Capping & Harvesting

[tomtomhitter]

Hi all.
Apologies of this has been asked before. I've done a bit of trawling, but can't find anything to help really.

Firstly, I know I am a little late in my harvesting, but I harvested mid September last year and had a good amount from two first year colonies. Not recommended, but both over-wintered well and boomed this year.

My first hive, which is double BB and really strong has only filled 8 of 10 frames in one super. The remaining two are 90% full, but only around 10% capped. Once the super was full on 8 frames I added a second, which the bees haven't touched.
However, 4 brood frames in the upper BB are completely full and capped.

Is there a recommended process for encouraging the bees to move stores from the BB to fill the last two frames and cap them? Or am I too late now?
Or can I just harvest the capped honey in the BB?

My second hive has filled and capped 90% of each of the 10 frames, but each frame has an un-capped golf ball sized portion, in the middle along the bottom bar.
Is this likely to have never been capped, or is this the sign of them uncapping and starting to use the stores as they were originally intended because the weather has been so terrible for most of Aug and Sept?
Or, like in the first hive, are they likely to cap it if I give them more time?

Thanks all!!!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Harvest the super from the second hive.
Assess the brood stores and act accordingly
The first hive. You can encourage the bees to rob the uncapped honey down into the brood by putting it above a crownboard with a reduced feeder hole and an empty super in between. That sometimes works.
An infallible way of moving it is to put it under the brood

You should be thinking of treating.

 

[tomtomhitter]

Harvest the super from the second hive.
Assess the brood stores and act accordingly
The first hive. You can encourage the bees to rob the uncapped honey down into the brood by putting it above a crownboard with a reduced feeder hole and an empty super in between. That sometimes works.
An infallible way of moving it is to put it under the brood

You should be thinking of treating.

So, despite there being uncapped cells, it's OK to harvest?

Treating is next on the list for winter prep!!

Thank you for the advice.

 

[Poly Hive]

Take out the guess work by buying a refractometer which costs the price of 2 pounds of honey.

PH

 

[tomtomhitter]

Take out the guess work by buying a refractometer which costs the price of 2 pounds of honey.

PH

As it happens, I've just this second ordered one!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Take out the guess work by buying a refractometer which costs the price of 2 pounds of honey.

PH

I think you can take a chance in a tiny bit uncapped though

 

[enrico]

Some of my frames this year we're only half capped. Refractometer readings were good, jarred them up and most readings at 17/18.
A golf ball size of uncapped cells, wouldn't worry at all!
E

 

[Poly Hive]

And that is precisely where the refractometer wins out.

No guessing!

PH

 

[Mandeville]

Some of my frames this year we're only half capped. Refractometer readings were good, jarred them up and most readings at 17/18.

I've had the same this year - some supers packed full but hardly any of it capped. All reading 18.5 or less. A refractometer is such a reassuring thing to have.

 

[thedozzer]

As others have said, Refractometer worth is weight in honey many times over, we just extracted the last three supers, over half of it not capped, but some bellow 17%

we normally test 2 frames per super just to see if its OK and the bees don't always cap the honey when its ready to extract.

 

[enrico]

When you have extracted the water rises to the top in the settling tank. I take readings several times as I jar up until I reach the point the water content is too high!
E

 

[tomtomhitter]

...yet another reason why I love this forum!!

As a beginner, it's very hard to learn the nuances of beekeeping.
The endless book reading and video watching only teaches so much. The years and years of first hand experience and knowledge is invaluable!

Thanks again!