Whatcha doing today?

[Ian]

Hey @Ian do you watch "The Campulance Man" you tube vids? Just wondering as I was watching one of his live feeds and he mentioned he was in contact w/an Ian from England who was in Web Design and I thought it might be you.

'fraid not! Must be someone else blessed with such a wonderful name

 

[addy1]

Our LAST honey extraction..............................

A commercial beekeep coming over to access health and value of the hives. He is going to help me sale them and all the equipment I have accumulated.

My fake bee suit, old sweat shirt, two bee hats (they kept getting under the one and stung my chin before I put on two), safety pins to hold it on to my sweat shirt, netting tied around my neck to keep the bees from crawling under the hat. Velcro on wrists to hold sleeves tight onto gloves.

Hubby and neighbor had on the real suits, they had do all the lifting of the boxes down too heavy for my poor healing wrist.

I had to be out there to guide them on what to do. And those bees were pissy. In our faces, guarding, angry. Hubby 4 stings, neighbor 1 sting, me 6 stings.

30 boxes, 10 frames each, 300 frames to touch, decap, run through the extractor.

Lil bear wondering where the heck I am. Hiding in the basement keeping all the bees that might come in with the boxes away from our pups. Missy is highly allergic to their stings.

 

[j.w]

@addy1 Good you are getting all this wrapped up and honey will soon be sold and bees going to new homes. You guys can relax more and just enjoy your boat a lot in the Summers. I figured stings would be on the menu!

 

[addy1]

We will probably have enough for the small market we sell at for a year more or less. Then done. I just bottle drive it over they sale. Give them 15% off the price and they mark it up pretty high. When they run out of my honey people are asking where ours is. They sale two other types of honey, which is good honey, but people love the fact my honey is from bees 5 miles away.

 

[j.w]

We will probably have enough for the small market we sell at for a year more or less. Then done. I just bottle drive it over they sale. Give them 15% off the price and they mark it up pretty high. When they run out of my honey people are asking where ours is. They sale two other types of honey, which is good honey, but people love the fact my honey is from bees 5 miles away.

Yep they are gonna miss it but you are gonna be better for letting them go. You guys did a lot of work w/those bees and helped a lot of people training and going to their properties to show them how to do things. Hope more people will become involved w/bees so our world can gain all the good they do for us. W/o them we will have no crops that need to be pollenized.

 

[addy1]

After 5 days in the basement, running a extractor, making a mess with wax and honey, fighting ants, fighting bees that follow in...............DONE!

Here are the hives with the supers on them, then the hives with the supers removed. (supers where they save the honey)

Our Subaru with the back loaded up with extracted frames, put out for the bees to clean all the drippings, ie left over honey. They take every tiny bit of honey. Takes about 3 hours. We have a highway of bees from the truck to the hives. We don't go out in the yard while doing this. They will leave you alone, mostly, but if you get in the path of a bee they do sting.

 

[addy1]

A perfect frame of honey, totally capped, filled edge to edge. One of our hives had every box all 10 frames drawn out this way. That equals a lot of honey for a full super. The super itself weighs around 75 lbs, each frame of honey weighs around 7.5 lbs.
You get around 6.75 lbs of honey per frame.

Really depends on how deep they drew the comb. This frame is from a nine frame spaced box. When drawing comb for honey they draw it as deep as possible. This frame, one side near the edge of the box the other side open you can see how deep they drew it. Which for us is less work, one huge frame of honey vs two with less. I have a combo of nine frame spaced and ten frame spaced. All the wax is picked off and it drops into the container below. Where the honey drips off into the collection area below. Usually get 50 ish lbs of honey after it is done dripping.

The frame goes into the extractor once all the cappings are removed and gets spun. Drops out of the extractor into a sieve, ie filter the bits of wax and dead bees out.

Last lesson on bees, all for sale now. Our last ever harvest was great 1200 lbs of honey plus. And a freezer full of beautiful comb honey. Enough to sale at the market for a few more years. Then totally done. Easy I bottle drive 5 miles give it to them they price it up and sale.

 

[j.w]

Boy that's a lot of bees, a lot of honey and a lot of work! Happy it all turned out so well for you in taking care of them for so long. You have taught us all well in how you do all of this bee work. I hope the selling goes well for you

 

[mrsclem]

Its great that honey never goes bad! This will give you more time to relax- if you can remember how to do that!

 

[GBBUDD]

That's salada bees, who needs cane sugar. Glad I'm not your neighbor . My neighbor did have some hives but not that many. I swear the amount grows everytime you show a picture

 

[SarahT]

A perfect frame of honey, totally capped, filled edge to edge. One of our hives had every box all 10 frames drawn out this way. That equals a lot of honey for a full super. The super itself weighs around 75 lbs, each frame of honey weighs around 7.5 lbs.
You get around 6.75 lbs of honey per frame.
View attachment 152193


Really depends on how deep they drew the comb. This frame is from a nine frame spaced box. When drawing comb for honey they draw it as deep as possible. This frame, one side near the edge of the box the other side open you can see how deep they drew it. Which for us is less work, one huge frame of honey vs two with less. I have a combo of nine frame spaced and ten frame spaced. All the wax is picked off and it drops into the container below. Where the honey drips off into the collection area below. Usually get 50 ish lbs of honey after it is done dripping.
View attachment 152194
The frame goes into the extractor once all the cappings are removed and gets spun. Drops out of the extractor into a sieve, ie filter the bits of wax and dead bees out. View attachment 152195

Last lesson on bees, all for sale now. Our last ever harvest was great 1200 lbs of honey plus. And a freezer full of beautiful comb honey. Enough to sale at the market for a few more years. Then totally done. Easy I bottle drive 5 miles give it to them they price it up and sale.

You are a great teacher, it has been interesting to read and I've learned a lot. Good luck on the hive sale (I'm not a bee-keeper).

 

[addy1]

Its great that honey never goes bad! This will give you more time to relax- if you can remember how to do that!

We are heading for the boat today, three days of doing NOTHING, can't wait. And when there can't see the weeds, vines, totally overgrown yard...............

 

[addy1]

You are a great teacher, it has been interesting to read and I've learned a lot. Good luck on the hive sale (I'm not a bee-keeper).

Aww thanks, bees are really fascinating, a neat society, each one has a job based on age. It has been fun but also a ton of work.

 

[addy1]

That's salada bees, who needs cane sugar. Glad I'm not your neighbor . My neighbor did have some hives but not that many. I swear the amount grows everytime you show a picture

We are on 4ish acres, the bees are right next to our house. Hive entries are pointed towards south. The main flight path of our bees is out of the hives and out into the woods and farm fields. No neighbor has ever complained. And with 11 ponds the bees have plenty of water sources, no pool hitting

We had up to 27 hives, way to many, right now 14. The yellow is the "normal" flight path. They don't fly towards the garage or the house.

 

[GBBUDD]

Bees are so cool, they do get a bum wrap by there cousins.
I remember how much work three modest hives were for my neighbor I can't imagine 27 good lord. The farmers around you certainly owe you a bit of thanks with that many hives