14 August 20XX +1
My Dear Lucilius:
Today I harvested the honey.
To be honest this was a little earlier than I have harvested honey in years past, almost up to a month some years. It derives from a sense of caution this year that I have not had in years past: before, recovering a hive was (in the worst case) a matter of ordering a new nuc of bees or re-queening or simply supplemental feeding over the Winter. This year, I have none of those options.
The harvest itself is a straightforward task: honestly set up and break down are longer than the actual process itself. Besides gowning up for the battle, one has to get the uncapping tool ready, the honey harvester – a cylindrical tube with a rotary mechanism inside and three frame holders, as you might recall – set up on its stand, the honey pail bucket and strainer cleaned and the bottles prepared and ready to fill. Something to hold the honey supers while unloading them (like a table) is a great idea as well. Most important is to have a clear path to all of this.
One fires up one’s smoker, lifts the outer telescoping lid and inner lid, and using the bellows start sending smoke in. The bees – those that do not fly off – will scurry down to the lower levels of the regular deeps; when enough are out one uses one’s hive tool to pry the super off and place it two one side. I had two supers mounted on each hive, so two each got pulled off. That finished, I will smoke the bees down some more. remove the queen excluder that keeps the queen in the Deeps and not in the supers (besides not risking the queen, it keeps eggs from being laid in the valuable honey real estate), then put the inner lid and outer lid back on. It is good to inspect the bees as we get closer to Winter, but I would just as soon let them calm down for a few days.
If one can get away with it (I can), having the processing area removed from the beeyard by distance is wonderful as it keeps most of the bees away.
The harvest itself is straightforward: once upon a time one could use an electric knife to remove the outer cap of the honey but given our current lack of power I had to made do with a kitchen knife and follow using the uncapping tool for any missed cells. One should do this in a tub of some kind to catch the wax cappings as this will be the yield of wax for the year. One then places them in the harvester in groups of three. The rotary force as it spins pulls the honey out; at the end one has honey in the bottom and empty frames. Pull the frames out and replace them in the super, rinse and repeat. Several times during the process the honey has to be drained out from the harvester through the colander into the bucket, a five gallon plastic one with a pouring spout at the front.
When all the cells are scraped and the honey strained one pours the honey into bottles. Given the situation, I scraped down the inside of the harvester with a spatula to get every last drop.
Cleanup is simply – because the bees will take care of it. Simply lay out the frames and harvester and the bees will scoop out every last drop of any residual honey. Tomorrow or the day after I will take the frames, clean them of propolis and any burr wax and put them back into the super, and then bag them up (to prevent wax moths or other pests from ruining the supers). The wax I captured from the cappings will be rinsed and then melted down into a single container for use later and any propolis will be set aside for further processing (Terribly useful stuff, propolis. Traditional uses range from tinctures to a component of violin varnish).
Having Pompeia Paulina was a great help – besides just being fascinated with the process, we were able to get things done in half the time that it usually takes me.
The
yield? About 25 one pound bottles or jars or honey (whatever was at
hand to fill) – not my biggest harvest by far, but not my least
either. I likely could have gotten more if I waited longer but as
discussed above, there are other concerns to give heed to. And what
better way to spend the day than bottling honey with one’s honey?
Sadly in these troubled times Lucilius, these are the only sort of jokes that I can muster.
Your Obedient Servant, Seneca
From my limited honeybee experience (helping a neighbor for several years) the yield of honey is closely related to the amount the bees need to survive the winter until FULL Pollen Season returns.
ReplyDeleteHe used to feed them sugar water, but I suspect Senaca doesn't happen to have several large bags of cane sugar laying around.
We tried no sugar raising, found taking 1/3rd of the honey was the trick to have strong hives next spring after the show melts.
Anon - That is everything that I have read as well as in practice. When we had bees, we supplementally fed as a matter of practice; it was cheap insurance against Winter hive loss.
DeleteIn three-four years we kept bees, our yield was similar to what Seneca experience in conditions that were perhaps different but somewhat similar.
But your basic premise remains correct: there is no sugar laying around to use as supplemental feed. Perhaps some of the honey will need to be sacrificed.
Interesting post, learned much about a beehive and honey harvest TB. As far as no electricity no portable solar chargers anywhere?
ReplyDeleteNylon12, of the many things I have practiced over the years, one of my favorite remains bee keeping, and it is certainly something I would like to take up again someday. Just sitting watching the bees is hours of easy watching, better than any television show.
DeleteIn terms of solar chargers, I believe Seneca has small one, mostly fit for charging phones and a computer. I am not even sure a larger one would work, given the draw for what is essentially a giant heating element.
This was all familiar territory for me from our hand crank, two-frame extractor to the uncapping knife. I never enjoyed the extracting part, well at least until we got a ten frame electric extractor, but I really enjoyed melting the cappings and running off the melted wax into tubs. It was quite hypnotic watching the melted wax run into channels until it cooled and hardened and then run in another channel, like lava from a volcano I suppose.
ReplyDeleteEd, from everything I have gleaned, an electric extractor is a game changer.
DeleteSadly, our cappings yields were never more than enough to perhaps fill a small coffee can.
An excellent description. Makes me think about getting bees again . . .
ReplyDeleteLeigh, I really miss having bees. They were one of the best "projects" I ever tried. It also points to an underlying supply issue of sugar: outside of honey, the major natural sources I can think of are sugar cane, sugar beets, and sweet sorghum - and all of those require additional processing.
Delete