About two weeks ago, Joe Caracausa from east Texas said he harvested some honey with a very strong pine flavor. He wondered if the flavor might be due to the many pine trees in the area of his hives. He reported seeing yellow-green clouds of pollen in early spring, and he wondered if pine pollen […] Read more
If you are saying you have honey and sugar syrup mixed together in your frames, there is no way to separate them. If you can see the difference—that is, if the bees have put them in different cells and you can detect a color shift—you may be able to just uncapped those that have honey […] Read more
You are a new beekeeper with a hive—maybe two—and a half-dozen frames of harvestable honey. You can’t figure out how to get the honey out of the comb, so you want to know if you should buy an extractor. I always say no to this one. An extractor is an expensive storage problem that you […] Read more
It’s that time of year when we look at partially filled, partially capped honey frames and say, “Now what?” Here is a question I received last night: I have a problem that I hope you can help me with. I have a honey super that has partially filled and capped frames and the honey flow […] Read more
Beekeepers who do not use fume boards or bee escapes to remove bees from their honey supers often brush the bees from each frame before extracting. This works if the brush has long, soft bristles and if the bees are flicked off the frames rather than scrubbed. It’s all in the wrist—several quick flicks and […] Read more
I’m using the following question as a post, partly because it’s a good question and partly because the math stressed my brain so much that I’m going to split wood for the rest of the day. The question came from Carol in Wisconsin. Here in West Central Wisconsin we are experiencing drought conditions, like many […] Read more
It is 45°C (113°F) outside, so we wax-dip foundation in the shed until 11:00 and then take our places alongside the 72-frame radial extractor. We move honey supers to the warming room to prepare them for extraction (warm honey runs faster), but that hardly seems necessary when the heat’s on high outside. It’s a three-person […] Read more