# Everyone done harvesting honey?



## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Just curious as to whether y'all are finished harvesting your honey, just starting, or going to wait until the first hard frost? I'm still waiting for the girls to finish capping their stores before taking the frames. Then I'll take the advice of others and start feeding them sugar syrup (don't want it in my honey mind you) and pop a candy board on there before things get too cold. I'd sure like to get these hives through the upcoming winter as I'm thinking it will be a hard one.
Catherine


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## Kmac15 (May 19, 2007)

We do our summer harvest in June and July :O We may have a fall harvest on one of the hives but most likely we are done.
The bee yard at the house has been being fed for about a month now.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Was going to start this week. I'm in no mood to pull a couple hundred honey supers in 90F plus heat.
Sunday it was 97F, monday the same and yesterday 95F. A cold front is going thru some time today the weather people say so when the rain stops we will start pulling.

 Al


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## beewench (Mar 5, 2010)

We're probably going to harvest for the last time this year on Saturday. I also need to move 4 of my hives out of the new "goat pasture" in the next week or two. Trying to decide if I should harvest and then move or move and then harvest...?

-=Sarah
www.beewench.blogspot.com


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## ET1 SS (Oct 22, 2005)

I harvested a bit, it was black. [we have japenese knotweed growing here]

The black honey smells and tastes a bit like molasses.

I have now began using it to make syrup to feed back to the hives.


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## Beowulf (Aug 27, 2010)

You might try making mead from it, or find a mazer who might want to buy it. You would be surprised at how good a mead can be made from some varietal honeys that may be dark or taste off. Buckwheat honey is highly prized by mazers, who will often pay a premium for it if it has been minimally processed.


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## cowboy joe (Sep 14, 2003)

Harvested earlier than I would have liked to, mainly to accomodate DD who was ready to head back to school but didn't want to miss out. That's OK, rather spend time doing stuff like this with the kids then to wait for the perfect time.

On the up side, glad to see that the feral bees that moved into the empty hive late last year are doing very well. Hoping to split the hive next spring if all goes well.


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## Mike in Ohio (Oct 29, 2002)

I'm with Al. Now that the temperature is dropping off a little we will pull honey. With high humidity and temps it is miserable spending long periods in a suit. I have ~20 hives to pull from at the moment.

Mike


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

The two local beekeepers that I follow closely are far from done. One positions a lot of hives right in the middle of virtual goldenrod prairies and won't have any of that until sometime in October. I often get the impression here that goldenrod honey isn't liked by some but it's a good seller around here. Same with purple loosestrife which blooms well into September and results in a lovely dark honey with a unique taste. Late honey is often dark where there are a lot of asters but dark honey is considered more healthful. So, if you aren't positioning your hives to take advantage of the August and September bloomers, you're missing out on a lot of real nice honey.

Martin


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

51 f here this morning and sunny, wind is blowing at 18MPH with gust to 26 MPH. Forecast high today is 67F.

Not a good morning to pull honey supers as the foragers I believe will still be in the hive mostly due to the wind. 
May even be a little cool for them to be out too. I will surely stop and watch the hives for a while to get an Idea on their mood when I take the dogs on our morning walk.
Every thing is ready though.

 Al


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Ouch!!! Wish I had read Alleyyooper's post before pulling honey!! My weather was very similar. First time harvesting and a lot to learn. Smoked the first hive and noticed that they were really ticked off but I did harvest 5 frames before they made me step back and then close it up. The second hive wasn't as kind!! It was so full of bees!! And smoking them seemed to have absolutely NO affect! They didn't go lower into the hive, just got ticked off even more! I'd walk away for a while and let them chill out, but when I came back, some recognized me and came after me again... with their friends!! Gave up, put the hive back together and headed in for the day. Didn't have the gumption to even crack open the other two hives.
Catherine


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Looked at the hives yesterday when I took the pups for our daily morning walk. At first glance one would have thought there wasn't a bee in any of themas there were none near the entrance. But if you bent down and peared inside you would have seen that the whole gang was home.
Wind stayed the same all day then the sun went away, I'm afraid there was a wind chill to the air with a high of 65F.

Today the wind is calm, sun is out, the forecast high is 72F. It is 46F, right now so If honey gets pulled today it will be this afternoon some time.

 Al


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

I normally harvest at the end of September. The weather is nicer and I know at that point I've caught 90% of all of the blooms for that season.

This year's crop will be severely reduced as I spent most of the year making splits rather than letting my bees make honey.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Wind came up stronger about 10:00 AM yesterday. Wasn't much bee activity out side the hive so again we left them alone.

 Al


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

Alley, is there a reason you don't want to finish off your honey with the Goldenrod in bloom? Or has it already ceased in your area?


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## Durandal (Aug 19, 2007)

We do a late season harvest from strong hives that have a large store of honey. Its usually pretty dark, filled with thistle and goldenrod and who knows what else. Usually part of the alf-alfa (third cutting we let go to flower in).

We just call it "Autumn Honey".


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Cloudy and rain off and on all day yesterday. Once again we left the girls alone. I know we won't bother them today as it is very windy out there right now at 21MPH, weather people are saying stronger winds as the day goes.

