Honey Extraction Queries

[Stickyfingers]

Assuming you you own kit for extracting and your not a large scale enterprise.

What is the general consensus:

1. To extract as when a super is ready.
2. Wait till the end of the season.

Also from the 'bucket to jar thread' I gather it is generally the norm to coarse filter straight into storage buckets to be fine filtered in settling tank then to jars.
Question is do people separate honey buckets from different hives or does it all go into one 'settling tank' in the end.

Thanks.

 

[VEG]

everyone will have a different way of doing it. Find the way that works for you as you have 2 hives you wont have a great big stack to do. Also depends on what equipment you have.

 

[Poly Hive]

If your bees have been anywhere near OSR you do not have a choice.

Most lump the lot together.

PH

 

[Arfermo]

I suggest that it is quite rare for beekeepers to find a whole super to extract in one go, especially if OSR is involved. Best to go through the supers, find combs that are 80% or so capped, give them a shake remove bees and to judge if nectar in the comb is ready for extraction ie doesn't splatter out, brush off the rest of the bees, then place the frame in an another adjacent super and put a lid on it to stop flyers raiding it. Then move it away and remove the lid and let the remaining bees fly away. That is it in a nutshell for me.

 

[tonybloke]

I keep the honey from each hive separate from one another. the tastes are quite often different.
but then, I ain't got loads to deal with

oh, and I only take of supers when the whole lot is ready, by then the bees have at least one more super they are working on.

 

[Poly Hive]

Rare?

Lost count of the thousands of whole ones I have extracted.

Normal I would have thought.

PH

 

[MandF]

We also keep our honey from each hive, and each batch from each hive separate. If we couldnt then we would still extract as soon as we have enough ready between the hives for a worthwhile extraction, which would be 18 frames.

As Tony said, it is interesting to compare batches of honey from the same hive taken at different times, and also between 2 hives taken at the same time. Apart from that I wouldnt want a nicely capped super all of a sudden being uncapped and eaten

 

[MandF]

Just to add, we would do the same if we had our own equipment. 18 frames is, what, 40-50lb, so worth the time and hassle of extraction and cleaning.

 

[Birds&Bees]

1st extraction after the OSR, then a 2nd at the end of the season.

Everything gets mixed together at the time, but the 1st and 2nd extractions are kept seperate.

 

[Nigel2]

just extracted one super, 8 of the 9 frames 3/4 full 15 kilo yield!