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Learning about Honey Harvesting Part one

August 2, 2023 /

Have you ever wondered how the honey gets on your breakfast table or in your tea? I had the privilege of visiting my running buddy, Susie at her home and learned about how her and her husband Phillip harvest the honey out of the hives and frames. Phillip is a 3rd generation bee keeper. All I knew about the process is that bees go in a beehive and make honey and we eat it, so I was excited to join her for an hour or so and learn as much as I could. I love to eat honey and have bought honey from her the past year or so and it is delicious!

Phillip and Susie use a manual centrifuge machine that was handed down from Phillip’s father. You will see this in action next week! They were able to harvest about 36 gallons of honey which is that second rung on the 55 gal stainless tank in the background in the picture below. It was a tougher year with weather, bee food source and poor queen laying issues.

The boxes hold nine shallow frames (they are a little smaller than medium frames) and these boxes when full of honey are so very heavy. I could not lift one box off the table even by a millimeter!

This is a capped frame: when the bees fill up the cells, they will cover the honey with a wax cap to prevent moisture from getting back into the honey. Our first step will be to remove that wax layer but you will have to wait till next week!

The bottom board is the landing pad. That is where the bees enter and leave and the guard bees guard the entrance from intruder bees from other colonies or invaders like wasps… The slot below under the inner top cover is just a ventilation hole and where the bees can come up and hang out.

The bees create a seal around the edges of the boxes with a glue like substance called propolis. The metal grate at the top of the brood box is to prevent the queen bee from laying eggs in the honey frames. It is called a queen excluder. That lets you know that a queen bee is much larger than all of its subjects!

The bottom of the hive is the brood box where the queen lays eggs. She lays 1000 eggs a day. Each new (mated) queen lasts a couple of years. The queen fertilizes the eggs, the girl nurse bees take care of the queen and clean her messes while the drones have no role.

Here are the different parts of the hive starting at the bottom:

  • screened bottom board that allows ventilation
  • brood box
  • queen excluder
  • honey super
  • inner cover that is under the cover on top

The queen bees come in a little bee cage with 2-3 nurse bees and a sugar cube (for food). When the bee cage is put in the brood box (one cork taking off), the nurse bees will eat the sugar cube allowing the queen to come out. It will take 2 to 3 days to know whether the bees accept the queen (or kill it) and then you start the process again with a new queen if needed be.

Bees have enemies: the varroa mite is the first one followed by the hive beetles and the wax moths. This damage to the box was made by wax moths.

Come back next Wednesday to see how the honey is slung from those capped frames! Thank you, Susie and Phillip for all of your knowledge and allowing me to be part of this process!

A bientôt!

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