Uncapped honey

[SixFooter]

I have quite a number of supers on different hives with uncapped honey, so I havent extracted it yet. Am I likely to ever be able to harvest it and is there anything I can do to speed things up?
Varroa drop is minimal, so oxalic acid treatment in December should suffice. Also, I think there is already lots of stores in the BB, so I may not have to feed much.

 

[RoofTops]

The only way to be sure is check it with a refractometer. You can try the "shake" test and if droplets fly out it is not ready. However, the chances are it probably is ready and is only uncapped because the bees haven't been able to fill the cells - but only a test can confirm this. There may be local forage like Himalayan Balsam they are still working.

Be careful about your varroa estimate. I would treat and see how many mites fall out. If not many then nothing lost but if you are wrong about your estimate then the winter bees may be harmed by the varroa and the colony may not make it through the winter.

 

[Moggs]

My recent mite drop count showed very few mites and I was hitherto tempted to forego any treatment. Advice on this forum convinced me that this would be tempting fate so I Apiguarded all last week.

The advice given here was borne out over the weekend throughout the course of a formal Seasonal Inspection, where the official advised me that treatment was warranted.

More 'grist to the mill' of confusion, especially for new beeks, as the FERA 'Managing Varroa' publication advised that no, or light controls were necessary in my case.

I'm now convinced that any opportunity to knock these perishers back can only be 'a good thing'.

 

[Arfermo]

As RoofTops says, a mite drop tray is not a reliable indicator of the degree of infestation by varroa. Be safe - not sorry is his advice and mine and, incidentally, FERAs. You have supers with capped and uncapped cells. Seems to me you should remove it all, take a reasonable proportion of it before applying Apiguard and hope that there is still time for the ambient temperature to be high enough (over 15 C) for it to be effective during the 4 weeks the treatement takes. Frankly you are in borderline country this late in the season. Some of the frames of honey, capped or uncapped, are worth retaining to be fed back after treatment. Hope this advice is useful. Oxalic at Xmas is the next step, coupled with some fondant as necessary. There again, if you don't Apiguard them, then trickling with Oxalic (which is a one-off treatment according to everything I can find on the subject) might not be enough to send your bees into the next season in good condition. For that reason, I evaporate oxalic as more than a single dose is quite acceptable. (On one of my hives I dosed then 4 times before the mite drop was OK - according to FERA's advisory leaflet on "Managing Varroa", available on-line but also available free from your Seasonal Inspector if you ask nicely). Maybe a beek in you local association has an evaporator and will dose yours for a small reward - mine's a single malt (afterwards of course)!!.

 

[taff..]

Seems to me you should remove it all, take a reasonable proportion of it before applying Apiguard and hope that there is still time for the ambient temperature to be high enough (over 15 C) for it to be effective during the 4 weeks the treatement takes. Frankly you are in borderline country this late in the season.

this should make happy reading for you


http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/196583/Weather-Indian-summer-on-the-way

 

[MJBee]

The only way to be sure is check it with a refractometer. You can try the "shake" test and if droplets fly out it is not ready. However, the chances are it probably is ready and is only uncapped because the bees haven't been able to fill the cells - but only a test can confirm this. There may be local forage like Himalayan Balsam they are still working.

Be careful about your varroa estimate. I would treat and see how many mites fall out. If not many then nothing lost but if you are wrong about your estimate then the winter bees may be harmed by the varroa and the colony may not make it through the winter.