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Richard Wahl began learning beekeeping the hard way starting in 2010 with no mentor or club association and a swarm catch. He is now a self-sustainable hobby beekeeper since 2018, writing articles, giving lectures and teaching beginning honey bee husbandry and hive management.
Off the Wahl Beekeeping
New(ish) Beekeeper Column
Harvesting Honey
By: Richard Wahl
Honey
The primary reason individuals get into the hobby of beekeeping is to at some point be able to collect honey. Although there are those who raise bees for pollination purposes, they seem to be in the minority when it comes to the small scale beekeeper. On the commercial side the need for pollination services has overtaken the sale of honey as a primary income source. Since this column focuses on the beginning beekeeper I will leave any references to the commercial pollination side for other sources to cover. Harvesting the first crop of honey is a very rewarding experience. It proves all the trials and cost that went into raising bees for a period of time before honey collection was worth the effort. To responsibly harvest honey it is important to understand the entire process, from when the bees have capped the honey in the comb to returning honey supers to the hive. This article covers each step in the process from super collection, extraction, straining, bottling and super replacement on the hive.
The Use of Honey Supers
Once the brood chambers are 80% to 90% filled it is normal to add a honey super or two for the bees to store their excess nectar which will be turned into honey. Whether working with a single deep, two deeps or three mediums as brood chambers it is wise to wait until those supers are nearly filled before adding a honey super or two. I have used all three methods, although I prefer to have two deeps as brood chambers. If the honey supers are added too soon the bees may move upward into the new space instead of expanding outward. The increased space could lead to greater heat loss making it harder for the bees to maintain a proper brood nest temperature. Too much space too early could lead to the invasion of pests such as wax moths or hive beetles. As with most things in beekeeping, adding supers is a judgment call and timing may be crucial. I have normally found that the bees do better if they seem to be a bit crowded rather than having plenty of extra space. On the other hand, if the hive gets overly populated and does not have enough space to expand, it could be an invitation to swarm. More frequent monitoring and judicious super additions tend to be the rule in late Spring and early Summer during what is normally the first nectar flow and also primary swarm season. A newly split hive with an overwintered queen can expand quite rapidly while the split, raising a new queen, will take about five weeks to catch up. Once honey super cells are filled and then at least 80% capped with wax, the honey is ready to be collected. If when shaken, nectar drips out of any open cells the honey has not reached the 18% water content and the resultant unripe honey lacks the desired quality and could ferment. A small portion of uncapped cells among a larger quantity of capped cells will not degrade the quality of the honey. An instrument called a refractometer, sold in most commercial bee catalogs, can be used to test the water content of the honey. Most refractometers will need to be calibrated to your location and humidity conditions prior to use with the instructions that accompany the refractometer.
Removing Honey Supers
There are several ways in which the beekeeper can remove bees from honey supers and then move supers to a location for extraction. Beekeepers are best advised to do this in favorable weather conditions with proper protective clothing and equipment at the ready such as smokers, hive tools and bee brushes. An extra outer cover or two will also come in handy. As with any inspection or extensive activity in the hive having a plan with resources at the ready will expedite the process. A few puffs of smoke at the hive entrance will disguise the warning pheromones of the guard bees. If bees are very active at the top of the honey super a few puffs under the lifted inner cover may also help to calm the bees, but it is important to use smoke sparingly. Excessive smoke can be detrimental and may lead to bees becoming more agitated. Since I only work two or three hives at a time I like to have an extra outer cover set upside down to the side with an empty honey super box set on it to receive capped honey frames. In this way I can remove any fully capped honey frames and consolidate partially capped frames back to the hive or combine them in another hive. As I remove each frame I gently brush the bees off, place the frame in the empty honey super on the outer cover and quickly cover the collection super with another outer cover or piece of plywood to keep curious bees out. As each additional frame is added I quickly open and close the collection super to keep other bees out. My collection setup is set on one of those small greenhouse garden center service wagons and as soon as one super is filled I can add a second empty over the first to collect a second set of honey frames. Another method that I have heard some beekeepers incorporate in their honey frame collection is the use of a leaf blower to remove the bees from frames although this would seem to scatter the bees more than the simpler brush off. If I know a full honey super has more than 80% of the frames capped and I will be taking the entire honey super, I have used a fume board to remove the bees from the honey super. The bottom of the fume board, normally made of an absorbent felt like material, is sprayed with a bee repellent such as Bee-Quick or Honey-B-Gone. Place the fume board, felt side down on top of the honey super. The bees find these chemical agents unpleasant and will leave the underlying honey super descending into the supers below in a short period of time, often within ten to fifteen minutes. Once the bees have left, the honey super can be removed and placed on an outer cover or other solid base and immediately covered to keep the bees out as described above. Commercial beekeepers often use fume boards due to their efficiency in large scale operations. My favorite method of bee removal is to use a bee escape system. Although this entails an extra step in opening and adjusting fully capped honey supers I find it equally as effective as the brushing or fume board methods. The first step in this technique is to determine if a honey super’s frames are fully capped enough for the entire super to be removed. A quick inspection of the outer most frames and a peek at the bottoms of frames is often enough to make this determination. If outermost frames and the bottom of frames appear to be capped, the entire honey super is ready for extraction. Once that determination is made I remove the honey super, bees and all, and insert a spacer below an escape board giving those honey super bees to a space to move into, the honey super being returned on top of the bee escape board. On the returned honey super I will spread paper towels on which I dribble liberal drops of almond extract. This is the same almond extract my wife uses in baking as I have found the bees do not like its odor. I then replace the outer cover ignoring any use of an inner cover. Since the inner cover has a notch in it I do not want to give bees an access point above the honey super. After 24 to 48 hours nearly all bees will have exited the escape board and moved into the hive below. If the escape board is placed on the hive in the early a.m., removal in late afternoon the next day finds most all bees have left the honey super. If the escape board is placed on a hive late in the day it is best to wait until the day after next for bees to have exited the honey super. Quick removal of the honey super with it placed between two outer covers, as stated earlier in the article, will result in all bees having exited the honey super and none able to reenter. Early in my beekeeping experience I was assisting a young man in his second year with bees and he relayed the following to me the first time he was able to remove a honey super. Since he was still attending school he reported that he had taken honey supers off his hives on a Wednesday and set them under a garage awning with expectations to extract the following Saturday. Much to his surprise in those intervening days, nearly all the honey in those honey supers had been returned to their hives by the owner bees. Therefore if there will be any time lapse between super removal and honey extraction the supers need to be stored in a bee-tight, dry and warm environment to prevent robbing by other bees or contamination by pests like ants or wax moths. Hive beetle larva eggs hatch in three days and the larvae burrowing through the honey comb leaves a trail of excrement that makes the honey unusable. If hive beetles are a problem any removed honey supers need to be extracted within three days to avoid any hive beetle larva infestation.
