John's Beekeeping Notebook
Tips on Harvesting Honey
Things a Beginning Beekeeper
Should Know to Help Things Run Smoothly on Extracting Day
suggestions are offered for the benefit of beekeepers with a few hives who do not have a permanent honey
They are meant to supplement the information in books where everything
seems so simple and easy. Many
beekeepers, including myself, have learned some of these self-evident truths
the hard way.
is sticky. It will drip. Every doorknob, shoelace, telephone and radio button
that is touched while uncapping or handling wet frames will become sticky.
Walking spreads the honey around on the floor.
Solution: A bucket of water to rinse hands and a dishtowel are essential in
the extracting room, especially if you are married and want to stay that
way. Turn on the fan and radio, and get everything else
ready, before getting all sticky. The
garage, basement, barn or porch are usually better places to extract than
the kitchen, providing you can keep the honey clean.
Watch the kids.
in the extracting room are attracted to light.
Straggler bees left in the supers will find their way into the
extracting room and will tend to fly towards a window or light bulb.
Solution: A small exit near the top of a window will allow them to return to
their hives if they are nearby.
If the hives are not nearby and you have a lot of bees in the room,
hanging a few drawn frames near the top of the window with a caged queen
will provide a place for them to settle and create a nice nucleus colony
when youíre done. A vacuum cleaner hose is an alternative.
Don't extract directly under the only light bulb in the room.
away from their hive are not inclined to sting. Bees carried into the extracting room in supers are
normally extremely gentle, with no brood or queen present.
However, they are very adept at stinging the finger that
accidentally crushes them while picking up a frame or super.
items can serve as good alternatives to supplies found in beekeeping
A serrated bread knife makes a good uncapping knife.
Use a sawing motion. No
need to heat it. Change
directions if it catches the wood. Some
beekeepers really like using a hot-air electric paint stripper to quickly
melt the cappings, but I havenít tried it.
Kitchen strainers, nylon paint strainers, and womenís nylon
stockings can serve as good honey filters. Clean ones, of course.
Tupperware and Rubbermaid both make good plastic containers to hold
honey and cappings. Honey is
acidic, so donít use items such as aluminum and galvanized steel that
will react with the honey acids. Stick
with plastic, stainless steel or glass.
While there is a
good household substitute for most extracting equipment, there is no good
substitute for a good centrifugal extractor.
the honey settle. Honey
that rests for a few days after extracting will not leave tiny
bubbles around the rim of a jar.
Be patient. Almost all
debris left in the honey after filtering will either float or sink within
a few days. A spigot just off the bottom of a container will
prevent both floating and sunken debris from being accidentally bottled.
- If there is no nectar flow, bees will rob
honey. If the honey in an extracting room is more appealing than
local flowers, the neighborhood bees will try to feast on it and tell all
Extracting is best performed in a closed screened
room such as a garage, basement or barn, or outside after dark. I
heard a story about a guy that brought some supers into his basement to
extract the next day, but he left a window open. The next day he
found that his bees had brought half the honey back to their hives.
- Uncapping is easier with only 8 or 9
frames spaced evenly in a 10-frame super. The thicker comb means
almost no scraping with the fork. After bees have drawn out the
foundation the first season, return only 8 or 9 frames into each extracted
super to make the next crop easier to uncap. Uncap all the way down
to the wood on the top and bottom bar, regardless of how far the comb in
drawn out, so the comb will be nice and even next year.
- Propolis sticks to shoes and almost
everything else. Extracting is a great time to clean propolis
off the box edges and frame-rests, but if they are going to be scraped it
is best to cover the floor with old cardboard, newspaper or a plastic
painterís tarp so there wonít be little propolis reminders of the
extracting experience. Wax isnít quite as bad.
acid (Bee Go) really stinks. It
works great, and is the best way for most hobby beekeepers to clear bees
from the supers. The bees
don't get as angry as brushing or blowing them, but that smelly fume board
belongs behind the garage or near the fence when you're done.
