Honey Harvest 2018

It has been a good year for the bees but a slow one for this blog, sorry about that. The 'Girls" came thru the winter very well, I split them into 6 colonies this year, trying not to be greedy. As well I moved them back a bit for more room and a bit more winter protection. The season was a good one, hot but they like it that way, and they have a water source several yards behind them, which is a flowing brook. This years harvest was better than last years, and just as tasty.  I did run the honey thru the strainer a second time as there were some partials in it, small bits of wax, it cleaned up well. Now to enjoy what our "Girls" did for us.

Our improved bee yard and new colonies.

Setting up for the harvest.

A couple of medium frames spun a bit too fast, they gave way.

The pail on the left has hot water in it to loosen up the honey
a bit for better flow, the one on the right has pail inside to
store the newly strained honey.

This years honey harvest. several pails of honey, two of cappings
one has the broken comb with honey in it. Can't get it any
fresher than this.

Honey Harvest

The other day I took off the honey supers, a couple of weeks early because when I added the new brood super it had new foundation, so I split it up among the three supers to give them time to draw out the comb and get ready for winter. Bringing the supers and equipment down and back this year was easier, thanks to a friend who gave us a garden cart. I did some work on it and it now doubles as a bee cart. I extracted the honey today, we had two supers of shallow frames and four medium frames we took off earlier in the year to see if we can get a different tasting honey than what we would get at then end of the season. I had four honey supers but only two were full and the other two were light. They still had to draw out the comb this year, next year it will be better, like this is mush better than last year. Last year I estimated we got 14 lbs from two colonies, this year 68 lbs from four colonies. As for the taste test, I sampled a lot today and couldn't tell, I'll have to wait for ReBecca to do the official test.

Bee/garden cart.

Bee escape they are still escaping.

Lots of bees to go into the winter with.

Getting ready to spin out the honey.

Wax and honey everywhere.

Four shallow frames fit perfectly.

Six gallons of honey.

Out golden nector.

The Big Split

On the 22nd we split the two colonies we had, now we have four. They came out of winter strong in three supers, we split each into two brood boxes for the summer, And we didn't mix the colonies when splitting, just in case we didn't see the Queen and end up putting two Queens in the same hive. This would be very bad. They were very strong and tons of bees as you can see in the pictures below. When checked today if there were Queen cells in the new colonies, it was a hit and miss. The first one didn't have any Queen cells but I did see new eggs and very early development of some larva, which means I moved the Queen over when splitting them. The colony that we split if from turned out to have a frame with Queen cells, but when I pulled up the frame it pulled apart two cells, so we put it back and usually there is more than one frame with Queen cells. The next new colony had one frame with four Queen cells on it, we put it back carefully and will leave it until next weekend, It takes 16 days for a Queen to develop. Earlier in the week we put honey supers on the largest colonies to try and get dandelion honey, it is slow going. There were several frames in the brood boxes full of honey, so I know it's there, just a matter of time.

Lot of honey in this frame.

Loaded with bees.

You can see it's full.

Packed.

Hard to see, but it's wall to wall bees.

A healthy frame.

Just pouring over the sides.

After the split.

A warm day, I took out the bottom board insert for ventilation.

I added screened inner cover and will let the bees take there
time leaving the old inner cover.

All colonies are busy today.

Our little honey maker at work.

Three Queen cells, hopefully one will live.

A New Year

I took off the winter wrap a while ago and feed and medicated them last month. Today wanted to have a look at how they are doing and get ready to split them in a couple of weeks. Earlier I put down another patio stone so I'll be ready for four colonies. I only looked a couple of frames from each super, it was a bit breezy and only 15°C, I didn't want to disturb them too much. They were laying brood in between the supers, so I cleaned that out, they looked good, and very plentiful. This I hope is a sign of a health Queen. The frames had brood in the middle, with some pollen and honey on the outside, as it should be. They were busy and a bit aggravated at what was going on, and rightly so, but they weren't aggressive, thankfully. Here are a couple of pictures of who this years little crew.

Winter Time

It was time to put on the winter wrap again. This year I was a week later than last year and they got one more feeding of syrup, as the weather was still around 10°C daily, we even saw a few out this weekend. But this morning it was -2°C and we had our first dusting of snow, so it was time.

Wrapped to help keep them dry and dark to absorb the
suns heat, when it comes out.

That Time Of The Year

Well it's that time of the year again, when we feed and medicate our bees. On September 13 we put in two Apivar strips in each colony, between the supers to help fight against Varroa mites. As well we put on the third super so they can start getting it drawn out to fill up with food for the winter. Today I gave them each 3 liters of syrup (1 part water - 2 parts sugar). This will help them this winter, as well I added Fuagmilina-B, an antibiotic used overwintering colonies for nosema apis infections, which can kill a colony. I did an early mite count, we had 5 on the left and 3 on the right in a 23 hour time frame, and from what I have read this is low and good. I'll do it again next week as that will be the half way point for the exposure to the Apivar strips.

They look tall, it's just the top (4th) super is housing
the syrup pail. 

Harvest Time

Well it's harvest time and we did OK, not as good as we hoped. We only have two colonies, the left one didn't produce a Queen when we put the Queen cells in that came for the right colony, that is because the first one out will kill the others and we didn't notice the Queens were dead when I moved the frame over. We still have two very strong colonies, that did make us some honey. Not as much as I wanted because I switched a full honey super from the center colony the left one, when I thought it was just week. Well they didn't have many gatherers so they just enjoyed the full honey super, as it was fully drained when I looked.

So back to the harvest, we had only two boxes of honey and not all the frames were full only about half. I would suspect it's because I added two boxes to each colony thinking more is better, but that just make more work to draw out now comb and make honey. Lesson learnt and we'll be better prepared for next year. I used a scraper to remove the capping's and put four frames in the extractor at a time, gave a big spin to remove the honey, turned them, did it again and repeated the process until all the frames were empty. The honey went through a double sieve strainer and then I put it through a fine clothe, it's nice and clean ready to go.  We got about 14 lbs of honey and a couple of pounds of wax capping's. I cleaned out as much as I could and then put them outside today to let the "girls" clean up the rest, it's their honey after all. I'll give it a final cleaning when they have finished.

Two colonies left.

Very strong when we took off the honey supers.

Extraction set up.

A bit of honey and the wax cappings.

Capping scraper set up.

Lots of work done for me.

They are having a great time.

Full of bees.