Is a super full of honey worth it?

[Howsoonisnow]

I've been offered a super full of honey but with the effort of extraction and cleaning, I'm not sure it will be worth it.

Can the super be stored away from the bees over winter and then returned to them for a couple of weeks prior to extraction for them to warm it?

Is the risk of crystallisation the biggest issue?

Thanks

 

[thedeaddiplomat]

An 11 frame super full of honey - probably 25lb as a minimum. £5 or so per lb. It would certainly be worth my while putting the current Lady DD to work with the extractor!

 

[chickendave]

An 11 frame super full of honey - probably 25lb as a minimum. £5 or so per lb. It would certainly be worth my while putting the current Lady DD to work with the extractor!

I'm in Bristol if you can't be bothered with it I would gladly extract

 

[Russel]

An 11 frame super full of honey - probably 25lb as a minimum. £5 or so per lb. It would certainly be worth my while putting the current Lady DD to work with the extractor!

Do you simply work them to death or part ex them before they are totally knackered?

 

[For want of a better word]

Perhaps it would be better to move over to Top Bar Hives... then the "frames" could be left in the hive for the bees to do what they do with it naturally?

For most extracting the golden harvest is the reward for a year of graft and worry that is the fun of beekeepering!
after all I do not plant carrots in my vegetable patch and leave then for the rabbits to dig up!

Crikey.............. I am beginning to sound like "Tractor Man"

When all the extracting, bottling and labeling and selling and repairing hives and making up new foundation and reading some new books and re reading ones read before I will get around to studying and taking lots more exams for some of those sew on badges everyone is going on about.
Wonder if the Cub Scouts still do a Beekeepers badge?

 

[Torq]

Depends on your point of view. I got 11lb of honey from 4 full and 3 x 1/2 frames, as it was my first harvest I was delighted.

 

[Bob Bee]

I've been offered a super full of honey but with the effort of extraction and cleaning, I'm not sure it will be worth it.

Can the super be stored away from the bees over winter and then returned to them for a couple of weeks prior to extraction for them to warm it?

Is the risk of crystallisation the biggest issue?

Thanks

extract it.

 

[justme]

Perhaps it would be better to move over to Top Bar Hives... then the "frames" could be left in the hive for the bees to do what they do with it naturally?

For most extracting the golden harvest is the reward for a year of graft and worry that is the fun of beekeepering!
after all I do not plant carrots in my vegetable patch and leave then for the rabbits to dig up!

Crikey.............. I am beginning to sound like "Tractor Man"

When all the extracting, bottling and labeling and selling and repairing hives and making up new foundation and reading some new books and re reading ones read before I will get around to studying and taking lots more exams for some of those sew on badges everyone is going on about.
Wonder if the Cub Scouts still do a Beekeepers badge?

It seems not. I did see online somewhere backalong, a petition to get it reinstated though. My daughters a cub and I've been collared to take my obs hive along to both them and the beavers.

 

[Gardenbees]

One super is just about manageable to do things by hand if you can't be bothered to put it through an extractor... If the frames are nice and full, and the combs are unwired, you can wrap up some of them, put them in the back of the airing cupboard, and just take them out and eat your way through 'em over the winter! I love comb honey, as do some of my friends, and I occasionally give them a frameful of honey like that. A comb-loving family can munch their way through a frameful of cut comb in no time. Or, if it's fairly runny honey, uncap the frames and let them drip into a clean bucket. You get a lot of honey even if it's not as much as an extractor would give you. Let the bees clean up the remains by putting them right on top of the hive, well-separated by one or two clearer boards with small holes open. They will climb through and treat your leftovers as a windfall, "robbing" back their own honey, leaving, with any luck, a clean set of drawn frames.

Or just mush the whole lot up, drain off the honey, and melt down the wax. It's what people with top bar hives do all the time, after all...

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Is it crystallised already?

 

[drstitson]

yes - that's what most people keep bees for.

 

[mexbigshow]

i thought you wasn't supposed to give your bees any honey but there own to prevent spread of disease?

 

[mexbigshow]

sorry just re read the op

 

[drstitson]

Having just bought 40kg of sugar as a first feed for 6 colonies that have yielded 0kg honey i'd say yes.