready for Extraction

2012-08-30 15.25.45 Getting Ready for Extraction

 

 

 

 

 

 

2012-08-30 15.47.00 Getting Ready for Extraction

Purple: -

Green: Decided not to try to add escape as

Dark Green: -

Green Nuc: Starting to draw out the top box.  I fed it with sugar syrup.  Noticed a drone being evicted from the front. 2012-08-30 15.52.15 Getting Ready for Extraction2012-08-30 16.18.50 Getting Ready for Extraction

Yellow Nuc: Laying well in top box.  Fed.  May have to remove feeder to make more room for more frames next week.

Blue: Top super has had honey removed in the middle.  I put an escape under the supers and blocked the hole in the inner cover on top of the supers so bees would not come in that way.  They felt heavy so even if some honey had been removed, the other super certainly had some still it in.

I examined the drone frame and the there were some drone larvae, but most of the cells were being filled with honey indicating that drone production was tapering off.  That and the previously noted drone eviction is a sign of the hives preparing for winter.2012-08-30 16.04.17 Getting Ready for Extraction2012-08-30 16.09.43 Getting Ready for Extraction

 

 

 

 

 

 

2012-08-30 15.47.58 Getting Ready for ExtractionRed: Added the 2 frames of honey from Yellow (on the right side of the picture).  Fed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yellow: -

Monday, October 8, 2012

2012-08-18: Looking Good

The plan for the day was to try to make sure no queens were in the supers on Orange and Purple, check the status of the honey supers, and to add syrup to the Nucs and Red.





Orange's super was capped (a beautiful sight!).  The top brood box had frames with honey at the top and brood and empty space on the bottom.  There may have been some swarm cells on the bottom. 






The bottom brood box had capped and empty brood cells with no eggs to be seen.  This got me nervous that the queen might have been trapped above in the super, so I removed the queen excluder.  The bees also seemed a little grumpy, but that might have been due to burr comb with brood being broken during the manipulation of the brood box.





Purple once again had bearding in the front and back of the hive.  The super had frames half full of mature honey.I also captured a nice picture of the bees rebuilding the comb from where I had cut it out previously in the drone frame.















The bottom deep had bee bread as well as capped and uncapped brood.  But there was very little honey.  The bees were pretty mellow despite the intrusion.












Green seemed filling up some of the emptied cells in the front of the supers with bee bread (honey mixed with pollen). 







Dark Green looked very nice with lots of brood in the top brood box and aggressive drawing out of foundation.  Though it did not have a lot of honey there which makes me a little nervous that they may end up with a surge in foragers but nothing to harvest.











Green Nuc did not have much going on in the top brood box.  I decided to move up a frame from the lower box to hopefully encourage them to start drawing out the foundation in the top.












Yellow Nuc had one frame in the top brood box filled with brood!  I fed both nucs to allow them to draw out the foundation and to start putting away winter reserves.  If it gets too crowded in the future I move a frame of brood to Red.



Red had frames added to it and I fed syrup
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Thursday, September 13, 2012

2012-08-11: Dirthed



Orange:  I added the queen excluder to keep the queen out of the honey supers.  Brood darken the cells and its a shame to have to kill any brood that happen to be in the frame when you pull it to extract the honey.  I was in a hurry so I didn't make sure that the queen was not hanging up in the super, but I thought it was probably a safe bet considering the supers were full of honey.

Purple:  Once again there was a significant amount of bearding in Purple.  I cut out the drones from the drone frame.  The hens do so enjoy them.  I pulled a frame from the brood box.  There were lots of empty cells, but many of them had eggs inside so no worries.

Mmmm... brooood...
Bearding from the back gap











Green:  I decided that I wanted to tweak how the supers were set up.  While doing this I noticed that the older super, which had been full of honey, has had the honey removed from the frames in the area closest to the front entrance.  This is a sign that there was a July dirth and the bees had to dip into their honey reserves to get by.  Not surprising considering it had been very dry and not much blooms in July in any case.  I also decided to add an excluder underneath them as I really did not want the queen to start laying eggs in those empty cells.  The medium super, had some frames partially drawn out and ripened honey (rather than only partially evaporated nectar) in place.
Newer medium super being drawn and filled with honey
Shallow super showing where honey was removed








Dark Green/Swarm:  The gals were starting to draw out the frames in the top brood box and add honey.

