harvest

I am new to the hobby as of this spring. Like many of you here I have a love for bees and keeping them. I started with two hives and made splits to make 4 going into winter. I will most likely stay between 4-8 hives in total and I just got my brother-in-law and father-in-law into the hobby. They...

Life got busy and I did not harvest my mason bee cocoons yet. I collected all the tubes and stored in a cool garage since November. I typically harvest and store cocoons in frig until spring. Am I too late to harvest now and store until blossoms appear in my orchard? I live in Pacific Northwest.

A week ago I checked the hive and my honey frames are about 40-50% capped. Checked again today and not much more progress, but more frames filling up with uncapped honey. When should I expect to harvest? Seems to be getting late in the season, but honestly, I wouldn't know as this is my first...

I'm in Southern Colorado and seeking a store online or brick and mortar to puchase an induction motor. The old one has failed, or coils are spent. We have little time and would appreciate any suggestions Thank you

Good day! Part of my hive has swarmed today. Not too many bees left though. One of my acquaintances a commercial beekeeper helped me to do the following: 1. Go through the hive frame by frame and find frames with capped queen cells 2. Found 3 queen cells and split the colony into 3; The main...

Hi, This is my first year beekeeping and my bees did not make it through the winter : ( We believe it was a matter of a wet hive. We want to harvest the honey that was left - some frames are full while other are only partially capped. I want to remove all of the honey as we no longer have bees...

I apologize if this is in the wrong sub, but I was extremely happy with my first year of Beekeeping! I ended up taking one 8-frame medium's worth of capped honey. Crush and Strain method. Pretty sure I left enough for the winter. Had FIVE 8-frames total being used. Top 3 supers were mostly...

I am in the midst of a beekeeping challenge: it’s September and the honeybees aren’t building in the honey super. For around the last month, I find small groups exploring the frames in the super but never a sign of building comb. I know that the honeybees will not move into the super until the...

For those who leave honey on hives for winter rather than feeding syrup in the fall, what does this look like, practically? I'd like to stop feeding syrup, as it's just another time expense, let alone seems more natural than syrup. Just seems much simpler than constantly adding gallons of syrup...

Yes these questions will painfully highlight my inexperience with bees but I'll ask them anyway cause I want to learn: when do people typically harvest their honey? How many times can you potentially harvest? I'm located in the suburbia of NY and will (hopefully) be starting this year with an...

I had two hives last winter from one swarm I caught the summer before last. My goal for the year was to have four hives and a nuc or two by fall and finally my first few pounds of honey. After several splits and three swarms I caught, I'm up to seven hives and two nucs each three medium 5...

Hi, I'm just wondering what are the benefits to harvesting honey other than to sell/eat it? I'm just a curious newb and can't ever seem to get a straight answer on this so I'm curious what the pros have to say about it.

When trying to separate honey from cappings or crush and strain, I've found that at least a 1/3 or more of the honey remains in the wax after straining has stopped dripping. I then put the remaining wax and honey in a pot in the oven set on its lowest setting and stir regularly until it has...

My first year as a Warrè beekeeper, and I'm wondering why the bees filled the first two boxes with comb and honey in only a couple months, and despite another couple months the third box appears to be (based on observation window) mostly just empty comb. The first 2-3 boxes filled so fast I...

Hi, I would like to hear from people who use and don't use an uncapper. Many businesses running thousands of hives still manually uncap their frames. Why is this and what are pros and cons of either method. I am running a smaller operation. Also if you use the manual method, I would love to see...

I harvested 5 supers in August and have finally had a chance to extract. I discovered a pretty terrible wax moth infestation. I have a few questions: 1) what are the small red bits I see everywhere? 2) what is this glue-like stuff I'm discovering occasionally? It's almost like hot glue gun...

Hi everyone, I live in south Alabama where winters are usually very mild (in the 70s today) so the bees are still very active. I started my first hive in the spring and all seems to be going well. I allowed them to fill two deep supers then, using a queen excluder, I added a shallow super...

I have two supers that I pulled off my hive this past weekend. They were on this late in the year because the honey wasn't capped enough to harvest. However, the hive beetles were rapidly increasing and I had a feral hive attempt to rob from my hive. I had to reduce the volume in my hive to...

This was my first honey harvest. We had 3 late spring frosts that got the girls off to a late start. I think hairy vetch and the highway median wildflowers produced a light honey.

I am harvesting honey for the first time. I'm crushing and straining the honeycomb through two Weber, 22" stainless steel grates (perpendicular to each other) then into a Rubbermade plastic container with a plastic tray with 1/4 holes which sits 6" above the bottom of the same tray (2 tiers)...