What Does the Novice Beekeeper Need to Know?

Number 6

HONEY COLLECTION

"And Why"

You have succeeded in keeping your bees alive until the end of July! There seems to be some excess honey stored in the first honey super you placed on the first hive body. You naturally want to stick your finger in the comb to see if your bees collected "good" honey. DO IT!

First, I recommend helping some more experienced beekeeper rob his honey just to get a feel for how hectic it can bee.

Questions you will have are:

Did my bees collect enough honey for me to rob some for myself? I would not rob any honey until the hive body is nearly full. Remember, you did not put a honey super on until the hive body was filled out and the bees were starting to work the first and last frames along the side of the box. Maybe the bees got 4 frames filled with honey in the middle of the honey super and they are started on the next two frames. You could pull the capped frames in the middle and replace them with empty foundation frames. Or, you could extract the honey immediately and put the drawn frames back into the hive (this would be the best for the bees reducing the workload of making more wax drawing out the comb again).

You have August to mid-September for the bees to continue making honey. There will be a short dearth of nectar in August. Then, when the golden rod, fall asters, and iron weed start blooming the bees will collect a respectable amount of fall honey. This fall honey is excellent winter bee food. It is also medicinal for fall hay fever.

Another alternative, is to not remove honey and "sling" it out. Leave the honey super on the hive and let the bees continue to fill it. They might eat some during the short dearth (dry) periods in the fall. Remove one frame of capped honey. Replace the frame with a foundation frame. Take the honey frame into the house and cut a four inch square out of the frame (comb and all). You can do this 3 more times. Wrap the remaining honey and frame in cheese cloth, place it on a sheet cake pan (with edge) to catch any leaking honey, and put it in the pantry (cupboard). You will eat about 4" square per week. I hope you don't have ants in the pantry. You can repeat this all winter long. The bees will eat from the bottom up and you can eat from the top down. If you used wired foundation just pull the wires out of the 4” block you are eating.

You could also take all the honey and comb out of the frame and squish it inside of a panty hose (not while your wife is wearing them). Place the honey in the panty hose in a colander and let it drain into the bowl. If you have wired foundation you will want to pull the wires out of the comb with a pair of pliers before squishing in the panty hose.

How much honey should I take off the colony? I want to leave enough for the bees to get through the winter. If you remove all the honey above the hive body, it is a good idea to place another hive body or a honey super on top of the brood area so the colony can continue to expand. They have enough time to draw some more comb and fill a lot of it with honey. You can help the bees immensely by feeding them 1:1 sugar syrup so they are getting the maximum amount of nectar possible. I feed at least from early August until the end of November.

This is a good time to build out the second hive body so you can start next year with a double hive body colony. They will draw the comb and fill it with honey which will be their winter food. This is the most common way to duplicate the space of a natural colony in a hollow tree.

The most important thing is to keep the brood box full of honey. The bees will back fill the brood area with honey as the egg laying declines seasonally.

How will taking the honey affect my bee population growth? I want to maximize population growth until Thanksgiving. Population growth has very little to do with how much honey is stored in the hive. It has more to do with how much nectar and pollen is coming into the hive. You have all fall for the natural nectar and pollen to be collected and stored in the hive. However, there will be dearth induced fluctuations in the amount of nectar entering the hive daily. This will cause the queen to lay eggs more sporadically. By feeding sugar syrup and pollen substitute patties you will even out the daily food storage pattern. The bees will collect more natural nectar when it is available and use the syrup on the days that nectar is low. This will keep all the bees working at their maximum level. This time of the year, your hive has the most bees available coming right out of the big nectar flow (honey collection). Keep these bees working until they start to die back in the late fall. The Queen will also keep her laying pattern at the maximum level.

How do I rob the honey and disturb the bees the least? Just opening the telescoping cover and grabbing one frame of honey is the least disturbance. To actually remove a super of honey, my way works well with least disturbance to the beekeeper.

I close any access holes I have drilled in the honey supers. Duct tape is handy here. Have 2 telescoping covers ready in you wagon or pick up truck to stack the full of honey, beeless honey supers. You need your bee suit, smoker, hive tool, bee brush, a really strong leaf blower, and 2 telescoping covers. Also, some way to transport the supers from the apiary to the honey house (garage or basement).

I give one small puff of smoke at the entrance to all hives when I enter the apiary. The bees start to engorge themselves with honey and calm down. I go to the hive farthest from the entrance to the apiary. I don't want to be working and walking through 20 hives of mad bees. I remove the telescoping and inner cover and place them on the ground leaning against the hive body. I pop the joint on the top honey super with my hive tool. I remove the honey super placing it on its side with the frames going up and down. I place it on the next colony or set up a stand to hold it. I want to work about waist high. I put the lids back on hive one. I set the honey super back on the top of hive one. I leave enough space to place the honey super from hive two also on hive one. I go down the row until all honey supers are removed and standing on the hive tops.

Bees will be settling back onto the honey supers and calming down. They are engorging themselves with honey they think they are robbing to take back home. But they are sitting on their home.

All the supers are on the edge with the frames up and down. Top bars facing me. I am behind the hive looking at the top bars.

In this next step you can actually blow the frames out of the hive if you are not looking at the top bars.

Fire up your Super Cyclonic Tornado Leaf Blower. Blow the bees out of the super working slowly crack by crack between the top bars. Work smoothly and you will keep the bee cloud from coming back onto the bottom bars of the super. I have my bee brush handy to reach around and brush the bees off the bottom bars as they try to get back on the frames. A helper partner comes in real handy to help do this. The Helper can also hold the super up so it does not blow over while you are blowing the bees. Don’t blow the bees directly into your helpers face, even if he has a veil on.

When most all the bees are out from between the frames. I carry the super quickly to my truck where one telescoping cover is laid up side down to act as the bottom closure to the stack. There will be a few bees that are left in the super and some that follow. Place the super on the inverted cover and place the other cover over the super to keep more bees out. Repeat until all supers are in the truck. This might be several stacks of honey supers with lids as bottoms and tops.

You will notice every time you open the super stack to add another super some bees come out. They are engorged with honey and headed home "happy".

You will unstack the pile of honey supers at the honey house, loosing more bees. By the time you get the supers restacked in the honey house you will notice very few hitch hiker bees. Don't leave the door to the honey house open more than absolutely necessary. Keep the honey house dark as you work. The bees will migrate to the most light.

What kind of equipment do I need? I think I have covered the equipment necessary pretty well. Let me emphasize, if you generally work your very nice bees in shorts, t'shirt, and flip flops, you might want to wear light colored long pants and shirt, with sturdy shoes and some way to close the cuff of the pants. And absolutely you need a veil. Okay, so this sounds like a good inspector's jacket with veil, gloves are optional but recommended, not dark denim trousers. Boots, and at least tape or Velcro strips to close the pants' legs are handy. You are working with bees flying and walking in the grass getting to crawl into any opening in your clothing they can find.

This is not as scary as it sounds. Especially if you have a helper and this is the second time you have done it.