Partially capped frames - tips on getting them capped

[Dolcoath]

Just taking off my honey crop for this year and, frustratingly, the majority (large majority) of super frames are only partially capped (say 30 to 50%). I'm aware of advice to shake the frame to see if unripe honey comes out and also that I could buy a hygrometer to check water content, but I'd prefer 80+% capped frames to be sure - some of my honey from last year fermented in the May hot weather and leaked from the jars. Are there any tricks to get the little blighters to finish the job? (Preferably before they eat the stuff!)

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just taking off my honey crop for this year and, frustratingly, the majority (large majority) of super frames are only partially capped (say 30 to 50%). I'm aware of advice to shake the frame to see if unripe honey comes out and also that I could buy a hygrometer to check water content, but I'd prefer 80+% capped frames to be sure - some of my honey from last year fermented in the May hot weather and leaked from the jars. Are there any tricks to get the little blighters to finish the job? (Preferably before they eat the stuff!)

Not really - you just have to hope they will, in this kind of weather they seem to have the attitude of why bother, as soon we will be using it.

 

[drex]

A week or two before harvest i go through the supers and move frames from the sides to the middle and middle to side. This does seem to help encourage the capping

 

[Fiona in South View]

I have been having similar problems. As I needed to get surplus supers off, capped or not, I tried putting a super above an eke and open crown board in the hope that the bees would think they were robbing and clear the honey down and cap it in the increasingly filled super below. When I went back in a couple (?) of days later I found they had taken the uncapped and left the odd bit of capped. This made it easier for those frames. I now need to check the next super. Either they have capped or I do the same again and eventually the uncapped gets to where it needs to be for overwinter stores. Why do I do this one box at a time? Because I struggle to lift heavy supers, especially at a height and find it all physically exhausting. If I wasn’t already well set up in my garden space with Nationals, I would try the long hives

 

[Spadger]

In the same boat. The un capped passes the the shake test, but not the refractometer test. Sadly, neither does a lot of the capped stuff - 21% some of it. New refractometer, correct calibration.
Decided that as one of my garden hives has a new queen, I am going to delay varroa treatment until she comes into lay and then do all 3 hives. Therefore returned one of the uncapped supers until that time, which was as greeted with an excited buzz.
Too late for the other supers as they are now in buckets! Could have thought that through better, but still learning!

 

[jeff33]

They are unlikely to cap them now. Whatever is uncapped with a water content of 20 or above by early September is left to the bees. Nadir or extracted and fed back using rapid feeder.

 

[GuyNir]

You can always extract and keep the uncapped (higher water %) for your own use.
last year some of my own started fermenting after a few months, quite like the taste of it in my tea.

 

[beeno]

Just taking off my honey crop for this year and, frustratingly, the majority (large majority) of super frames are only partially capped (say 30 to 50%). I'm aware of advice to shake the frame to see if unripe honey comes out and also that I could buy a hygrometer to check water content, but I'd prefer 80+% capped frames to be sure - some of my honey from last year fermented in the May hot weather and leaked from the jars. Are there any tricks to get the little blighters to finish the job? (Preferably before they eat the stuff!)

From a previous thread it was concluded that there is no safety in thinking that capped honey has the correct water content. The only safe way is a refractometer (for ease of use) or a hygrometer. Some colonies cap honey quicker than others, so one year I moved frames to a different colony for capping.