Should I harvest my honey now

Thank you @Dan2 this has been really helpful. I like the idea of helping to keep the bees warm for winter coming up. I will get myself some vinyl and carpet and a new lid to cover. I am presuming you are feeding the bees since harvesting the honey. What type of feeder are you using?

Yes- I did feed some of the honey back but I was naughty and didn’t use a feeder…but I didn’t feed them outside the hive. I was thinking that before you get a new cover, you might find that just the vinyl and the flow inner cover is ok, or perhaps a very thin carpet and the vinyl may fit under the flow inner. I would experiment first perhaps… I would also double check-- as Dawn says- with the locals as to how much more nectar will be likely to come through before winter in your area. On one of my hives I am using just the vinyl and the flow inner cover and flow roof on top. The flow roof itself should have some insulating effect too I presume. So there will be three layers over the frames using the existing flow set up if you use just the vinyl. If you do go ahead and tap the frames, don’t forget to put the corflute on the top slot and then I find it takes a couple of days for the bees to clean up the residual honey - especially that left in the drain channel. I left the super on until they cleaned up all the excess honey. It’s amazing to see them start working the moment you crack open the frames.

Hi Diana,
I installed my nuc end November and popped the flow super on just before Christmas. They took ages to fill the gaps in the flow frames. First harvest was mid February. Apparently there wasn’t much nectar to gather before because we never had rain then. I still reckon you could harvest one frame soon if they still bring home nectar for you. Just check for capping before harvest. I would only harvest if it’s 95% capped. Even though you might get frost some nights, it’s not a hard long winter like they have in other countries. The bees also store a fair bit of honey in their broodbox.

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Hi Diana, I think I will harvest 2 frames next week, then put the brood and flow frames into a Paradise hive for the winter to see how they go.

Hi Bruce, how exciting that you will harvest honey. What is a paradise hive?

I am thinking of harvesting the frames and take the frames out. And maybe keeping the brood box closed off so they don’t have to heat more than one box during winter and will take up Dan’s idea to cover the box with vinyl and maybe carpet to give the box insulation. I do also want to get a pail bee feeder which seems to be a really good idea, so the bees will be able to feed throughout the cold.

That’s pretty impressive coverage on wa002 and wa006, especially first season out in Canberra. If the cells that are there are capped it ok to extract, but if you have uncapped cells throughout the frame it won’t be ripe as Dawn has said.

I just checked some hives in southside Canberra to extract some honey and I had fully capped ideals to take off but Flow was far from full. Not convinced there is much coming in at the moment (or there will be much more).

We did a cut out of a natural hive in Narrabundah yesterday and they had close to zero stores of honey which was pretty surprising as it mimics your situation of being an older suburb with a lot of established trees. Will have photos posted of this on canberrabees.com soon.

Some points about wintering with the Flow.

  • You don’t want to feed while you have the Flow super on as they will store the sugar in the Flow frames, and the honey will essentially become sugar mixture
  • If you’re going to pack down to a single brood box, make sure there are enough stores to last winter in the frames. It is likely there won’t be and dry feeding will be required over Canberra winter.
  • If taking off the excluder, understand that there is a possibility that the queen will move up over winter and start laying in the Flow super. This is why I suggest running an ideal box between brood + Flow so you have stores to over-winter with
  • If you leave the Flow super on but restrict access to the bees getting to it (ie. with a cover) you will have issues with pests

It is a difficult issue with the Flow frames… because they are so big it takes a long time to fill and cap them, especially if you don’t have a good Flow (In my experience, Canberra hasn’t been super strong). A Flow frame is 30% larger than a full depth Langstroth frame so takes a lot of work to fill. I use ideal frames in Canberra purely because of the speed at which I can get them fully capped.

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@RBK Thanks for information. I actually live in Narrabundah, though on the Griffith side, I assumed we’d get a good amount in the bee hive because of the variety of growth, I have 14 fruit trees at my place alone, some are old tree and a few young trees.

So after reading all the great comments, I will harvest the honey from the Flow super that are capped. As @Dawn_SD said to save the uncapped honey and feed back to the bees, I like the idea of setting up an inverted feeder that you can leave in an empty box on top of the brood box. I just have to find an inverted feeder jar or order online. I’ll use the idea by by @Dan2 to lay a piece of vinyl and carpet. I’ll make a hole so I can feed the bees with an inverted feeder.

So do you use ideal frames as an extra way for bees to collect food for over winter? It might be late for me now but maybe something for next time. I’ve just book marked the Canberrabees.com, thanks

I took some screen shots of videos of my brood box frames to get an idea of what some of the frames looks like.

I use the ideal as a ‘buffer’ for the bees. Once they fill the ideal box they move up into the Flow super and start filling it.

I leave the ideal on over winter and move the excluder out and the Flow frames off entirely.

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I like that idea, I will definitely do that for next year. For now I will have to find alternative food for the bees, and the inverted feeder seems like a good option.

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After making this comment on Flow frames being 30% larger I sat down and did the maths, and have posted the result here:

This morning 19/03/17

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That makes make sense. I suppose when the hive is more established they will be able to fill the frames.

Thanks impressive Bruce, your bees are really getting in and filling the frames. When do you think you’ll harvest?

Hi Diana, maybe next week, I will pull them out and have a good look, may move the brood into poly box at the same time.

Good luck and post the photos when you do.

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That is easy. Get a normal mason jar (jam jar, canning jar). Make 10 - 20 holes in the lid with a pin or a very fine nail - the holes must be very small 1mm or less. Fill the jar with honey or syrup. Invert it over the hole in the inner cover. Put an empty box on top of the inner cover to enclose the jar. Put the roof on. Done!

If you make one yourself, you might want to check that it doesn’t leak, by inverting it over a kitchen sink, for example. :blush:

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Thank you @Dawn_SD! I will do that. I will give it a go and should save me a lot of running around too. I bought some jars recently to make passata for my huge tomato harvest so there should be something there. Again thanks :slight_smile:

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Do you then put the queen excluder back over the ideal super in spring time and once that is almost full again, you put on the flow super on top?

I am thinking of using this strategy here in melbourne when I start in spring.

I think @RBK has left the forum, but what you describe sounds like the best way to do it. :blush: