OSR Super. What to do!

[knotty]

Problem:

3 Supers chock full of OSR honey.
I have extracted (like trying to extract fudge!) and about 50% came out and has been jarred up. Lovely soft set honey!
Supers returned to bees 50% full of "hiney fudge".
The OSR is all finished here in my neck of the woods but the brambles seem to have come out in force!

Question:
What to do with the supers?
1. If the bees restock will my next batch of honey set rock hard again because it still has a lot of OSR? Or will it become liquid again (as warmeed by bees and diluted with less crystallised gluc/fructose).

2. Should I try and crush strain/heat and damage the combs to get at the goodies and separate the wax and honey. How does one do that? Sounds messy!!!

3. I have just read that you can cut a large square (have wired frames!) in the super frames and the bees will repair and rebuild thus removing the ORS set honey with a slight loss in honey yeald due to wax production. Not quite sure how I would do this with wired frames and worry that my 2 frame tangealextractor wouldn't be able to extract without destroying the frames.

Thought?!

 

[oliver90owner]

None of them! Something else - doesn't seem to be an option for that on the poll?

I see it as a nuisance, but no great deal to shout about. Just get on and get it fixed. Been reported elsewhere recently.
A poll is a poll. If you wanted to know what to do with it, why have a poll? Why not just ask for help.

 

[YorkshireBees]

None of them! Something else - doesn't seem to be an option for that on the poll?

I see it as a nuisance, but no great deal to shout about. Just get on and get it fixed. Been reported elsewhere recently.
A poll is a poll. If you wanted to know what to do with it, why have a poll? Why not just ask for help.

None of the choices you have.
Dependant on the amount of chrystalised honey left in the super frames I personally manage the hive to get the bees to clear out the set honey before they refill.
It has been talked about om other threads!

 

[knotty]

None of the choices you have.
Dependant on the amount of chrystalised honey left in the super frames I personally manage the hive to get the bees to clear out the set honey before they refill.
It has been talked about om other threads!

Poll popped up, check box error, so thought it might help spread opinion.

No, nothing to shout about, just asking for your help and expertise! If its been discussed before then happy to tap into that. Sorry to ask the same question again, but that's the new guy for you.

You say manage the bees to get them to clear it out. How would you do this? Perhaps put above a crown board for a short period?

 

[YorkshireBees]

Well the reason I agreed that a poll is wrong for this question is that there are far too many possibilities and personal preferences of how to deal with OSR set in frames.

Having said that then I will explain what I meant by 'managing the hive'.

A lot of things come into consideration when deciding what action too take a few of which are:-

Amount of honey set in the frames, the weather and amount of forage available, the strength of a colony.... etc.

I personally have given back all my frames this year to the bees to use. In most cases due to a sudden drop in nectar flow after the OSR and the weather they have cleaned most of the set honey out of the frames. In a few cases where maybe the colony had enough stores in the brood box they have not cleared everything and have now in fact started to store nectar on top of the crystallized honey!
In hind sight what I maybe should have done is made sure they had enough space with another super and then placed the extracted supers above a crownboard with a restricted hole so that they would clean out all of the stores.

The above is just my own personal experience / preference and as I say there are many factors to take into account before deciding on the way forward.

 

[oliver90owner]

Of those four options, only one makes even a bit of sense, and then only as a last resort.

There should not be many responses to your poll, what with three of those options being non-starters (IMO), and one which might be chosen by a few of the newer beeks, who likely haven't thought it through, actually had the problem or just think that is the better option of the four.

 

[Finman]

None of them! Something else - doesn't seem to be an option for that on the poll?

Well said Oliver

Really disasterous and wasting alternatives. Do nothing of them.

 

[johnmcc]

Not an untypical response to a newbie on here, Knotty - I've had it a couple of times from some of the usual suspects. What some of the established members don't seem to realise is that, however stupid the question, we're just after a little help. Go easy you old Guys! No need to shout. In the immortal words of one of your number - think . . . . THINK!

 

[Baggyone]

If you want to play fast and loose with everyones bees then leave the supers outside for a couple of days in hot weather. LOL.

Not a good idea in reality though.

