Honey Harvest

2942 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by johng, May 30, 2014

TuscaloosaBK

Discussion Starter · May 30, 2014

Just wondering if you all harvest once or more than once during the spring flow? Just wanted an idea if you let the supers keep stacking up or do you take and spin a few supers and stack them back on. Do the bees fill them back faster that way? If I leave the supers on a few more weeks as it is getting hotter here in Alabama will the bees start eating the honey due to so much activity fanning and cooling.

Thanks Clark

Save

1 - 4 of 4 Posts

WWW

· #2 · May 30, 2014

....Just wondering if you all harvest once or more than once during the spring flow?....

Depends on a number of things, how heavy the flow is, how many supers you have, how much free time you have.

..... Just wanted an idea if you let the supers keep stacking up or do you take and spin a few supers and stack them back on.....

Spin off the supers and place them back on the hive wet to be filled again the bees will fill them faster.

...... If I leave the supers on a few more weeks as it is getting hotter here in Alabama will the bees start eating the honey due to so much activity fanning and cooling......

If there is any nectar to be gathered the bees won't bother their stores, when you see fanning it isn't always because the bees are hot, they also fan to dehydrate the honey.

Save

squarepeg

· #3 · May 30, 2014

welcome to beesource clark.

in alabama the bees will generally store honey from about late march through mid june, and then again from late august through mid october.

the period in between is called the summer dearth. during this time the bees will likely need to consume some of their stores depending on how much or how little rain we get during that time. they will also cut back on brood rearing so not much stores are used for that.

as bill says, there's more than one way to go about it. i like to harvest 2 or 4 supers per weekend and that will keep me harvesting for a couple of months. i take only the frames that are capped and don't put the supers back on so that all of the attention is focused on finishing and capping the remaining frames.

by mid to late july, i'll have harvested most of what i can, and by then i will have put an empty super just above my single deep in anticipation of the fall flow. there will usually be one or two supers above that empty one with honey that is partially capped. this gives the bees more than enough to live off until the fall flow and feeding is not necessary.

additional supers are harvested as they are finished in fall, leaving one or two behind for overwintering.

See less See more

Save

johng

· #4 · May 30, 2014

I like to harvest right after the spring flow is over. Normally around the first of June here in North Fl. That way I can keep the spring honey separate from the fall honey. Our spring honey is a very light colored mild honey, the fall honey can be very dark and strong tasting so I don't like them to get mixed up.

Save

1 - 4 of 4 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.

Top Contributors this Month