Harvesting
Its almost time to put on the clearer boards with porter bee escapes to clear the bees down into the brood chamber so the super's can be removed and extracted. I have 7 super's and one national sized brood chamber ready to be removed. During the last inspection I found several of the frames were only about 60% capped, I don't like to remove them until the vast majority 80% are capped. The poor weather over the last few days hasn't been ideal for the colonies to cap cells but I really need to get the super's off and start to treat all the hives and feed a few of the smaller colonies I started this year as they are still a little light on capped stores.
Testing the Honey
I bought a refractometer so I can test the honey, hopefully it will be about 18-20% which is perfect to extract and allow it to rest for a day or two for the bubbles to rise whilst kept warm before I fill the 12oz hexagon jars.
More to follow in the next week or two.