Extraction and Filtering
Once the honey supers have been taken off it is time to consider the steps in the extraction of the honey from the comb cells. The first step is to use an uncapping knife to remove the wax cappings. A plain serrated knife will work for this but if there are a lot of frames to uncap a heated uncapping knife will save time and effort. Heated uncapping knives have a small screw on the knife that can be used to adjust the temperature of the knife. With a bit of trial and error a temperature can be reached where the cappings are sliced though easily with a warmed knife, but the knife is not so hot that it burns the cappings or honey. I find a back and forth sawing motion while dragging the knife through the cappings seems to be the most efficient. Use an uncapping fork or scrapper to get to the lower spots of uncapped honey. As long as the cell wax capping is broken open the honey will flow out of it. Letting the wax cappings drop into a de-capping tray that is lined with a double layer of 60 count cheesecloth allows any honey that is removed with the cappings to drain through the cheesecloth. It may take a day or so for the honey to drain through the cheesecloth if kept in a warm area. Once most of the honey is drained the cheesecloth can be gathered up at the corners and suspended over an open container to catch most remaining honey that may not have drained. The 60 count cheesecloth works just as well as the double filter used for straining and results in several more pounds of honey ready for bottling. Once the frames have been uncapped they go into a tangential or radial extractor and the honey is spun out by centrifugal force. Small scale extractors may be operated by hand crank or may be motorized. Tangential extractors do require the frames to be flipped once or twice through the extraction process to remove honey from the second side of the frame. Once honey begins to accumulate in extractor a valve faucet, called a honey gate, at the bottom is opened and the honey flows through a double straining screen or sieve to filter out any wax particles, bee parts or debris. Care must be taken such that honey flowing out of the extractor does not get ahead of its ability to flow through the small capacity screen or sieve. If extraction is accomplished in a warm building or on a warmer day the flow will be faster than in a cooler environment. Even with a warm facility the screens may need occasional cleaning or replacement to keep the flow going.
Bottling the Honey
My filtration screens sit directly over five gallon buckets below the extractor where I collect the filtered honey that is then delivered to a kitchen counter for bottling. The five gallon buckets are allowed to sit for 24 to 48 hours so that small air bubbles and fine particles rise to the top and can be skimmed off before bottling. By tilting the bucket when near empty, all but the last few pounds can be bottled without the need for top skimming. Any honey that goes into bottles with surface foam is used for our own purposes as the skimming can be done as each individual bottle that is not for sale is opened later. Once the honey has sat for a day or two it is ready for bottling. I like to use glass jars as many get returned, cleaned and reused. In addition honey that has crystalized can be warmed to turn it back into its true honey state. Once a seal is added to the cover it is ready for sale. Check with state small cottage industry requirements for labeling and safety requirements if the honey is to be sold commercially.
Honey Super Returns
Once the honey has been extracted from frames I put the emptied frames back in a honey super and place it back on a hive between the inner and outer covers. Since the hive bees can get to the honey super through the inner cover opening they will clean out the frames without fear of other bees, wasps or insects getting into the emptied honey super. This works best if the honey super is retuned to a different hive than from which it came. If the bees do decide to start refilling an empty super, particularly if there is a strong Fall nectar flow, I simply place it over the top deep and below the inner cover to let the bees refill any portion they choose. Once a full eight or ten frame honey super has been drawn out and used, it can be reduced by one frame in subsequent seasons. The equally spaced frames allow bees to draw individual frame comb out a bit farther making it easier to slice the cappings off in following years. I am aware of some beekeepers who reduce a previously used ten frame honey super to equally spaced eight frames, but have not tried this myself. Occasionally there may be a few brood cells that the bees have allowed along the bottom edge of the honey super frames. I have found that as long as these cells are not sliced open, running them in a motorized centrifugal extractor does not spit the pupa out of the cells provided they remain capped. Any uncapped larva will be thrown out of cells and collet in the filter screen.
Additional Hive Products
In addition to the honey collection, the wax cappings can be used for making candles, lip balms, soaps and lotions. Honey can be further refined and processed to make creamed honey in much the same way high butterfat milk can be churned into butter, but those steps will remain for another article. Propolis can also be scraped off the edges and super frame rest lip to be made into tinctures and natural remedies, again this process is left for a later article. It is always a great pleasure to see the effort and expense of beekeeping come to fruition with the collection, extraction, bottling and sale of that sweet golden elixir we call honey. Honey bees are one of but a very few species that eagerly collect and process a human used food source in abundance.