The chemical bottle belongs in a plastic bag inside an old coffee can or
something else that wonít tip over; this is stuff you do not ever want
to spill. The almond-smelling
Benzaldehyde smells better and works okay in cooler weather, but it still
belongs outside. Bee escape boards work okay too, if you can install them
the day before extracting, have enough escapes for every hive, and donít
have too many holes between the boxes where the bees can enter and rob the
honey. My equipment is old
uncapping tanks and other extracting equipment are best borrowed or
shared. Most hobby
beekeepers will only use their extracting equipment one or two days each
year. The rest of the year it
typically gathers dust in an attic, garage or basement. Thus it is very practical and economical for several
beekeepers or a beekeeping association to share equipment.
The expense is avoided, and it eliminates the need for storage
space. So borrow or share,
and use some of that money saved to buy a few of the nice non-stick
polyurethane candle molds. If you must buy, a good quality hand-crank 4 frame
extractor will suit most beekeepers better than 2 or 3 frame models, since
it reduces the spinning work and thus greatly shortens the extracting
honey is best accomplished with two people.
One person uncapping frames while the other spins the honey.
Very efficient and the conversation can be good.
Itís not very stressful to a relationship either, unlike hanging
wallpaper. If you have clean wax from an earlier extraction, a side
candle-making operation is an effective use of time since candles take
time to cool.
honey flows best. Warm
honey spins out of the comb faster and more thoroughly than does cold
honey in an extractor. Warm honey also strains faster through a filter. Honey at 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 c) or higher will be
extracted most easily. This
is normally not a problem in the summer, but in cool weather a light bulb
under a stack of supers overnight can provide a lot of heat if the escape
of the heat is controlled. Donít
melt the wax!
honey absorbs moisture from the air.
Uncovered honey also catches insects, so keep the honey
honey containers are needed on extracting day.
Enough containers need to be on hand when extracting, so it is
good to learn how much capacity youíll need before extracting.
In rough numbers:
A shallow super will typically yield between 25 and 30 pounds of honey,
or 2 to 2 Ĺ gallons.
A medium (6 5/8Ē) depth super will typically yield between 35 and 40
pounds, or 3 to 4 gallons.
A full-depth box will typically yield between 60 and 70 pounds, or 5 to
Actual yields vary
due to the number of frames, how well they are extracted, age of comb and
cappings hold a lot of honey.
Wax cappings typically hold 10% or more of a beekeeperís honey crop. Cappings should be drained of honey through screening.
After draining, the cappings wax can be melted into a block.
Melting is best accomplished using a solar wax melter, or by
heating the cappings in an inch of water in an old pot.
Feed the honey-water back to the bees.
Solar wax melters really do work well Ė use
double-paned framed window glass and build around it.
Alternatively, the cappings can be left outside for the bees to
feed on and then thrown away
that are used with melted wax will not be used for anything else.
Melted wax leaves a waxy film on every pot, spoon, dipping cup or
strainer it comes into contact with.
Crock pots with an inch of water are good for melting cappings that
have been drained of honey, but the pot will never be the same.
Old crock pots are also near-perfect for melting wax during candle
making, and they are often available at garage sales.
Heat to between 150 and 180 degrees Fahrenheit; no need to boil.
comb and rotten boxes should be replaced while extracting. Extracting provides the perfect opportunity to cull bad
combs, frames and boxes that need paint or replacing.
Have replacements on hand on extracting day.
When short a few frames, frame feeders (also called division-board
feeders; the kind that normally replace a frame or two) can be put in the
empty spaces in the supers so any burr comb built there will be inside the
feeder where it will actually be useful to prevent drowning when it is
time to feed.
the bees clean the ďwetĒ empty supers after extracting. Whether intending to return the supers to the bees
or store them off the hives, the bees do a great job of drying supers
after extracting. A stack of
supers can be placed on a hive, over an inner cover that has a hole, and they will usually
be dry the next day. Best to put them on the hives late in the day,
to reduce robbing.
beekeeper has unique conditions, and there are many good beekeepers that use
different methods, so enjoy experimenting with what works best!
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