Summer harvest?

[Nannysbees]

When are you planning to remove your supers for the summer harvest?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

when I get time - pencilled in for the glorious twelfth

 

[Erichalfbee]

When are you planning to remove your supers for the summer harvest?

Some off this morning. Leaving uncapped supers on for the bees for now but I suspect I’ll get them to rob the honey down in a fortnight.

 

[enrico]

Some off this morning. Leaving uncapped supers on for the bees for now but I suspect I’ll get them to rob the honey down in a fortnight.

It's still July!!!!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It's still July!!!!

It's Royal Welsh show week, although I hate ascribing a calendar to anything beekeeping related - a strange phenomenon I've witnessed time and time again is, unless you have heather, once the show starts the flow peters out - regardless of weather or 'bumper seasons' and it even happened during the pandemic when the show was cancelled!

 

[Nannysbees]

Some off this morning. Leaving uncapped supers on for the bees for now but I suspect I’ll get them to rob the honey down in a fortnight.

How will you get them to do that?

 

[Sunflower123]

We've started to get a few off. It doesn't look like it will be a bumper year.

 

[Wilco]

How will you get them to do that?

Operation eke. Crown board above brood with small opening, eke then uncapped shallows on top, then roof.

 

[Erichalfbee]

It's still July!!!!

Only just.
July here is different from July in Somerset.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Operation eke. Crown board above brood with small opening, eke then uncapped shallows on top, then roof.

Yes. I’ve found that an empty super works better than an eke

 

[blackcloud]

Looking at putting clearers in on Saturday night.
Leaving some forage for them-they've damn well earned it.
Cuts down on syrup making chores too.
Already got more honey than we can sell from the spring harvest and I really want to go on a varroa killing spree

 

[Amari]

We extracted yesterday from five hives - little honey coming in for the last couple of weeks, except in my out apairy which is close to many acres of mustard - but that has now been cut. Also there is a rapid increase in wasps so I thought sooner rather than later. We normally extract three times a year but twice this year.
Most supers well capped but I extracted regardless of any uncapped: final settling tank reading = 18%.
My biggest problem was that some supers were too heavy to lift back to the top of the hive after placing clearer boards (CB) - I assume I have sarcopenia = inevitable loss of muscle mass as one ages. I tried two experiments:
1. As someone recently posted, I placed a CB on a hive stand and put a super on that beneath a lid. 24 hours later it was 3/4 cleared.
2. You'll think this a crazy experiment: I placed two of the heaviest supers each on a lower hive over a CB, the idea being that the slow transfer of bees into the host colony would be akin to uniting over newspaper. Result: failure, the supers did not clear. Thus I had 8 rather than 10 supers to extract. Yield = 130 lbs = avg of 16 lbs per super, par for the course for me.

 

[Erichalfbee]

some supers were too heavy to lift back to the top of the hive after placing clearer boards (CB)

I split the super. Remove a few frames then replace once clearer board is in place.
Take the frames one at a time into an empty super the next day. That way you can easily brush off the odd bee instead of taking her home

 

[Amari]

I split the super. Remove a few frames then replace once clearer board is in place.
Take the frames one at a time into an empty super the next day. That way you can easily brush off the odd bee instead of taking her home

Good thinking Dani. Time consuming but, hey, we're retired!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You'll think this a crazy experiment: I placed two of the heaviest supers each on a lower hive over a CB, the idea being that the slow transfer of bees into the host colony would be akin to uniting

Yes, you're right. If I want to reduce the height of a stack I just take the topmost super off, take the crownboard off the colony receiving a donation and just dump it on there, no fuss, no faffery.

 

[enrico]

I split the super. Remove a few frames then replace once clearer board is in place.
Take the frames one at a time into an empty super the next day. That way you can easily brush off the odd bee instead of taking her home

I do the same. Much easier.

 

[markb2603]

Not a hope of a summer harvest here. It’s been raining flat out for the last 4 weeks. All the bramble and clover missed this year. I actually had to feed a small hive 2 weeks ago as it was empty of stores. They took down 3.5 litres every day for a week! Went over to help another guy local to me yesterday and a split he made about 6 weeks ago had completely starved! Not much stores on his other hives either. If it wasn’t for the strong spring crop this year, I think we would have been feeding all our hives this summer. Given the lack of forage, I might have to leave any heather crop they can scrounge on the hives to get them through winter.

 

[jeff33]

When are you planning to remove your supers for the summer harvest?

I started last week, will be finished by next. Nothing coming in and with this weather they will start eating through them. Luckily I have 2bb full of stores which I had saved. Frames are being used as supers are removed.

 

[blackcloud]

It's still July!!!!

Enrico did you not get the "July is the new February" memo?

 

[user 20297]

It's still July!!!!

You missed off the, "FFS!"