# How much honey did u harvest???



## RonTgottagoat (Feb 27, 2014)

i figured this forum is kinda slow on here And I know lots of folks have bees and probably harvested some honey. So I thought it be interesting to hear a few things about your honey harvest and if you’d put a few things in your awnser How much honey? How many hives do you have? Where Are you located? And how many years have you been keeping bees?

I’m a new guy in south Louisiana I have 4 hives and a couple nucs. I’m not taking any honey this year but hope to maybe help do a harvest with someone just to learn I did bring my neighbor some honey to ‘sweet talk’ him into leaving his 10 acres uncut until the fall bloom is over. I brought him some honey I got from Ed(thanks again) and told him there would be more if my bees make it and I get a summer harvest next year. He said no problem. Ok so enough me rambling let’s here about YOUR honey


----------



## RonTgottagoat (Feb 27, 2014)

Last month at the meeting in town they had a honey tasting. Lots of people brought honey to try. On a side note there was a guy at the meeting that was taking samples of members honey to send off for analysis. They were gonna test for if the honey contained nectar from tallow trees in Louisiana they are apparently considered invasive species and LSU was considering releasing some sort of mite to destroy the trees. If I understood they were trying to scientifically prove that tallow provided significant forage for bees to fight the planned ecological disruption. I thought that was an interesting side note. The scientist was saying that beekeepers say that there bees feast on tallow but the testing of the honey would substantiate bee keepers claims.


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Well leave it to the stupid scientifically minded to screw up stuff. Interduce a bug to get rid of some thing and when it is gone the bug becomes a major problem.

Harvested 2800 pounds of honey from 98 colonies end of June after the spring and dandelion flow was over. 
From pulling the supers to extraction takes a week and a half.

Have had honey bees almost 30 years i believe.

I started doing pictures way back and storeing most on PhotoBucket. These days it is hard to get those pictures off there with out paying the fee they want.

I do have a few I didn't put there of the bees.
Some of the at home hives before I built the wind block.










A out yard with a big red barn wind block. Still doing spring feeding.










Pulling honey supers is hot wet work. Yes the sweat makes you wet.










Keeping things clean and not wasteing a thing.










Some people call this drying wet supers.











Our storage tank day we got it home. Yes it is a stainless bulk Milk tank.










In the early days I experminted with colors on landing boards. Decided didn't make a difference.




























Winter time back yard hives with wind break.











One in the front yard.










couple others.











 Al


----------



## RonTgottagoat (Feb 27, 2014)

Wow Al that’s a lot of honey!!! Super cool pictures. Thanks for posting. Do you treat your hives at all? And if so with what for the prevention of mites etc?


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Yes I treat for mites. I used drone comb thru the whole summer only leaveing them out after the second honey supers are put on. Also treated with formic acid on meat pads AKA Canadain method, but since they have came out with Mite away II strips we use them early spring when temps are right and after Labor day for the winter.

 Al


----------



## txsteele (Nov 19, 2014)

I’m a fairly new bee keeper, about the past 5 years. I’ve learned a lot from “the school of hard knocks”. 

I have 4 hives in SW Houston. My girls survived, and are now Veterans of Hurricane Harvey. Circa 2017

I average roughly 4 gallons +/- per hive twice a year, Spring and Fall. 

I keep bees for fun and sell what I can but I mostly give it away to family and friends. I find that I have far more honey per year than I can easily get rid of. Rough problem I know.


----------



## siberian (Aug 23, 2011)

Kudo's on the pictures. Really like the pulling supers is hot work. Guess that's part of makes it rewarding. Thanks


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Hot work in the honey house also.

Uncapping with hot knife.



























Yellow capping wax.



















Capping tub and 72 frame extractor.










Extractor load.











 Al


----------



## ed/La (Feb 26, 2009)

You can make a lot of bees/splits/nucs or a lot of honey. I made new hives. I hope to sell spring nucs so hives were split often, not set up for honey production. I harvested about 35 gallons. About 120 deep frames harvested. That is all I have, deep frames. 35 gallons is what I needed for friends/people that let me put swarm boxes in their yard, personal use and about 100 pints to sell. I have few customers that I do not want to lose. With the equipment I have a 3 frame extractor and and few buckets it is fair amount of time extracting. I left the bees a lot of honey. I was going to harvest more but with the summer heat and no decent honey house I gave up. That worked OK. I shuffled honey to new hives and did not have to feed sugar syrup in my out yards. I did feed at home yard because I made a lot of new hives there and honey production there was low. This winter I will spend some time making honey extracting and bottling faster. This spring I might set up 20 or so production hives with a goal of 100 gallons. Everything depends on winter survival numbers.


----------



## RonTgottagoat (Feb 27, 2014)

Cool Ed. 35 gallons is still slot of honey. Btw I talked to Steve today seems like a nice guy. He said I could pass by and see anytime. I told him I’d be pretty much riding shotgun with you on getting em out. I told him I’d bring my extra veil so he could get in close if he wants. I was telling him that I was intimidated by the bees at first but now enjoy them and have gotten comfortable Also He was sayin you pulled some bees out of there a couple years back.


----------



## ed/La (Feb 26, 2009)

That house is a bee magnet. They move in every year. He needs to become a beekeeper. Could probably catch half dozen swarms there if we try.


----------



## RonTgottagoat (Feb 27, 2014)

I was telling him in the spring we could put some swarm traps up. Maybe they’d go In those instead of house


----------



## fireweed farm (Dec 31, 2010)

2018 will be the least amount of honey in 14 years of keeping bees here. 4 full supers out of 16 hives. Two of those hives are the dreaded Flow hives I purchased used with the bees in just this summer. Will be impressed if I can get them to overwinter.
The remaining 14 hives had a mid summer high mite load, and the inspector suspected AFB/EFB although lab results came back negative (twice), they were weak. It happened fast as 3 weeks prior they were building comb and bringing in honey.
Even with the super early harvest then chemical treatment some began to crash. They've lived but will need babying to get them ready for winter here. The Aug 1 treatment means they 'should' have time to winter prep but I will be watching closely.


----------



## RonTgottagoat (Feb 27, 2014)

That’s too bad about your downturn fireweed. Hopefully your bees will bounce back
I saw your in BC. My friend Jesse is in Nelson BC it’s beautiful up there.


----------

