Can we extract honey not capped and feed back?

[Tabby15]

So this is my second year and we have just extracted over 50 lbs of honey from capped supers with more to do.

However we have several frames that are not sufficiently capped. Could we extract them separately, put the honey from them into feeders and feed it back to the bees to get them to store it in the brood box for winter? Any problems with this?

I don't have a refractometer and as we have enough honey so we are happy to give this back.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

No need to extract. put them in a super and either under the broodbox and they should move the stores up, or above an empty super and feeding board (crown board with holes open).

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

if they have started capping it you could do the shake test - hupd the frame top bar downweards give a couple of good shakes downwards, if no honey cones out it's ripe. Otherwise just extract and give it back to the bees or if there's quite a few frames, make up a super full of frames including the full ones and put it back under the brood box

 

[Tabby15]

Thank you. That will be much easier. Do we need to put a queen excluder on top (between super and BB) to prevent HM laying in it?

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

If placing above then QE probably wise, if placing below with the intention of leaving it all winter then no

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

As Mons Ab if super is nadired (put under) at this time of year then there's no need for a QX as queen will move up not down to lay. One point it's worth remembering though, if you leave a super on top of the BB for the winter, then you should remove the QX or you could end up with isolation starvation with the cluster either staying below the QX with the queen as she can't move up therefore starving within sight of food, or the cluster moving up and leaving the queen below to die.

 

[mintmoth]

... if you leave a super on top of the BB for the winter, then you should remove the QX or you could end up with isolation starvation with the cluster either staying below the QX with the queen as she can't move up therefore starving within sight of food, or the cluster moving up and leaving the queen below to die.

That's a really useful bit of info jbm, for me anyway, as a wannabe beek, 'cos I haven't seen that explanation anywhere in any of the books I've read so far, for the cluster starving in sight of food. Because it's obvious when you've learned it, but not so obvious to think of by yourself. Mind you, I'm only on my 6th book so far

 

[Erichalfbee]

You could spin the frames twice.
Spin uncapped honey, give back to the bees and have the rest for yourself.
I've done that, this year.
I have 14 x 12s and decided to try that instead of nadiring supers.

There's still plenty of forage in the balsam and Ivy to come, the bees are busy so there is plenty of opportunity for them to gather winter stores.
I might nadir a super with pollen ....I don't know if it would be taken up.

 

[Tabby15]

Thanks all. Will be popping it underneath. Just trying to work out the right order as I need to
Get the extracted wet supers dried - they are on at the moment
Unite two of my colonies (if I can find HM)
Treat all with apiguard
"Nadir" (like that word) the uncapped ones

Plus all references to "I" are actually to my wonderful husband who having been doing all the lifting for me for over a year as I injured my wrist is now having to do it all as I have developed a severe allergy to bee stings.

 

[BeeJayBee]

You could spin the frames twice.
Spin uncapped honey, give back to the bees and have the rest for yourself.
I've done that, this year.

I'm having to do the same this year because, despite needing more than one super, almost all frames have a large area of uncapped and unripened stores.

 

[itma]

You could spin the frames twice.
Spin uncapped honey, give back to the bees and have the rest for yourself.
…

Interesting idea, but we could maybe make it clearer.

Spin the frames without uncapping. Collect all the part-ripened stores from the uncapped cells for feeding back to the bees.
Then uncap, spin again, and separately collect the fully-ripened honey - for the beekeeper!