First harvest 2021

Harvested 2 frames, 15.5% water content. About 4L total!

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Oh my gosh, and what about that precious honey in the middle?! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: Congrats Alok, so happy for you!

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Well done on the harvest! Always exciting.
Something I noticed in the video is that I believe you had a leakage through the brood box judging by the bees bearding on the entrance.
Handy hint to avoid flooding is to make sure that the entire frame is capped and always open the frame in 25% increments 10min apart.
Your honey has an amazing colour. What do you think they have been foraging to produce it?

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Yes, I noticed the increased bearding and suspected the same so I checked the tray later in the evening and was surprised there were only a few drops of honey. Maybe the bees cleaned it up before it dripped down two boxes?? In that case I figure that it can’t have been overwhelming.

The two frames I harvested were 90+% capped when I pulled them on the day prior and the moisture was certainly low enough (15.5% by refractometer).

The amount of bees bearding prior to cracking the frames was actually much lower than on recent days:

and the sun came out while we were harvesting. It was warming up after some rain in the morning. Most of the bees in front during the increased bearding were the drones doing their daily rounds…

The next time I will open less of the frame and allow it more time before opening up more to see if that has any effect.

I think the forage has been maple, dandelion, hawthorne, buckeye, apple, prunus, pear.

That’s an incredible number of bees out especially considering you only harvested 2 frames.
4l of honey could be close to 6kg which to me would be safe to assume that you have not had a serious leak but they have certainly been unsettled.
I have found that it is best to always maintain an air pocket at the top of the harvesting tube. As soon as you don’t have that air pocket the flow slows down, honey backs up in the channel and is more likely to spill into the hive.
That honey colour just amazes me. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Well done.

That picture was from the day before harvesting, just before I pulled the frames to check the capping %age. I am going to harvest 2 or 3 more frames this weekend. There is a sizable grove of various linden/basswood (Tilia spp.) trees about 500m away that supposedly produce a copious amount of unique nectar, so I want them to have space before those trees bloom. The flower buds are swelling so I expect them to start opening soon. The bloom is brief, about 2 weeks last year.

I did “lose the air pocket” at one point a couple minutes after starting.

I wonder if people who harvest with an extension tube could argue that it creates a siphon and actually drains faster?

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Quite a luxurious beard - complete with mustache and sideburns :rofl:! My hives had some serious bearding on some really hot days recently, and we just had a t-storm come through last night.

That’s an interesting point about extended tubes.

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I use extension tubes but have never considered the siphon theory. There could be something in that.
Good luck with the linden/basswood honey. It’s always great experiencing the different flavours available.

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HONEY! Looks delicious :drooling_face: We have had some hot days this week and a lot of my ladies were outside the hive. I removed the inspection tray to allow more air flow and the numbers outside went down 75%

Nice harvest, well done.
I always use extension tubes to a bucket and have thought of this however I never allow the tube to fill at the top so it has an air gap top to bottom at all times so no siphoning experienced. I also only harvest on a warm sunny day and the plan is to have the sun heat the hose to make the honey flow through the hose faster.

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Well now… It may depend on how viscosity and density interact with gravity and air pressure. Anyone have a dual physics and engineering PhD to work on this one??? :rofl:

Another 6.21 liters!

The two end frames re about 60% capped, so maybe next week.

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Today’s moisture was even lower. And still the cells were only 80% capped.

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Those coils are too cool, wow!!

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Some very light honey again this spring! Locals tell me it’s black locust.

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