So yesterday i pulled out the frame that appeared to be completely full and it looked beautiful! Both sides of beautifully capped honey. The other frames with getting full, but not quite ready. Because I got in the hive yesterday I decided to wait until today to harvest the full frame. When I opened it up I noticed the bees had moved a large amount of the honey(compare this photo to one up top). What do I do in this situation? This makes me think I should either a) only pull out a frame if i want to harvest that day or b) wait until there are more frames than 1 to harvest from? Just a little concerned because this only happened after removing the frame to check if it was fully capped.
I’ve uploaded 2 photos less than 1 day apart.
OK, just a theory here. If I was a bee, I would want to defend my stores to protect the future of my hive. So if a human predator comes into my hive, I would consider moving all of my precious stores from the attic (Flow super) down into the brood box (where all my family live).
To put it in human terms, I think your inspection probably made them nervous enough to try to save as much capped honey as possible from being taken away. I bet your brood box(es) are being packed with honey as I type. I think if you inspect and find fully (or adequately) capped frames, you should either harvest the same day, or put on an inner cover with a bee escape below the Flow super, so that the bees can’t Robin Hood your harvest!
Mine did that and swarmed.
thanks so much for the info! you always have the right things to say!
I plan to keep an eye on them, but leave them alone for a bit. Do you imagine after a few days they will start storing back up top in the super?
If you still have a good nectar flow, and their brood space has enough honey in it, yes. Otherwise no.
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Since I the bees i’ve been very proactive about my weekly checks. I would never think that just because I have the flowframes that I could just harvest and not doing any of the work that comes along with it. The last full inspection I did a little under 2 weeks ago everything looked really good. Lots of new brood, lots of larvae, lots of honey stored. I also could barely lift the boxes(now I know why people get the smaller boxes). I could see at that point that they were really starting to fill the flow frames and thats why I decided not to bother them this week with a full inspection. I have read multiple places that during the nectar flow and during the hot months of summer it isn’t necessary to disturb the brood every 7 days. I’m located in norther california and in the middle of summer we are averaging 80-85 degree weather, so the gals are very active. As a new beekeeper everything for me is about learning, but it’s very hard when there’s so much info and depending on where the info comes from it’s different.
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My bees filled up the Flow Super rapidly once the flow came on. So after inspecting the brood box and seeing it also quite full I put a shallow between the Brood and Flow Frame Super. I also sacrificed an old National Frame in the Brood box and put in a full Langstroth frame with no Foundation. The result of this has been that the harvesting window is now showing less honey in the end of the frames. So I am certain that without looking they will have moved Honey downwards. I will confirm this on the next inspection. We also had a few cooler days with rain. We are now getting back to sunnier warmer days so I expect a bit more flow to come on. Its August UK now so not many more weeks to fill everything up. Fingers crossed.
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