Partly capped frames

[Chris Nother]

Hi, the flow is pretty much done and dusted here and I have taken three super off two hives. Most frames are well capped and I have a few less than 80% capped. How best do I deal with that - put those frames all in to one super and hope the bees ripen it off in the coming weeks? If I have uncapped honey in supers at the end of the season - what is the best way of handling it? Extract and feed to bees? Store over winter (doubt it)?, Extract if it seems thick enough and use at home only? I just don't want to have part filled and part capped frames come September/October without a plan! Thoughts and guidance much appreciated!

 

[enrico]

There are two ways to give it back to the bees.
A) crown board with small hole, empty super, your part filled frames in another super. I only give them two at a time until they have cleared them.
B) put your frames in a super under the brood box. They want their stores at the top of the hive so they will move it upwards into the brood box. On the first spring inspection I then remove it but you can remove it before if they are not using it.
I would test with a refractometer first though. You may be surprised!
E

 

[GuyNir]

when extracting, I separate the under 70-80% capped frames. I start extracting the capped ones first. Once those are done, I extract those under capped frames for my own use.
This year capped honey came in at 17%, under 70-80% came in as 18%.
check with a refractometer, sometimes uncapped honey is actually under 19-20% water.

 

[oliver90owner]

It may already be ripe - bees don’t waste time capping cells if they think it may soon be needed... they will leave it uncapped in the hope of further flows before capping, of course. Capping is an energy-intensive operation.

 

[Chris Nother]

Fantastic advice from all of you - thanks a million!