gmm243 Posted July 12, 2023 Report Share Posted July 12, 2023 Tomorrow I plan to extract some honey from a few of my hives. It has been a fruitful time and I am running out of space in the hives for the bees to store more honey. A friend of my dad's asked me if i could extract a box of frames of his as he is away so I agreed but he produced a deep brood box full of shallow frames which his bees had filled the space with comb and honey. Brood box is on the bottom for the queen to lay inland above that a shallow box of honey frames for honey storage but bees hate gaps and will fill them if given the chance. I didn't think there would be much and he said to leave the box out for the bees to clean up when I had taken the shallow frames out. Always on the look out I took his frames out and was left with the bottom half of the box ful of comb so I got some boxes and a sharp knife. The end result (although not terribly pretty) was 21 half pound boxes of comb honey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave at kelton Posted July 12, 2023 Report Share Posted July 12, 2023 Used to love it when my grandfather took combs out and cut them up for us to eat.. that was sixty years ago! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ditchman Posted July 12, 2023 Report Share Posted July 12, 2023 really nice with cornish clotted cream....... what are the bees making the honey from (what plants ) ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOPGUN749 Posted July 13, 2023 Report Share Posted July 13, 2023 My Grandfather and Father both kept bees,I remember turning the handle on the extractor for my Grandad almost 55 years ago. My Dad sold his honey in 1 lb jars,also in comb sections.Think a jar was 25p in the early 70’s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmm243 Posted July 13, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2023 I have 15 hives at the minute and work them with my father who is 87. He has the expertise and I am the muscle for lifting etc. We are members of a local bee keeping association and they have an electric extractor so the donkey work is taken out of it now bar lifting the honey off the hives and into the car then into the shed.its a bit lazy but makes life very easy as it takes 12 frames at a time. We have tried section honey here but it does not do well most years, you need a massive colony of bees and the inly time it has really worked for us was when we took the bees to the heather and even then that didn't work every year-all very weather dependant. The honey that was in this box was taken from a garden right in the middle of town so I would imagine it is a mixture of garden flowers and also some white thorn as it was very prolific this year. The next 8 weeks or so is when we would expect to make most of our honey as about 80% of it is made from the blossom of briars. We could also bring them to the mountain for Heather honey but it's a fair bit of work so tend not to bother anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derbyduck Posted July 13, 2023 Report Share Posted July 13, 2023 12 hours ago, gmm243 said: Tomorrow I plan to extract some honey from a few of my hives. It has been a fruitful time and I am running out of space in the hives for the bees to store more honey. A friend of my dad's asked me if i could extract a box of frames of his as he is away so I agreed but he produced a deep brood box full of shallow frames which his bees had filled the space with comb and honey. Brood box is on the bottom for the queen to lay inland above that a shallow box of honey frames for honey storage but bees hate gaps and will fill them if given the chance. I didn't think there would be much and he said to leave the box out for the bees to clean up when I had taken the shallow frames out. Always on the look out I took his frames out and was left with the bottom half of the box ful of comb so I got some boxes and a sharp knife. The end result (although not terribly pretty) was 21 half pound boxes of comb honey. that looks awesome , its a very long time sinch I had honey like that from a comb , well done and good luck to you . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmm243 Posted July 13, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2023 Thank you. Was more luck than anything. Off to some extracting now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldypigeonpopper Posted July 13, 2023 Report Share Posted July 13, 2023 49 minutes ago, gmm243 said: Thank you. Was more luck than anything. Off to some extracting now. That's a lot of honey 👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ditchman Posted July 13, 2023 Report Share Posted July 13, 2023 58 minutes ago, gmm243 said: Thank you. Was more luck than anything. Off to some extracting now. going back over a 1000 years that must have been a very very special harvest/bonus..........they must have had an incredible sugar rush Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmm243 Posted July 13, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2023 Just back now. Pretty wrecked and very sticky. Think we got about 100lb give or take. Friend of my Dad's came and had 3 boxes which he weighed before he left the house and they weighed 49kg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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