Colony fed in june, should I extract that "honey"

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astabada

House Bee
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
Messages
149
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Location
Oxford
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
5
Hi everyone, after 2 swarms from my main hive and the long bad weather in june I fed one of my colonies with about 1 litre of sugar syrup. Obviously they stored that syrup in some of the super frames. Since I'm going to extract some honey in the next weeks but the second super i put on top is not full yet I'd like to get some frames from the bottom one, but since they contain syrup I really don't know what to do.. Ideas?
 
Hi everyone, after 2 swarms from my main hive and the long bad weather in june I fed one of my colonies with about 1 litre of sugar syrup. Obviously they stored that syrup in some of the super frames. Since I'm going to extract some honey in the next weeks but the second super i put on top is not full yet I'd like to get some frames from the bottom one, but since they contain syrup I really don't know what to do.. Ideas?

why did you feed with the super on? as you dont know how much is stored sugar syrup in the super, I would either take the super off and place in under the brood box, when the time is right, without a queen ecluder as winter feed or extract the super and feed it back to them when you feel you season is almost up. obviousyl this time without a super!!
They will then store it in the brood box again for winter feed. Dont over feed them as the queen will be still rearing winter bees

i would only leave the super on during the winter if its a big colony and can heat the extra space of a super under the brood box. If they are only small, extract and feed back

im still very new to beekeeping (2nd year) but from what ive read/learnt, as long as theres stores in the brrod box, bees will not go hungary. A brood box with stores is enough to see them through the winter. If yu have to feed through lack of stores in the brood box, this should be done without any supers on as they will store any excess in here. Be careful when feeding too as you dont want them to start filling the centre of the brood frames with honey as the queen wont be able to lay. Its a fine balance when feeding, too little, they'll starve, too much, and the queen wont be able to lay
 
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We left the super on because it was june and it was already there since may, hoping for the good weather to come. Anyway, since the colony was and still is very big, we couldn't just leave the brood box there as there wouldn't have been enough space for the bees.. I guess we'll leave that super as a winter store and extract just the one we put on top of that..
 
We left the super on because it was june and it was already there since may, hoping for the good weather to come. Anyway, since the colony was and still is very big, we couldn't just leave the brood box there as there wouldn't have been enough space for the bees.. I guess we'll leave that super as a winter store and extract just the one we put on top of that..

Forget extraction. Remove queen excluder, if shallow frames are full of stores of ? add some drawn or undrawn foundation, let the bees sort it out and keep a close eye on them. It will be a bit of a pain to sort out at the end of the season/ next year but better that than another swarm or extracting syrup. Set them up double brood next year
 
.
You may taste it, is it syrup or honey.

In extraction syrup is stiff and forms long threads when it comes out from cells.
Syrup is sweat but does not have much aroma.

Syrup cointains more or less nectar.
.
 
You fed one colony *1 litre*? Thats next to nothing, enough for a decent colony to keep it alive less than a week (well less actually, depends on what they had and how big the colony and what rate it was breeding at). A sisnificant proportion of that will have been used. For such a small volume of syrup one also assumes (subject to being corrected) that it was home made syrup. This will ripen down to maybe 0.6 litres, some of which the bees will use in processing it, so lets just say 0.5litres.

You have a hive that is filling its second super, so the presumption must be that he bottom super is full or getting on for full, otherwise the second one would not be there. It will thus contain about 10 litres of honey. Even if ALL the syrup was stored in the supers, and *none* used, you have a maximum of 5% syrup in the super, and probably a good deal less.

During spring expansion bees evict stores from the nest into the early supers regularly and winter stores (yes I KNOW some of you never feed, but most do) get moved upstairs, and are ultimately extracted.

At such low concentrations it is simply not noticeable. If what you fed truly was 1 litre then I think you worry too much and should just get on with it and extract. You will have somewhere up to 5%, but more likely 1 to 2%, syrup derived 'honey' mingled into your product at which points its both undetectable and undiscernable. If many are being honest probably no different from a lot of spring product.

Different matter if you had shoved 2 gallons into the supers.
 
You fed one colony *1 litre*? Thats next to nothing,

At last some common sense.

ITLD beat me to it. Little over half a kilo of sugar, probably consumed (if needed) amongst twenty five kilos of honey. I doubt it could be found and was likely placed in the honey arch for larval feeding at the time (that is what most of the nectar collected by the bees is used for).

I also note the proviso in ITLD's post and the 'obviously' part in the OP should have been written as 'some of that sugar'.

I know there will be no sugar feed in my crop because they have not ben fed any and if this feed was necessary, very little would have stayed around long. Mind you I will now go back thought the OP's postings to check it all out, as I recall it is all detailed earlier, somewhere.
 
As per the above two posts plus if the OP is planning ion using the honey for own usage where is the issue?

The warnings against tainting the honey with sugar are for those planning on selling the product.

PH
 
You fed one colony *1 litre*? Thats next to nothing, enough for a decent colony to keep it alive less than a week (well less actually, depends on what they had and how big the colony and what rate it was breeding at). A sisnificant proportion of that will have been used. For such a small volume of syrup one also assumes (subject to being corrected) that it was home made syrup. This will ripen down to maybe 0.6 litres, some of which the bees will use in processing it, so lets just say 0.5litres.

You have a hive that is filling its second super, so the presumption must be that he bottom super is full or getting on for full, otherwise the second one would not be there. It will thus contain about 10 litres of honey. Even if ALL the syrup was stored in the supers, and *none* used, you have a maximum of 5% syrup in the super, and probably a good deal less.

During spring expansion bees evict stores from the nest into the early supers regularly and winter stores (yes I KNOW some of you never feed, but most do) get moved upstairs, and are ultimately extracted.

At such low concentrations it is simply not noticeable. If what you fed truly was 1 litre then I think you worry too much and should just get on with it and extract. You will have somewhere up to 5%, but more likely 1 to 2%, syrup derived 'honey' mingled into your product at which points its both undetectable and undiscernable. If many are being honest probably no different from a lot of spring product.

Different matter if you had shoved 2 gallons into the supers.


Hi,
yes we only fed them with probably even less than 1 litre, we just did it because of the bad weather and the two swarms. From all the great suggestions I got I decided I will probably just get 2 or 3 frames at most from the first super and taste what's in it, and then just extract honey from the second super leaving the rest for winter stores. Probably it's best to get the outer frames, those should be the ones without the syrup..

I know it's not much but since we're going to keep the honey for ourselves, I really would like to just get actual honey.
:nature-smiley-013:
 
I know it's not much but since we're going to keep the honey for ourselves, I really would like to just get actual honey.

and the primary constituents of honey are...................glucose and fructose (and a bit of sucrose)..ok with whole gamut of other sugars present in small quantities, plus all the trace items that give it character.

and the primary constituents of syrup once the bees have ripened it are.........glucose and fructose ( and a bit of sucrose)....albeit minus all the trace sugars and the sucrose will be little bit higher.

The product will be perfectly edible but lacking in character. Given you are probaly only one or two percent of this at worst then you will never notice.
 
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