Honey Flow

[Mosquito]

Whats Honey Flow like for you.
I am doing GREAT for 1 Hive.
I have extracted 4 supers and bottled 102 Jars.
I put a Super on saturday and it's almost full today.
I now have 5 supers on the hive and the top 4 are Full.
Got a clearer board on the top 2 supers.

 

[BKF Admin]

What are they bringing in ?

Mine are doing good on the wild mint,I had a flow from it last year as well.

Lucky it's on the riverbank so getting enough water to drink.

 

[MrB]

Whats Honey Flow like for you.
I am doing GREAT for 1 Hive.
I have extracted 4 supers and bottled 102 Jars.
I put a Super on saturday and it's almost full today.
I now have 5 supers on the hive and the top 4 are Full.
Got a clearer board on the top 2 supers.

wow! are they robbing the local Tesco

 

[Mosquito]

I have no Idea, as I live in the town.
There are a few farm fields about two and a half to three miles away.
But not got a car so have not looked to see if there are any crops in flower.

 

[susbees]

Desperately needed rain finally arrived this afternoon. Occasional bee rushing out this morning onto the thistles. Still a bit of clover and plenty blackberry about...but won't be much dry weather for a while.

Saying that the grass had all but stopped growing and we've grass-eaters to feed here too. No pleasing everyone .

 

[Mike a]

Hoped for a good amount this year but suffered with multiple problems of queens not mating.

Spring flow gave me 33 lbs from two colonies.
Summer flow to date - one very strong colony starting its 4th super the other strong colony starting its 2nd.

Other colonies allowing them to build up with no expectations of excess honey from them this year.

 

[stanford bees]

Yep, the girls have been going great

One prime swarm picked up end of may is on its fourth super,
all the others are on 2-3.

Extracting this weekend, i recon on 12-14 supers

Ian

 

[RoseCottage]

It's funny we started last year and decided that honey was not a priority for us ... but it is exciting when you see it piling in...139lbs and counting.
Having moved the girls at the weekend to a new location am pretty confident of another flow in a week or so as there is a strip of land some 300yds by 6yds full of wildflowers about start flowering literally outside their door.
Sam

 

[Poly Hive]

Mine pretty much dried off by mid week last week.

We currently are on day two of steady rain with more forcast.

Whether it switches on again is going to be interesting.

If not then I have had from the producing colonies some 300 lb of comb honey which I am more than happy with. And some 20+ nucs.

PH

 

[The Riviera Kid]

My bees filled 3 supers with honey and the brood box is full of it as well - there is plenty of space due to lack of brood - no queen for a while

But the bees simply haven't capped most of it at my main colony. They started to a bit of it but maybe there just weren't enough bees to do the job.

My second colony (the artificially swarmed "child" of the main one) in contrast has filled a super in no time and capped more or less the lot. They are in different locations - the main colony is on the edge of a spinney and gets less sun...

has anyone else had problems with the bees being very slow to cap honey?

 

[Queens59]

Mine just don't 'get' what a super is for. Have ignored it for a fortnight- roll on Saturday...I left a book open on the page about supers and hope they've read it!!

 

[dudley]

My last years colonies are all doing fine and I even have a swarm I took in May that has one super full of capped comb and they have just about finished filling a second.

But without going off track, I have quick question. I have 14 x 12 frames in national brood boxes. If I have say 6-8 frames of nice pattern brood perfectly in the middle of the brood box and find all the outer frames are full of capped honey, should I remove them for extraction and replace with new frames with fresh foundation or should I leave it up to the bees to move it up into the supers if they so choose?
I am not wanting more honey, I was thinking more about freeing up space for egg laying.
Thanks Steve.

 

[m100]

85lb taken off one colony in two extractions from the first week in June to now, at least another 40lb left in the hive as I didn't want to be greedy knowing the bad weather coming up plus I hadn't got any spare honey buckets.

 

[Mike a]

If I have say 6-8 frames of nice pattern brood perfectly in the middle of the brood box and find all the outer frames are full of capped honey, should I remove them for extraction and replace with new frames with fresh foundation or should I leave it up to the bees to move it up into the supers if they so choose?
I am not wanting more honey, I was thinking more about freeing up space for egg laying.
Thanks Steve.

I would leave it in for a two reasons.
1. The weather has turned and its not looking too good down my way for the next few days. If your colony is strong and they can't get out for a week they may need it.
2. Brood chamber honey stores is your colonies insurance from starving and will become good winter stores which you will only have to replace with poor sugar water substitute in a couple of months time.

I know beeks who take every last drop of honey they can squeeze out of every hive in autumn, then complain when some of their colonies starve to death as they won't eat the substitute. You said you don't need it but your bees will.

 

[dudley]

That was sort of my thinking, Thanks.

 

[Mosquito]

I have had 1inch of rain monday night.
1st rain for a very long time.
The weatherman keeps saying we are going to get rain.
But it seem to miss me.
My grass dying.

 

[madasafish]

My two new colonies (nuc , swarm, both in TBH) both are bringing in pollen and nectar as fast as they can despite light rain. When it gets really heavy they give up.

Even the swarm (blackish bees, small in numbers, hived 3 weeks ago) has a frame of uncapped nectar. The ex nuc (bees with lots of yellow rings) has about 4 frames of honey.

I am leaving both to build up this year and hope to take lots next year: making a half size TBH with super for honey collection.

 

[Skyhook]

From what I have gleaned, might it be an idea to 'bruise' the cappings on a couple of frames? It would be a strong hint to them to take it upstairs, but if they want to repair them they can.

 

[BKF Admin]

I bruised the cappings on a full size colony last week that was a nuc about 2 months ago.

I check them on Wednesdays,so it will be interesting to see if they have started to move stuff up,I gave the foundation a coat of the honey from the cappings as well.

They even have a good flow on !! little sods..

 

[Mosquito]

The flow has stopped for me.