Quirky bee behaviour post extraction

Hi Folks,

i had eight full frames yesterday which i extracted 6 off. I noticed the bees toward the end of the extraction looking like they were bearding. I thought they’d get their head in order over night, but i checked this morning and they are no longer making big beards, but all outside of the hive (see pic)

Secondly, I’ve noticed that after i finished the extraction, there is still honey in the bottom collection tray at the bottom of the frame (where you insert the tube). is any way to empty this? I’m a bit worried it will ferment and go off as i live where the is high humidity (see second pic)

advice would be greatly appreciated!

thanks folks!

-nat

You may have flooded your hive with honey… :astonished:

This post might explain a bit. I think we should not harvest more than 2 or 3 frames per day to avoid this kind of result:
http://forum.honeyflow.com/t/post-flow-hive-harvest/8061?u=dawn_sd

Dawn, I did a quick search on “Hive Quakes”. Didn’t we have a rush of thots n ideas on bearding or what was referred to as “Hive Quakes”… I think it was over 6 months or more ago.

Gerald

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argh, yer, there was a bit of leakage and i assume most of that ended up in the brood box. One of the flow tubes wasn’t pushed in all the way, and i lost probably 1/2 a frame (2 or so kilos).

Should i go down and hose out the spilled honey? or just let them “bee”?

thanks for the speedy reply!

-nat

If there is honey on the ground, I would hose it away, but I have very aggressive Argentine ants here and they would call all of their extended family to feast. If you don’t have ants, you might want to leave it. However, you may be inviting robbing, so think about it! :wink:

Next time, slow and steady wins the race! :smile:

Hiya Jerry,

I think my hubby referred to it as a “wax-quake”, but in retrospect I think the more likely cause of bee disruption is flooding of the hive from spilled honey, either from channel back-pressure, or from excess leakage across the wax cappings sheet.

:wink:

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Thank Dawn ! That was it ! That was some time ago but with the question, “Why are they bearding” … It brought back a spark of memory but couldn’t land on the exact wording !

Thank for bailing me out again,
Jerry :wink::+1:

PS: I cooked a mean tasty Spaghetti for us this afternoon. Working my hives made me crave Spaghetti. Not sure why ! :smile:. . Hope I don’t get in trouble again for wandering off subject ! :grin:

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