Episode 24 is up! Find it over on Podbean, or wherever you get your podcasts.
At the end of the episode, I talk a little about a program called Hives for Heroes, which connects beekeepers with veterans who are struggling with readjusting to civilian life. It's a wonderful program that I highly recommend you check out. The Hive Jive podcast did an episode about the organisation, which is how I learned out them. Links below!
Hives for Heroes
Homestead news:
Dottie finished her meds and was moved to the big coop for being a bully
Bubbles has had loose poop for a while and I mentioned medicating her with an OTC wormer. Things have improved slightly but she is very thin; much thinner than before, even though she’s still eating and drinking. I’m going to try Panacur, since we have some on hand to medicate our water snake hatchling (that was sent to us by accident by a breeder/company that shall not be named but which I will not order from again!). She's in the house now, set up in my 'chicken hospital'.
I talk a little about heat stress being a potential cause for the above, and how it can effect your hens.
Egg production is down due to heat
Kaylee is doing amazingly well! She’s like a whole new dog and we are delighted
July 13th , 12 year wedding anniversary
July 19th, 5 years since I adopted my whippet, Chappie
July 28th, my birthday!
I am way behind on weeding because it is too hot to be out there
I rant a little about my county being a Level 3 zone, and how people won't do the bare minimum to protect themselves or others.
I accidentally got hammered on Jasmine cocktails (gin, campari, orange liqueur, fresh lemon juice) and had to sleep over at my friend’s. This cocktail is so damn good, though!
Considering changing my antidepressants because I just don’t sleep well anymore and, when I do, I end up oversleeping and feeling crappy. Also super irritable more than I’d like and I can’t go any higher on this med so I finally feel ready to try something else.
Hive news:
Hive #1 (Ohio queen)
Still back-filling but they are actively drawing comb/producing wax so things are a little better
A few deep frames that are almost ready to be extracted so I’m keeping an eye on them
2 medium frames taken for honey harvest
2 deep boxes and 1 medium are good mix of brood, pollen, and honey
Haven’t had issues with the queen excluder and are actively drawing wax on those frames and packing full of honey
Hive #2 (Southern queen)
Still some back-filling but I can see things evening out
Queen excluder on; bees pulling wax in honey super and filling with honey
Overall, slower wax draw than I am seeing with hive #1 and Sask hives but still on track
Brood pattern still absolutely gorgeous
Lots of frames with brood/honey, which aren’t suitable for extraction
Took 1 medium frame to extract this week
Hive #3 (from Sask queen, queenless split)
Pulled lots of queen cells on multiple frames! Broke down the smaller ones and left 4 large ones
Still absolutely packed with bees; huge population
Drawing wax still like absolute champs
Huge honey storage; took 8 frames from this hive before the split
Returned 5 frames after extraction
Calm and active
Hive #4 (Saskatraz queen)
Looks like they used up some honey from the deep box and now there’s more room for the queen to lay
Medium box of drawn comb that they are filling with honey; might be ready in a week or so
Good morale and still docile
Queen is laying beautifully
Nuc #1 (OH genetics)
Build up a little slow
Don’t draw wax as fast
Laying pattern is good
Docile and active workers; good amount of drones
Nuc #2 (OH or Sask genes)
Amazing build up!!
Absolutely gorgeous brood pattern
Fat and beautiful queen
Has almost filled both boxes so need to watch for space (maybe add 3rd box?)
Possible queen from nuc #1?
Nuc #3 (OH or Southern genes)
Decent build, maybe a little slow
Gave them 5 frames after extraction to work with (drawn comb)
Queen has fattened up a lot and is very placid; she doesn’t mind me examining her
Deep box and medium box so need to make sure they build enough stores before winter
Overall, really pleased with how things are going so far!
Honey harvest!
Preparation:
Hard to choose where to extract
Went with my laundry room. Cleaned it, cleared the floor, and put down thick plastic.
Made sure I had a spare super to move honey frames to incase I couldn’t take 1 honey super at once.
Plastic buckets! Great for catching wax cappings, storing honey, and clean up. Received 3 free from my bee neighbour!
Made sure my honey settling/dispensing bucket is clean and dry
Cleaned all other equipment: extractor, uncapping knife, buckets, etc
Extractor:
VIVO 4 frame electric extractor. It holds 4 deep frames or 8 medium. Mediums are radially extracted (both sides at once), deeps are tangentially extracted (need to flip them)
I cleaned the extractor to make sure no dust was in the drum (used cold water)
Put it together; harder than it should have been!
