Saturday, September 27, 2014

Harvest

We pulled the supers off the hives today. Joachim came over to help.

We started with the Benedictium. The top super was laden with honey, no brood, very nice. The lower super was empty, and we removed it. We sandwiched the laden super between two jerry-rigged telescoping covers. They had a few bees in them, but not many. We left the empty super in front of the Benectium for the bees to clean. We inserted four bits of a thymol package between the two brood chambers and took the laden super inside for extraction. Then we let them cool off for an hour or so. The honey was very dark and very tasty.

Then we went out to pull off the Valentinium's super. Not much honey there, but a fair amount of uncapped nectar. We left some of the emptier frames out for the bees to clean, and took a few in, probably too many. We left the remaining four bits of the thymol package between the two chambers. I think many of the frames which we brought in were of uncapped nectar. Unfortunately, while I was monkeying around with the thymol, I neglected to cover the frames, and so we picked up quite a few bees and yellow jackets. I guess we'll get to swat them later during the extraction. What a drag.

But we now have honey in our house!


No comments:

Post a Comment