What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Erichalfbee]

I can put them inside another bag and vacuum seal it if necessary.

James

That's exactly what I would do. I used to freeze but was rapped on the knuckles for doing so

 

[Swarm]

Half a dozen supers brought in today, five more tomorrow and that's the harvest done. Colonies are all very strong but most of the singles are very light in the brood box so with the forecast of rain, some feeders will go on these tomorrow.
Another season comes to an end and what a season!! It was great to share the excitement and pride of new beekeepers who managed to get a very nice crop of their own honey and to share in the success of others.

 

[Swarm]

Landowner joined me to remove the last supers and put treatment and feeders on this morning. Lot's of bees at home and a couple of colonies less than pleased to have us poking about in the rain, he copped three stings through his Sherriff suit but to be fair, most of them just sat and looked at us.
Any hive feeling on the light side had a quick feed to tide them over, I don't think we are going to see days of constant rain and Ivy is now in flower.

 

[The Poot]

Landowner joined me to remove the last supers and put treatment and feeders on this morning. Lot's of bees at home and a couple of colonies less than pleased to have us poking about in the rain, he copped three stings through his Sherriff suit but to be fair, most of them just sat and looked at us.
Any hive feeling on the light side had a quick feed to tide them over, I don't think we are going to see days of constant rain and Ivy is now in flower.

Stinging through a Sherrif suit is unusual - unless he was quite wet?
Theres no ivy close to flowering here yet, so I’ll be feeding my light colony this evening.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Nothing
All done bar vaping a few colonies and feeding a little.
Drizzling outside....looking forward to throwing a log on the fire when it gets cold

 

[Swarm]

No it was at the start, when it was dry. Not the first time though, if they want you they'll get you, this was side of his head and two on his arm. I pointed out the Oz Armour where it pulls tight on shoulders etc, I reckon they would get through. But these were a bit wound up because it's taken a couple of attempts to clear them, they went down into a double brood albeit dummied down and it's heaving.

 

[nettle]

Well, today I harvested....

(wait for it!).....

2 frames of honey! My second year as a beekeeper and this is my first taste of the stuff - the most expensive and hard-won honey on the planet!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Well, today I harvested....

(wait for it!).....

2 frames of honey! My second year as a beekeeper and this is my first taste of the stuff - the most expensive and hard-won honey on the planet!

Oh but what wonderful honey it is.
Find a very small jar to keep a little back for posterity. Your first honey.
I've kept a jar back every year

 

[Redcap]

Collected 3 pallets and took to the apiary - hive stands ready for next season - for my planned increase in hives (forward planning or what !). Removed super and QE earlier in the week and added a wet frame above crown board for them to clean up, had forgotten my smoker (first time ever), but carried on, thankfully without issue. Always use it sparingly, but try never to actually be without it, bit like a comfort blanket really.

 

[elainemary]

Time to switch from operations and logistics to sales, marketing and finance!
A very enjoyable day at my village fete. Started with the fell race, followed by dog agility and the jazz band, then lots of goodies in the Produce tent and ended with the beer tent and a gin bar!

I hired a pitch for £10 and put on a display about ‘Planting more for our bees’ and sold lots of local honey. My Heather cut comb was v popular and sold out what I took, so was my home apiary Heather blend honey. Summer honey from down the valley sold well too. Beeswax wraps and blocks slower.

Final push next week when I start heather extraction and the main crop of heather blend.

 

[user 20297]

Well, today I harvested....

(wait for it!).....

2 frames of honey! My second year as a beekeeper and this is my first taste of the stuff - the most expensive and hard-won honey on the planet!

Hey, I have copyright on that sales slogan!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Went up the range to hand over the apiary rent honey, then I wandered down the 50m range with the RSO to see how the sand trap bees were doing, a few people putting up their targets took an interest so it turned into a 15 minute chat about bees and pollination.
Then went home to sort out the stores shed and make room for this year's honey harvest, then started sorting out the invert to take around to the out apiaries tomorrow.

 

[Redcap]

Time to switch from operations and logistics to sales, marketing and finance!
A very enjoyable day at my village fete. Started with the fell race, followed by dog agility and the jazz band, then lots of goodies in the Produce tent and ended with the beer tent and a gin bar!

I hired a pitch for £10 and put on a display about ‘Planting more for our bees’ and sold lots of local honey. My Heather cut comb was v popular and sold out what I took, so was my home apiary Heather blend honey. Summer honey from down the valley sold well too. Beeswax wraps and blocks slower.

Final push next week when I start heather extraction and the main crop of heather blend.

Great pics, nice presentation.

 

[JamezF]

Not exactly in the apiary as that would have been chaos, but between my daughter and I today we broke the back of the extracting though I still have a large pile of cappings mixed with honey to deal with.