I put the lid pieces on the wrong way and had to redo!
Lids have a feature so that extractor will not run unless they are closed.
Checked that the motor was running
Test ran some empty frames
Could not bolt to the floor so did have some balance issues (more on that later!)
Extraction:
Took out an empty super to move honey frames into
Used a cart because I knew the honey supers would be heavy!
Did not use ‘bee escape’ or triangle board; just brushed bees from frames and placed them about 6ft away from the hives
Only took frames that were 100% or 98% capped
I don’t have a refractometer so don’t know exact water content
Bees were amazing!! Despite the upheaval of me taking frames and brushing bees, I didn’t get one sting, and there was no aggression. Bees are truly magical!!
Took 8 (of 10) frames from my Saskatraz bees, and 2 from my Ohio queen hive
Frames sat overnight in my ‘honey room’
I used a ‘Garosa beekeeping scraper’; it sits on the edge of a 5 gallon bucket and you balance a frame on it so you can remove the wax cappings. I found it very helpful! Bought from Amazon
I was working with medium frames so uncapped them and placed them radially in the extractor; bottom of frame towards the center
I had to move frames around to get a better balance (husbeast helped and ate a ton of honey during this process!)
Realised that I am not great at uncapping with a knife; I cut myself, part of the frame, and some big chunks were inadvertently taken out of certain frames but I eventually got the hang of it!
Due to being unable to bolt the extractor down, I did have issues with balancing that meant I could never spin faster than about 40 rpm. This was not an issue, though, and I found that about 20-30 minutes led to all honey being extracted without additional damage to the wax comb.
The extractor is fitted with a honey gate. I placed a 5 gallon bucket underneath with a double metal sieve on top. The sieve has an adjustable frame to it, which is very helpful! I got mine from Amazon but most bee supply stores sell them
I had the honey pour slowly from the extractor to avoid possible spillage
Ended up with a 5 gallon/60lb bucket at about ¾ or ⅔ full! Maybe 45-50lbs of honey.
I had a settling/dispensing tank with a honey gate, which was sadly just a smidge too tall to fit under the extractor so I had to pour the filtered honey from the first bucket into it. Ended up propping it up against the wall and leaving it overnight to get every last drop! I might get a bucket pail stand in future. Like this one.
This is the tank I went with (I wanted to go with metal but they were all over $100, which is just too much for me, right now).
I also recommend buying a lid opener as those suckers are on TIGHT and I had to enlist help from my husbeast due to my weak hands.
Bottling:
I placed my honey dispensing tank up on my dryer with the honey gate hanging over the edge. Beneath, I put a spare bucket incase of spillage. I then slowly opened the gate to fill each bottle. It was surprisingly messy! The honey ended up oozing over the top of the lid and also along the sides so I did spill a little.
Each bottle was wiped down with vinegar-water solution and cloth to get any sticky residue off.
Caps added and tightened and then I stuck on my beautiful custom labels!
I went with glass bottles in two sizes: 16 oz oval bottles, 2 oz skep bottles.
I’ve already gifted some of the skeps to friends!
I packed up both bottles with a thank you card for my in-laws, who have been a huge support of this hobby (all my birthday and Christmas gifts for the last 2 years have been bee items, including my extractor!!)
I have run out of jars/bottles and still have a lot of honey left over! Will place an order for some bulk jars (for our own honey stores) and more of the 16oz jars.
Clean up:
Not as bad as I anticipated!
For the wax cappings, I covered a baking pan in parchment paper, spread the wax over it, and then put it out on a table where the bees could access it. Within days, they had removed all the honey and left just beautiful wax behind! I am storing the cleaned wax cappings in an airtight bucket until I am ready to start processing it.
I also put out the buckets that contained a mix of wax and honey, placing them upside down on the aforementioned baking sheet, so the bees didn’t drown in the honey pooled at the bottom
Extracted frames went back out to the hives; I split the frames between 2 hives, alternating them with foundation-only frames to encourage wax production.
I removed the motor from the extractor and set it aside before taking out the frame holder/cage
Outside, I used the hose to clean out the extractor drum and frame cage, plus any equipment that also needed a rinse. Then I took a clean cloth and rubbed everything down, making sure there was no honey or wax residue. I left things outside in the sun to dry.
And that's it for the first honey harvest! Hoping I'll get another before summer is over, and maybe even one in the Fall if we get another good flow when the goldenrod blooms.
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Thanks for reading and listening, everyone! Stay safe out there, and wear your masks, please!