Around here the people don't care for the dark strong tasteing honey. It is a waste trying to sell it at the farmers market. 
It seems to work better for us to just let the bees have it then we don't have to buy so much sugar either.
Sugar cost more that the whole saler pays for dark honey too.

 Al


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Looks like I won't get the last two hives done until next week! Very windy today. Tomorrow will be beautiful but we have the last of this round's hay down so we'll be baling hay. Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be rain. Then it normally takes a day to dry out again, so we're into Monday of next week perhaps? We'll have to wait and see. It will be interesting to see if this honey is any darker than the first couple of hives I harvested.
Catherine


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## FrankRichards (Dec 9, 2004)

Alleyooper, we used to have the dark honey problem here, but Japanese Knotweed has really improved our September flow. By itself it's very light and delicate, blending with aster and goldenrod adds some character. Like Purple Loosestrife, it's been good for beekeepers.

In the past I've done my last harvest around Labor Day, but this year I am letting things go till frost. The fall flowers came in early, but the summer flowers haven't quit. I checked Monday and the hives I looked at seem to be well stocked and still bringing it in.


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## marinemomtatt (Oct 8, 2006)

Honey is extracted and we're bottling...WooHoo! Yesterday we put the supers back on the hives so that the girls can clean up the mess we made...~lol~...and man they weren't very happy with us, we got chased into the shop and we couldn't get out for a good ten minutes...we tried to do something nice and that's the thanks we got...~lol~...


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Got the last two hives done today. I'm wondering if I'm doing it wrong because I can't get the bees off the honey to put the frames in a tote without really making them mad. I tried shaking the frame in front of the hive as one person suggested. The girls just came straight back at me and made me leave for a while. Then I took the frames to the truck with the bees still on them. Drove a bit away and onto the top of a knoll where the wind would be strongest. Then took the frames out, popped the frame on the ground to shake the majority of the bees there, then brushed the rest off, walked a way to the tote and put the brushed off frame in there. Sometimes this works but other times the bees figure out the tote has honey frames in it and swarm it. What am I missing? I don't really want to use the stinky stuff but I do use smoke. Thoughts and suggestions?

Now the next couple of days are supposed to be rainy so I'm hoping DH will watch the kids and I can get the honey extracted. Our customers have been asking for our liquid gold! 
Once I get it extracted, I'll put the supers back on the hive for the girls to clean up and keep ants and stuff from them. Then take them back off after our first good freeze.
Catherine


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Don't know what you really are doing wrong except I would not shake the frames in front of the hives. *That is the entrance and where the traffic is.*Here is what I do. 
(1. Take the top cover off.
(2. Pump smoker so it is bellowing a good cloud, insert the nossle in the intercover hole, place hand over remaing part of the hole and fill the hive with several pumps of smoke. Then remove intercover.
(3. Frames still have some bees but not nearly the amount that would be there if I had not smoked them down. Starting from the left (I'm right handed) I remove the first frame, shake the bees on top of the remaining frames.
(4. Brush the bees off *with a clean dry bee brush beside the hive*, hand the frame to Kare who carries it to the waiting super in the truck with a cover. I have also did this step alone and it works.
(5. Continue down the row of frames till they are all out, or the bees have came back up in force. If they do that I replace the intercover and give them several more puffs of smoke.

This method has worked for me for many years.

You also might want to try some sort of bee escape. I don't care for them my self as you have to place them one day and return the next to remove the super. Might be OK for 4 or 5 hives but with over 100 colonies NO WAY.

Setting the supers back on for a day or so for the girls to clean and dry them up. But you do not want them on any longer or they will start storing honey in them again. that honey should be their winter food.

Get the frames dry then freeze them, store them in a dry area where pest can not get to them. When I just had a few I put them in the freezer for 24 hours. Put them back in the super which sat in a upside down outer cover then covered them with a second outercover. Taped up all the holes where pest (like ants and other bugs) could get inside.

Now days I wrap with shrink wrap, 
6 boxes high with a bit of (per instructions) para moth.

 Al


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Thanks Al. I must not be puffing enough smoke in there. I puff some over the inner cover hole then again over the top of the frames, but the bees don't go down into the hive bodies, they just get ticked off a bit and continue their work. They don't get stinging as most of them are full of honey though.

How do bee escapes work? I've seen them in the catalog but never found out how to use them. I'm guessing you'd take the honey super off, place it on a solid bottom, put an inner cover on that has the bee escapes in the inner cover hole then come back after a day and hope that the bees found their way out and that no other bees found their way in? This would mean you'd have to have a spare inner cover to put back on the hive, too. Or do I have this wrong?
Catherine


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## catinhat (Aug 26, 2010)

Hello, I'm new here (is there a place to introduce ourselves?)

I don't have any hives of my own right now, but there is an elderly gentleman who calls me to harvest for him each year. He has MS and can't do the lifting that's required. He has two hives, and asked me to pull one shallow from each. We left the bees with a little extra because of the altitude and the gut feeling we all have about this upcoming winter. Anyway, I extracted 68 lb. of honey - most of it with a nice, light color. There is a lot of Ponderosa Pine where he lives, and you could see that each hive had a bit of the darker honey from that, but it all blended into a fairly light, flavorful honey.