It's possibly one of the easiest extraction days I've ever had, partly I think due to warming the supers and partly due to using the electric carving knife for uncapping. I'm surprised the knife went the distance given its age, but I might buy a spare for next year just in case.

One thing that wasn't as good as I was hoping was the double filter from Thorne's. Initially it worked very well and was way better than the mesh bag that I've used until now, but I found the lower fine filter was getting clogged quite frequently with small particles of wax, probably from parts of the comb that I'd had to uncap separately where the combs were a bit misshapen. That may need a bit of a rethink for next year, either in terms of how I'm uncapping or how I filter the "lumps" out. I'm also thinking that I really need to upgrade my honey gates. The standard plastic ones just aren't cutting it any more. The one on the extractor turned out to be in quite poor shape, jumping a thread when I tried to tighten it up. Fortunately I had a spare.

So this evening I am running the "loose" honey off the cappings, pretending I can't see all the cleaning that needs doing and wondering what to do with the few frames that wouldn't extract fully because some of the honey is a bit too crystallised. In the past I'd probably just have cut the comb out of the frame and melted it out, but I've become very unwilling to give up drawn supers this year so I'm looking for other ideas.

James

 

[JamezF]

Great pics, nice presentation.

Indeed so.

James

 

[Hachi]

Not exactly in the apiary as that would have been chaos, but between my daughter and I today we broke the back of the extracting though I still have a large pile of cappings mixed with honey to deal with.

It's possibly one of the easiest extraction days I've ever had, partly I think due to warming the supers and partly due to using the electric carving knife for uncapping. I'm surprised the knife went the distance given its age, but I might buy a spare for next year just in case.

One thing that wasn't as good as I was hoping was the double filter from Thorne's. Initially it worked very well and was way better than the mesh bag that I've used until now, but I found the lower fine filter was getting clogged quite frequently with small particles of wax, probably from parts of the comb that I'd had to uncap separately where the combs were a bit misshapen. That may need a bit of a rethink for next year, either in terms of how I'm uncapping or how I filter the "lumps" out. I'm also thinking that I really need to upgrade my honey gates. The standard plastic ones just aren't cutting it any more. The one on the extractor turned out to be in quite poor shape, jumping a thread when I tried to tighten it up. Fortunately I had a spare.

So this evening I am running the "loose" honey off the cappings, pretending I can't see all the cleaning that needs doing and wondering what to do with the few frames that wouldn't extract fully because some of the honey is a bit too crystallised. In the past I'd probably just have cut the comb out of the frame and melted it out, but I've become very unwilling to give up drawn supers this year so I'm looking for other ideas.

James

When I am extracting I have six S/S filters and to keep production going, I swap them out and wash frequently James. If I'm jarring OSR and it has set in the bucket I gently heat to 40 C I then find it passes thro the fine filter more easily.

 

[Anduril]

One thing that wasn't as good as I was hoping was the double filter from Thorne's. Initially it worked very well and was way better than the mesh bag that I've used until now, but I found the lower fine filter was getting clogged quite frequently with small particles of wax, probably from parts of the comb that I'd had to uncap separately where the combs were a bit misshapen. That may need a bit of a rethink for next year, either in terms of how I'm uncapping or how I filter the "lumps" out.
James

Similar to Hachi, I have 2 of the double filters, when one clogs up, the other one is used. Then once the honey has filtered through the first one, it is scraped clean and reused

 

[JamezF]

When I am extracting I have six S/S filters and to keep production going, I swap them out and wash frequently James. If I'm jarring OSR and it has set in the bucket I gently heat to 40 C I then find it passes thro the fine filter more easily.

Well it's reassuring to know that it's not just me having problems with the filters then

It's only half a dozen frames at most with honey that doesn't want to spin out, so perhaps I can put those back in the warming cabinet and jack up the temperature a bit to see if that helps. I won't worry about HMF levels as I can keep that back for "personal use"

James

 

[JamezF]

Similar to Hachi, I have 2 of the double filters, when one clogs up, the other one is used. Then once the honey has filtered through the first one, it is scraped clean and reused

Something to check out come the sales, by the looks of it. I may have to delegate to another child: "I'm uncapping and filling buckets etc., you're loading/spinning/unloading and you're cleaning the filters"

James

 

[Anduril]

I also use the Lega Uncapping tray, 65x48x30 cm, stainless steel with a bucket and the 3 filters, 200, 400 and 600 microns underneath which saves a lot of time, I mainly use the 600 micron filter. The only problem with the Lega tray is that it is designed for langstroth frames, but a simple modification with 2 laths of wood either side and I can carry on uncapping and storing the National frames in the tray (between 12 and 15 frames) while the extractor is running.