Baggy

 

[jackbee]

Not an untypical response to a newbie on here, Knotty - I've had it a couple of times from some of the usual suspects. What some of the established members don't seem to realise is that, however stupid the question, we're just after a little help. Go easy you old Guys! No need to shout. In the immortal words of one of your number - think . . . . THINK!

 

[Finman]

Agree what?

.

 

[Skyhook]

I'm in the same situation- super full of set OSR. Basically the weather picked up for a few days, they hit the rape, then the rain came in again. Seemed a bit grasping to take it in case they needed it. Turns out they haven't, but what to do with it?

1) If the weather would stay decent for more than 36 hours, I would be inclined to move it under the BB and score it so that they move it up, and in so doing, reprocess it. I'm sort of favouring this, but am I right in thinkling it will work better in warm weather?

2) try to warm it in a cabinet (improvised) to the point where it becomes extractable, without the combs collapsing. Tricky without a thermostat.

3) Least favourite- scrape and melt in the oven. I assume that the honey would be likely to be degraded by this.

Not a poll, but opinions please?

.

 

[jackbee]

Agree what?

umm, with the post quoted ??????????

i'll requote for you

Not an untypical response to a newbie on here, Knotty - I've had it a couple of times from some of the usual suspects. What some of the established members don't seem to realise is that, however stupid the question, we're just after a little help. Go easy you old Guys! No need to shout. In the immortal words of one of your number - think . . . . THINK!

 

[YorkshireBees]

I'm in the same situation- super full of set OSR. Basically the weather picked up for a few days, they hit the rape, then the rain came in again. Seemed a bit grasping to take it in case they needed it. Turns out they haven't, but what to do with it?

1) If the weather would stay decent for more than 36 hours, I would be inclined to move it under the BB and score it so that they move it up, and in so doing, reprocess it. I'm sort of favouring this, but am I right in thinkling it will work better in warm weather?

2) try to warm it in a cabinet (improvised) to the point where it becomes extractable, without the combs collapsing. Tricky without a thermostat.

3) Least favourite- scrape and melt in the oven. I assume that the honey would be likely to be degraded by this.

Not a poll, but opinions please?

.

My personal choice would be option 1 as I always believe the bees can deal with the set OSR honey better than I can!

There are many factors in deciding what is best, weather, current flow, strength of colony etc. another option is the one I described earlier of putting that super above a crownboard with jus part of one of he holes (assuming the crownboard has feeding holes) open to allow them to 'rob' the honey and move it down into another super.

I luckily have never had to deal with a full super of set OSR but I do not see why either method would not work with it.

 

[Alanaccount]

I think this is a useful post, but have to agree with Johnmc and Jackbee. I'm relatively new to beekeeping and like this site as it has loads of info - but often don't feel knowledgeable enough to offer my opinion. I had a couple of supers with some OSR in today and now I have an idea of what to do with them. However, I do feel some contributors could be more helpful. If the question has already been answered it might be nice to direct us to the correct forum or leave it for someone who is happy to respond. Just to say none of these ideas are any good and not offer an alternative is a bit of a waste of everyone's time (IMHO!)

 

[sjt]

I'm fairly new to beekeeping and this is the first time I've had to deal with a super of OSR honey.
It was mostly crystallised but as I had the time I scraped it back and then very gently melted it in batches over hot water, I managed to get 14lbs. A couple of those I think I got a bit too hot so have kept for cooking.
The rest I've done as soft set...never done that before either and it worked really well.
I then returned the super of frames above the crownboard and during the last few dismal weeks they've eaten the lot.
Good result, well fed bees, clean comb, no sugar syrup feeding needed and several pounds of the golden stuff for the family. It was quite time consuming though good experience.

 

[Poly Hive]

Any honey in contact with OSR will in very quick time take on the same characteristics: namely set hard.

I hav enot looked at the poll so I am not commenting on that.

I see it as two options.

One is to cut out the comb and remains of honey and dump. On a hobbyist level it's unlikely that the equipment to deal with it to hand. Then rewax the frames and super up again.

Two is to put the supers over the Crownboard with the holes in it open, or make it so, so that the bees see it as not their hive, and they will clean it out for you. Then strip out the wax and rewax as per one.

The real question is why the OSR was allowed to get to this state? It's a crop that is normally extracted early to avoid this very issue.

PH