Simple Honey Harvest Guidelines
Obviously the whole reason to set up, maintain, and stock a beehive is so you can harvest great honey You will know that it is time to harvest the honey when taking a look at one super hives and notice that the honey bee frames are full of honey combs that your bees have covered with wax caps.
Once you notice that all that you should do is remove the combs.
Harvesting your honey won’t be a problem as long as you are wearing your beekeeping designed gear, wear light colored clothes (beekeepers swear that lighter colored clothes have a soothing affect on bees) and make sure you are calm.
When the super is full of capped honey combs this is the time to remove the bees. There are chemicals available on the market that will make this easier. One popular chemical used to remove the bees is Bee-Go. The Bee-Go is applied to a fumer board.
The moment the bees smell this Bee-Go they move to the bottom of their hive, leaving the super full of capped honeycombs empty for you to harvest. Another product beekeepers use to clear out supers is one called Fishers Bee Quick. Non of these products are of harm to the bees, the scent is just offensive to the bees which is why they move away.
Once you have the honey comb you need to prepare it to be extracted. The first thing to do is to remove the wax caps used by the bees to seal the honey. Many beekeepers prefer to use nine frames instead of ten in their supers. Nine frames gives bees more room so they can draw the comb out, and place the cap at the edge. The wax caps are removed easier this way. A metal knife is used to remove the caps, the knife works best if the knife blade is warmed, the warmer, the easier for a knife to cut.
You can keep the knife blade warm with frequent dunking in a basin that is full of hot water. A lot of beekeepers prefer using bread knifes when removing wax caps while other beekeepers use specially designed beekeeping knifes. What do you think bee’s wax candles are made out of? Removing the caps from the dripping honey is easy, a cheese cloth is used for this process, the cheesecloth drains the honey and the top collects the bee wax.
Once the caps are removed from the honey comb the honey is ready to be extracted.
As you remove the caps, you should allow them to drop into a pot don’t through them away. One thing to note is that there is a surprising amount of honey attached to these caps, honey that can be processed and used. There is a large market for wax caps. Once the caps have been removed from the honeycombs you can now extract the honey.
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