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Welcome Catinhat!! Sounds like you're getting some pretty good training before owning your own hives. And you'll get a great idea of what all is involved and whether or not you want to get into it yourself. You'll also learn a lot from this group. I know I have!! Good luck!!
Catherine


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

There a couple of different escapes you can buy. One of them is easy enough to build you could do one with just a coping saw, a few nails some screen and a intercover. 9.05 at http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com

I used this one till we just got so many out yards and fuel cost soared. Lift the super up set the escape and come back 24 hours latter. Some times there will be a bee or two still in the super.











About $3.00 










The plastic Bee Escape is inserted into the slot on the inner cover which allows bees to escape out but prevents them from re-entering the super. 

A friend uses these. Some times drones will get caught in the spring clips (for lack of a word.) and the supers will bee full yet. No need for a second inner cover when these are used just put the outercover in place. Always check the spring clips to make sure they are not stuck together.

 Al


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Hummmm.... This means I need to bring someone out with me that can lift a full super! With my back, I take about half the frames out and put them in a box before I can lift the other 5 frames with their box. Definitely thinking about going to 8 frame boxes!!

Catherine


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## catinhat (Aug 26, 2010)

I love the little plastic bee escapes - I've never used the other kind, though, so maybe I just love that the bees are all 'downstairs'! I recently read about using fume boards (?) but I've never tried that either.

Springvalley, I used to have a couple of hives here at home, but we went through a period in our area where the bees would leave and not come back? (I know there is a name for that phenomena, but I can't think of it right now). Anyway, we were in the midst of building our home...then our daughter was born, and I haven't replaced my honeybees yet. (Truth, I am hoping to collect a couple swarms since bees are so expensive.) 

Helping out this gentleman is really nice for keeping me in practice, though, and it helps him too. Plus, I have a small (4 frame) extractor/bottling tank, so I can get the honey out of the comb for him as well.  

Thank you for the warm welcome!
-catinhat


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Have all the honey supers pulled except 6 boxes, that are behind the honey house.
Only have two extractor loads to extract yet I can tell you with out a doubt this has been an ugly year. 

Last year with 20 fewer colonies and 10 fewer honey supers we got well over 3000 pounds of honey. 
This year I doubt we will get 1500 pounds. A lot of the New foundation was never drawn out at all.
Best yard was the horse farm I am thinking because the farmer let the Alalfa bloom and go to seed for a natural seeding of new plants next year.

 Al


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## darbyfamily (Mar 16, 2005)

We got our first hive in May of this year. It was a 'strong' single, the guy called it. We've had a wonderful summer watching the bees go in and out with pollen and such. Very fun!

We're harvesting from the medium super we added on, tomorrow. When we got home with the box in May we added a deep super/brood chamber for the bees before they decided to swarm... then in early July added a medium super which is nearly full already.
So when we're done harvesting the medium, do we put it back on there until a cold spell? do we just leave it on through the winter? Our plan is to put a stack of straw bales on the north side of the hive to block the winds, and fill the feeder on the last possible chance, even topping it off as we can on the occasional warm day in November so that they have as much as possible available to them.

Any thoughts for a new beekeeper trying to keep their hive alive through the south Kansas winter?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Set the honey super out away from the bee yard to allow the bees to dry it. If you only have a couple you can set it back on the hive(s) for a few days. 
Remove the honey supers after a few days as you do not want them to start storing honey again it them.
For a few supers freeze the frames for at least 24 hours to kill any wax moth eggs/larva that may be in them. After freezing them store in a cool dry area free from insects and rodents. If you have lots of supers stack them 6 at a time and use paramoth per instructions on the pail.

According to the books wind breaks should be about 5 feet back from the hives. Also do not dorget about those cold westerly winds either. the books also say to leave holes in the wind break for some ventilation.

Natural wind break.










useing a building.










A made wind break.










 Al


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## HillBunker (Jul 26, 2010)

We started our 3 hives just this year, one swarmed halfway through and we were able to find and transplant them into an empty hive. My dad is handling all the beekeeping so I wasn't too involved. Our harvest was a sad 2.5 gallons or ~30lbs. We were shocked and after my dad checked with his bee club he thinks he knows what happened. Apparently he needed to feed each hive 3 times the amount of sugar water when we started them. I can't remember how much more resources building comb uses over honey but I know its a lot. We're feeding the hell out of them right now to hopefully allow all 4 hives to get through the winter. Eh... lesson learned. What do you all average in harvest per hive? Maybe list the number of supers you've got as well?


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## thequeensblessing (Mar 30, 2003)

We have 13 hives currently, and we got about 4 gallons of honey per super (we use only deeps for everything), per robbing this year. For some of those hives, this was the first year, and we don't rob anything from first year hives unless we were able to start them out on drawn comb or they've just done amazingly well. We don't want to have to feed them, so we leave them with their own honey. If they are really weak, we'll give them a couple frames of honey from another hive. We also feed back the honey from the wax melter, etc.


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