It’s the end of August and we are thinking about how to prepare our hives for winter, and finding out what the honey harvesting possibilities might be.
The ideal winter arrangement, after researching the biobee’s forum and receiving guidance from David Heath by email to Melanie, indicates two boxes is our target winter set up. Basically, we are looking to achieve a compact hive with the winter bees balled right next to their supplies, with no unnecessary comb that could become mildewed or additional space to be maintained at the required temperature.
This, therefore, seems a long way from the five box high Warre hive that we are proud off. However, we do know that the bottom box in what Melanie now calls our North Hive is empty, as these bees have requested vestibule space of one empty box below them by bearding whenever they have had anything less. Presumably in the winter, with less activity and numbers, this won’t be a problem.
Armed with our smoker – for the first time, following Abbe Warre’s guidance to drive the bees down and out of the top box – we commence our wintering / harvesting operation.
Much puffing of the smoker later, even with a towel to retain the smoke inside, progress seems to be negligible and the number of bees in the top box still significant.
Melanie and I decide the smoking is not going to be successful and the honey by now risks being smoky.
We decide to shake the bees from the top box. I don’t know how conventional this is but it seems to be our best option at this time.
We lay a towel out in front of the hive and begin. Whilst a significant number of bees do land onto the towel, there are still an amazing number of bees in the box. I am loosing count of the number of shakes and gentle strokes with our long goose feather we are making to help the bees descend from the comb.
It’s one of those moments of no return, keep cool, be gentle, just keep plodding away and eventually the end of the task will come into sight.
Eventually, with the vacated hive box we head to the house to inspect the combs. It is not exactly what we expected to see. The cones are a mixture of pollen, uncapped honey, and empty comb. Only about 10% of the comb surface is capped and there is also a small area of brood which I did not expect in the top box of our hive.
We feel the hive is healthy but the bees tucking into reserves as a result of the typically damp August weather which has possibly halved normal forage activity.
What to do? We will feed the honey back to the bees and let our daughter have the privilege of their honey on one slice of toast – no more! – Thank you, bees.
