Rhombus clearer

No 1 hive had two full capped supers and a third super being drawn and loaded so I ordered a Rhombus bee escape. It arrived and I made up a clearing board complete with a 90mm eke side and fitted it under the top two supers. As the third super was getting significantly heavy I also added a fourth super of foundation between the brood and the filling super. Putting the hive back together was hard work due to the height.
Planning to harvest the top two supers this evening or tomorrow as I am told the bees can learn the way back through clearers if left on too long.

 

[VEG]

How did it go ?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Cleared all but six bees. Marvellous device the rhombus escape. Just extracting the honey this evening

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Extracted some wonderful honey with my 4 frame manual extractor. I scratched the cappings off with a fork while holding the frames over the extractor vessel and avoided unwanted drips everywhere.
I found it is too easy to overspin and damage the combs when I extracted spring honey a while ago so I was distinctly more careful this time and spun each side slowly to begin with then spun each side again but slightly quicker until drops ceased to be flung onto the sides of the drum.
After both supers had been extracted the reservoir of the extractor was almost full so I ran the product through a two stage stainless steel filter into settling buckets.
After settling and the entrapped air had risen to the top I bottled the honey, retaining the skimmed off airy top layer for personal use. The cappings and bits of wax from the filter were turned into beeswax polish with a little turpentine and aromatic oil.
Absolutely delicious - the honey not the polish