Blue:  The gals were very active in the top super working to draw out the foundation and add honey.  I need to drop in a few more frames since I didn't have all the frames I needed when I added the super.

Double Nuc:  Yellow was doing more in the top box than Green.  Fed Green.

Red:  Added a second box, but I had only 3 assembled frames (all bare foundation).  I added feeders to help fill the space.  I also fed them to help them draw out the foundation.

Yellow:  I didn't check on Yellow.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

2012-08-05: Supers are Growing

 

Orange: Bees were bring in orange pollen. Some of the honey cells are being capped in the super. Did see some brood in the super. Will have to add the queen excluder next week to keep the queen out.
 

 

I looked into the top deep (or brood) box. There was one frame that was only partially drawn and another that was solid honey. No doubt the former was one of the frames I put in after removing frames for the double nuc. Dusted the top with powdered sugar.
 


Purple: Bees were bring in orange pollen. There was also bearding especially in the back entrance (which I still have not fixed).
 

The honey super is filling up, the cells are about 1/2 filled and there is white wax (i.e. new wax).
 
The brood frame has only one capped cell. I should remove the drones next week. Dusted.


Green: Bees were bring in orange pollen. Bees are starting to draw out the frames in the new super.
 

I pulled one of the frames from the top deep box and it was filled with honey, a very good sign. Dusted.


Dark Green: Bees are drawing out the frames in the top brood box.
 


Double Nuc Yellow: Just starting to draw out the frames in the top box. Start feeding with sugar syrup to promote comb building and winter storage?
 

Double Nuc Green: Some orange pollen being brought in.
 


Blue: Did not spend much time as a storm was coming.

Red: Found a supersedure queen cell on the side of one of the frames. Carefully slid it back. A new queen might be a good thing for this hive as it has been an underpreformer. Dusted.
 

 

Yellow: The bees are doing a good job of drawing out the frames in the top deep box and the cells are half full of honey.
 

2012-07-22: The End of Drones?

 

Orange: The super remained uncapped. I am not sure if the bees are making much headway to filling it up with honey. There was a green plastic drone frame with capped drone that I removed and replaced with bare foundation. The chickens did manage to pick off the brood from the plastic foundation, but its messy and I think I do prefer just using frames that the bees build their own drone frame in.
 

I did dust this hive with powdered sugar.
 

Purple: As you can see in the picture, the bees are not drawing out the foundation in the super. There was also a drone frame that had some capped brood, so I cut it out and slipped it back into place. The chickens also enjoyed them as well. I then dusted this hive.
 

Green: I decided to add another super to this hive. I had medium frames ready to go but only a shallow box, so I used a spacer (normally used to put on top of the hive under the inner cover to provide room for pollen patties and certain medication treatments) underneath the new super to allow enough space for the medium frames to fit. I will want to replace this soon with a proper medium box.

There was a lot of activity while I was doing this work. I believe the reason was that since this hive uses its top entrances so heavily, the foragers were coming back and didn't know where to go when I had the top super off. I may think about what to do in the future to keep them happy. I might try placing the top boxes on a neighboring hive to see if that will make them happy or not.

I dusted this hive.

Swarm/Dark Green: The bees had built some comb upwards into the empty space in the old box. I removed both the extra comb and the empty top box.
 

Blue: There was some activity on in the second super, I need to add more frames next time.  In the top deep, there was a drone frame inside which was completely drawn out with large drone sized cells, but there was only a handful of brood inside, all of which were capped. Evidently the bees are ramping down on production of drones as the season progresses. I removed the few cells of brood and put the frame back in.
 

 

Red: Did not open.

Yellow: The bees are not using all of the top box yet. Dusted.