Good evening everyone. I have just received the rest of my tools needed to extract the honey from my hive. I watched a video on how to do this but I am now confused because I don’t want to mess up the brood frame. How do I tell the difference between the honey frame and the brood frame? I want to get started tomorrow but I want to not hurt my babies.
Thank you in advance for all your advice and guidance.
Lisa
Any capped frame that is above the QX will have honey in the cells and if 80% of the cells are capped it will be ripe for extracting. A capped frame below the QX could be either brood or honey but I regard any frame with any honey below the QX is for the bees for Winter stores or to help them thru a period of dearth,
Cheers Lisa
Lisa, how have your inspections gone so far? It is odd to me that you’re looking to harvest but confused about the difference between frames of capped honey vs brood. If you haven’t worked out what you’re looking at inside the hive yet, then I’d strongly recommend you have an experienced beekeeper join you for a pre-harvest inspection ASAP. That way, you’ll learn about your bees’ health and whether harvesting is appropriate right now.
I have not looked in there yet since I got attacked the first time I got I looked. I am winging it here.
Thank you Peter48. I am assuming the QX means queen excluder. I don’t have one of those here on this hive. Do you think it would be better for me to try to put this colony into the flow hive I purchased or should I get a new queen for that box?
Yes, a QX refers to a queen excluder.metal QX’s on all my hives so that Honey frames are kept separated from the brood area. It is a personal choice but for me saves a lot of time and hassles if I go to my apiary for either honey or brood inspections.
I agree with Eva’s post about having a mentor or some guide you through your inspections till you are confident, it will also shorten the time spent with the hive open, the longer the hive is open the bees tend to get a bit angrier.
Cheers
Dang, friend - let us help! How about a FaceTime inspection?
I think that would be a great idea. I don’t have facetime but I do have a computer with zoom on it, or I could ask to use my cousins phone. I posted on a local bee clubs Facebook page yesterday after you said that and so far no one has responded so I have paused on doing anything further. I did watch some youtube videos though. I am heading to the river for a few days and will be back and then I will come back here and see if we can do this. I do appreciate your willingness to help me.
Going to PM you in case no local helpers come thru.
Thank you. As of now no one in my community has answered my requests for assistance. I just got back from the river this morning, I have a busy day tomorrow and Saturday morning. I will get the message and we can sort this out together. I appreciate your help.
I cannot find a PM Eva, I only see the regular post forums. I am back now if you want to send me a PM. I will be back to my computer in a short time.
Hey Lisa! On your screen where your icon is, you get a little blue dot on it for replies and likes to public posts, and a dark green one for private messages. Click on it and you should get to your private mailbox area. I put my contact info in a new message to you just now…
Generally the top box will contain frames of honey.without a queen excluder you can’t guarantee the queen won’t lay brood so you may get something like this:
If you’re lucky the whole frame will look like the top half. Capped honey is light to semi transparent. Where as capped brood is quite defined in appearance.
Great photo fffffred. Those drone cells next to worker cells clearly shows the difference in size. I have watched a number of YouTube videos of brood frame inspection and a comment, “there are some drone cells”, followed by a vague poke in the general area with a hive tool, just wasn’t what I needed. A good photo is worth a thousand words, and your photo really nails this one.
This is a great picture fffffred. thank you so much. I saved it to my hard drive so I can refer to it later when I open the hive. We are making plans right now to get that happening. Eva is going to work with me via one of the video programs.
Is this from a langstroth sized top bar hive or is that a frame that fell apart (with a nail sticking out on the left side)?
I want to give a special shout out to Eva for taking over an hour of her day to help me via phone to get into and inspect my hive. It seems that I will not be harvesting honey this season and need to figure out what the flowering season is here and harvest right after that.
Eva was gracious in assisting me through phone and text messaging of pictures. I would have never got the nerve to do this alone, since I had no method. Hopefully this will help me to better inspect next time and to know what to look for. My honey was not capped. We didn’t find a queen but then they were getting really mad when I got to the bottom box and went on the attack, so Eva, with her wisdom, said lets just close it up. I believe that was good choice.
Also shout out to Peter for telling me to get the bite-away pen. It did help bring the swelling down on the hand where I took three stings. I am really lucky to have found this forum and everyone on it.
If you get a sting then smoke that area hard to ‘kill’ the ‘sting here scent’ left by the original sting. I have had to sometimes do a second hit with my Bite Away if the venom is really potent.
Cheers
Yes Eva taught me to do that and I did it multiple times with the smoker. I have hit my hand with the bite away pen three times so far. The swelling has gone down from orange size to mild. Thank you for this recommendation.
