Honey harvest!

First, some bad news.  One of my dad's 6 hives was totally robbed dry by some of the other hives, and we've seen evidence of some robbing in both my hives.  Also, while we got 10 or so lbs of honey from Jo, most of the honey I had been counting on there was consumed by the drones that have overwhelmed the hive.  With an unfertilized queen (or possibly a laying worker) the hive will probably starve before winter, and certainly hasn't got a chance of making it until spring as the queen isn't laying workers, and unfertilized eggs (drones) can't become queens.

That said, Megmight yield some small amount of honey, there are a couple other hives at the acreage that have between 100 and 200 lbs of honey that is currently being capped and cured, and last weekend, we were able to harvest 100 lbs from one of the better-producing hives along with whatever we could salvage from Meg!

The Harvest

Unfortunately it always fails to occur to me to take pictures of the apiary -- really a clearing with 7 or so hives placed on the Westish edge -- but this picture from the back shows many of the hives.  Jo is in the front -- the hive with the bad queen -- and in the picture I'm selecting the fullest frames for harvest.  Second is Meg, and while we saw maybe 10-15 frames of capped honey in Meg, it was only 60% capped so we left it for the bees to finish processing.  On Sunday we noticed some robbing from Meg, so depending on how bad it was, all her honey might now be in one of the other hives, but we'll find out in late August when we harvest again.

The rest of the hives are "my dad's" although that distinction may become arbitrary as it makes more sense to divide up hives by apiary than person (remember "my" hives started at a different location).  They're named by color, but some colors are similar or being repeated so even my parents can't seem to keep them straight!

We took three and a half supers with about 8 frames each (normally they hold 9 or 10 but I like a little extra space when I'm dealing with heavy, sticky frames full of honey) back to the garage and got to work cutting the wax capping off the cells of honey and extracting the honey with my dad's new toy, a Maxant 6-frame radial extractor!

 

Above, my dad (left) and I are cutting the wax off the frames.  When the bees evaporate enough water so the honey is less than about 18.6% water and will last forever (or more practically, at least until the next summer) without fermenting, the bees seal each cell containing honey with a thin wax cap.  We cut off the caps and any comb that extends beyond the edge of the wooden frame (releasing a lot of tasty honey in the process) so that the honey will flow out when turned in the centrifuge!

Above, left, is a frame of capped honey with all the wax cappings and honey caught in a maple syrup pan, and an uncapped frame of gooey honey on the right.  We looked everywhere for the uncapping tank we had last year, but it was nowhere to be found!

Then my mum took over and spun the frames until all the honey came out (about 1 or 2 minutes of consistent turning for 6 frames).  Note that in this picture, we had tried tangential extraction with only three frames.  It worked, but it took a lot more time and didn't seem to be more effective.  Normally the 6 wooden frames would be arranged like spokes instead of around the edge of the centrifuge.

My dad and I took turns on the extractor, but being male, we were a bit overzealous and the next picture shows how too much force will "blow out" all the wax in a frame so the wax has to be replaced -- a huge inconvenience for both us and the bees!

The honey and some wax that fell off in the centrifuge is poured out the bottom of the extractor into a couple of metal sieves to strain out wax and any other debris.  Some people filter their honey even further to remove even some barely-visible clumps of pollen (usually still leaving lots of pollen, just not in clumps), but our honey turns out quite clear (when it isn't full of bubbles from pouring the dregs of a pail anyway) and while I'm skeptical of claims for amazing health benefits from strained but unfiltered honey, I don't see any reason to add another complex step.  I might change my mind if all the honey starts crystallizing right away one year, but for now, I just strain my honey.

Altogether we filled two 5-gallon pails about 80% full (one for Rachel and I, and one for my parents) for a total of 88 pounds.  Here's most of the 46 pounds I bottled last night in my kitchen!

The jar in the front, left, was the last jar I bottled -- you can tell it is absolutely FULL of bubbles while the rest of the honey is darker and more translucent.

So... anybody want some honey?  I think I'm limited to about 25 lbs for sale right now until our next harvest (but my parents have more, so feel to poke them too!)

I visited the Lair today to deliver one more super to replace the one I'd transfered to the super-productive hive.  The bees were already "bearding" at 7:00 this morning as the high heat index of 85 starts creeping up to a high of 118.  It's hard to cure honey or even evaporate water to cool the hive when it's so incredibly hot and humid.  There won't be much nectar collection today as the bees and flowers both just try to wait out the heat.

 

 

 

The two outer hives were about 80% finished with their 4th box, and the center hive was drawing out about 30-50% of their 6th box, although as I was in a hurry and the bees were cranky on such a hot and humid morning, I just peered in through the top instead of examining any frames more closely.  When the heat subsides a bit, I'll need to spend some serious time on a full inspection in the next couple weeks.

Queenless Resolution

Meg and Jo both have around 2.5 fully capped boxes of honey!  However, only one of them is thriving with a new queen.  Below is a picture of Meg's queen -- she's been laying some pretty good patterns, and I don't foresee any problems going into the winter.

I did notice more brood cells ripped open with Varroa mites than usual.  This is exactly what I got Minnesota Hygenic queens for, although I guess I can't really be certain of the queen genetics now that the queen has been replaced at least once.

Jo, on the other hand, does appear to have a new queen (there are no signs of laying workers) but she's laying mostly drones and I noticed 3 queen cells in the hive.  Maybe they're trying to supercede, but the population isn't up to peak nectar gathering any more.

We're going to wait another week or so to decide what to do.  Maybe we'll combine Jo with a swarm my dad caught at the acreage, or maybe we'll just take all their honey and restart with a split in the spring.

At the Lair, I had a quick look under the covers, and found that while the two outer hives had just barely started drawing out the 5th box (and were only half done with the 4th), the middle hive had drawn out every square inch of space in all 5 boxes!  Since I didn't have any extra supers on hand, I simply moved one from the right hive to the middle hive to even out the space.  I'll stop over there tomorrow or the next day to drop off one more super so all 3 hives have extra space.  As a related note, frames with wax should not be left outside in a hot car in the sun where the temperature can exceed the melting point of wax.

Here's a picture of the lair after my manipulations.  I should really come up with names for these hives, but now that I'm having trouble with Meg and Jo (I'm sure I'm screwing them up now and again) I'm not sure what kind of naming convention I should look for.  Maybe just serial numbers?

Quick update

The weather is finally good and sunny for a prime nectar flow!  If we get a few more weeks of good weather, we could end up with a fine honey harvest!  The bees have been slow this year as the rainy and cold weather pushed back nectar production, but there's still a good chance of a good harvest if the weather holds.

I brought my friend Chris to the Lair to see the hives there, and we had a lot of fun going through the top two boxes.  I was worried that given their past progress they might be almost done with the 4th box, but actually only one of the hives had even started on the 4th box.  I thought it was interesting that the hive pointed South was about a frame ahead of the other two hives (pointed East).  This is not remotely outside of normal hive variability, but it would be interesting if the South-facing hive did better year after year.

I added a fifth box to all three hives so I won't have to follow them quite so closely in the next couple weeks.

At the Acreage, Meg and Jo are still broodless as of Wednesday when my dad checked.  He has a hard time seeing eggs and didn't check all 70 frames but with any luck the queens are now mated (or getting mated) and getting ready for laying.  If I have a chance tomorrow at our dinner party, I might have another look, but otherwise I'll put it off until next weekend as by then the queens should have emerged (2 weeks) been mated (10 days) and started laying with some time to spare.