Last Honey Harvest of the Year!

Last weekend we harvested 65 pounds of delicious raw honey from our hives as part of prepping hives for the winter (see previous post). By removing extra honey super boxes from our hives, the bees have less space to keep warm which helps them survive the cold winter months ahead. And as an added bonus, we got one more harvest of honey for the year!

Photos: One our hives with the honey super box removed and ready for winter (top); A frame of honey being shown off by one of this year’s bee keeping apprentices (bottom).

While we are always delighted with the prospect of more honey, harvesting honey this late in the year also brings its challenges. First, the cooler weather makes it difficult for pulling the honey from the frames, as honey flows a lot better in warmer conditions such as in the middle of summer. So to harvest honey in November, we need to use some kind of heater to warm up our garage while harvesting the honey.

Photos: A garage heater warms up the honey frames that were pulled from the hives and the honey harvester as it spins to allow the honey to flow more easily.

The second challenge to harvesting honey in the fall is that typically this time of year not all the home frames are fully “capped.” What does this mean? After bees fill a frame with tasty honey they seal it with a thin layer of wax coating. This preserves the honey while it’s in the hive from the outside elements, especially water moisture. But as the weather cools, it is harder for the bees to make wax, hence many of the honey frames remaining in our hives were not surprising partially capped.

Photo: This frame is partially capped with a wax coating. The parts that are not capped have honey still, just no wax coating.

Partially capped honey frames run the risk of having a high water moisture content, which can cause honey to ferment and spoil over time. And we don’t want that!

The good news is that there are tools to test that the honey is below the 18% water content threshold, which ensures that the honey will not spoil. After harvesting 65 pounds last weekend, with most the frames partially capped, we were happy to find that the water content was 16.5%, we’ll below the safe threshold.

Photo: Refractometer that we use to test the water content % in honey.

Lastly, after the final honey harvest of the year, it is now time to store the honey boxes and frames until the spring time. I have heard it said that a bee keepers most valuable asset is “drawn” frames. A drawn frame simply means that it has wax already on it that the bees have drawn out on the frame. This allows the bees to fill the frame up right away with honey, pollen, or eggs when placed in a hive, instead of them having to draw more wax first, which takes the bees (and the bee keeper) a tremendous amount of energy and time.

Storing frames over the winter creates another challenge: keeping the drawn frames free from pests, specifically one pest called the wax moth.

Photo: A “drawn” honey frame that has been harvested and will be stored over the winter until next spring.

Most hives have some level of wax moths already in the hive, but a healthy hive of bees will keep them in check. However, when we remove the honey frames (and boxes) to be stored, it is likely there are some wax moth eggs in there. Once the eggs hatch, the wax moth larva will fairly quickly tear through the frames until all the wax is consumed and gone. What a terrible sight to see for a bee keeper’s most valuable asset to be gone in a mater of a couple months!

As a small bee keeper, we are only storing 10-12 boxes with drawn honey frames this winter. So it is not too time consuming to simply check the frames about once a month during storage for any signs of wax moths. Minor frame damage is no big deal for bees to fix up in the spring. By placing frames with signs of damage in the freezer overnight, any wax moths on that frame are killed and problem is solved.

Lord willing, we will have 12 honey boxes of drawn frames ready to be placed on the hives around April next spring when wildflowers and orange blossoms are in full bloom. Each box call hold up to 30 pounds of honey! And having the frames already drawn makes things run much smoother.

Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts where we will be sharing about how you can come taste the honey we recently harvested!

Blessings,

Jeff