Honey Extraction

Doug Shaw · Post by **Doug Shaw** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:59 pm

How do you know when it is time to extract honey? Both of my hives have a hive box and 3 medium supers on them. Two supers are full with brood in the inner 6-7 frames. There are 2-3 frames full of capped honey in each of the supers. The last super on each hive is still being drawn out.

Post by **Jacobs** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:24 pm

Do you have freezer space for the capped frames and frames to replace them with? You may want to take the frames now if you do. This season you run the risk of the bees opening and consuming the honey if they do not have access to nectar. If I am going to extract this year it will be by doing this. I would want to make sure the bees have some stores (uncapped nectar or partially capped frames in the hive) or be prepared to feed sugar water to replace the taken stores. Last year was a much better honey season and getting full supers of capped honey was not a problem. I had already extracted a couple of supers by this time last year, but I will be lucky to get any honey this year. I will have to pick through the hives I have not been feeding sugar water and will probably look through them this weekend and decide if I have anything to take.

What are other folks finding this year? How about posting and let us know.

Kurt Bower · Post by **Kurt Bower** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 3:49 am

Yes... It Doesn't sound good for Doug. I would not be removing any honey unless you just had a hankering for a taste.
Reports indicate that the flow is coming in at less than half of what it should be.
Mine was poor to say the least. I still have to check my away yards in the mountains.

Kurt