[Rooster4473]

I have a few stupid questions about harvesting honey;

Lets say you put a shallow super on. The bees fill it up. Do you harvest it right away, or does it have to cure on the hive for a while?

In PA, if you have a hive that has wintered well, how may times a year do you harvest honey? Only in the fall, or in the early summer and the fall?

 

[GaSteve]

Generally, once the bees cap it, you can harvest it anytime. If you're making comb honey, you'll want to remove it as soon as it's capped or the white cappings will become travel stained.

If you are extracting your honey, you can leave the supers on until the end of the season if you like. It's better to do all the extracting at once as cleanup is a pain. But there are several reasons why you may want to extract earlier.

1-Don't have enough empty supers on hand to contain the entire crop

2-Want to separate the types of honey

3-Something happens to the hive population and they are unable to keep out the wax moth (although they tend to prefer brood comb they can do a lot of damage throughout the hive in a short period of time - don't ask me how I know)

4-Hives may become top heavy and unstable in a strong wind if supers are stacked too tall. Besides while empty supers may be easy to throw on top, when they're full, they're much heavier and can be difficult to take off.

 

[John Russell]

I take it off as soon as its capped.
The less supers of capped honey the bees have to cross to find empty frames = less work and more time to do other things. Also, honey on your hives, is not money in your pocket. Honey in your pails is.

Also, due to the high price of honey, there has been cases of Bee Rustling in my province. Thieves stealing full supers, or whole hives.
Sign of the times?

J.Russell

 

[Rooster4473]

Stealing bees and honey !!! Now I've heard it all.

Can you remove the supers, store them in the house till you have a few, and extract them all at once, or will the wax moth get in them even if they aren't on the hive?

 

[Michael Bush]

Wax moths get in them when they are on the hive, but the bees tend to keep them under control. They get in them much worse off the hive. I try to leave them on until I'm ready to do something with the honey. Cut it for comb, extract it, or something. Of course if you have a big enough freezer, you can freeze it and the moths won't live through that.