Wally,
Thank you very much for having us over for the fogging demo which was very cool and having the patience in teaching us the art of uncapping and extracting. I think I need a lot more practice. The honey we shared is great but the learning experience was priceless. Also thank you for letting us use your place, you made it a great honey house and a great place for us to learn.
Wally I may have left my uncapping knife at your place as I have not found it yet.
Kurt thanks for letting us use the extractor (rental? umm)it is a neat machine and I will pass it on to Ron.
Very tired here as well.
Thanks,
ski
Harvest Practice
First Harvest
Well, I took off first honey! Really hate I did not get over to Wally's on Monday, I am sure I could have learned a thing or two. I only retrieved 7 full frames from the top supper. The other three were mostly capped on one side, but not on the other. I pulled three frames from the second supper that were only partially filled and placed the three frames that I took out of the top supper in their place.
The ones that I took from the second supper, I just hung up on the fence and allowed the bees to clean them up. It only took a few hours for them to completely remove the nectar. There is not a sign of nectar or honey in the three frames. (Guess this kind of goes against the open feeding rule, but things at the hive seemed normal, and there was not much fighting on the frames. )
I hope to get them un-capped on Firday and bottled by Saturday. All in all, I think things went well. I took a deep hive body stapled to a bottom board and blocked the entrance. Every frame that I removed that was full, I shook the bees off in front of the hive, and placed the frame in the empty deep, quickly placing the top on upside down after each frame. I am sure that bee quick would have worked nice, but this worked too, and I only took two stings.
The ones that I took from the second supper, I just hung up on the fence and allowed the bees to clean them up. It only took a few hours for them to completely remove the nectar. There is not a sign of nectar or honey in the three frames. (Guess this kind of goes against the open feeding rule, but things at the hive seemed normal, and there was not much fighting on the frames. )
I hope to get them un-capped on Firday and bottled by Saturday. All in all, I think things went well. I took a deep hive body stapled to a bottom board and blocked the entrance. Every frame that I removed that was full, I shook the bees off in front of the hive, and placed the frame in the empty deep, quickly placing the top on upside down after each frame. I am sure that bee quick would have worked nice, but this worked too, and I only took two stings.
Link to the photobucket pics of my honey harvest
My first harvest! Thanks again to Kurt for the use of the extractor, and to Ken for the use of the knife.
http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l98/N ... ey%20Crop/
http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l98/N ... ey%20Crop/