This is the best time of the year – the time we find out whether our husbandry has helped or hindered our colonies to prepare enough honey for us to remove a good harvest of honey whilst leaving enough to see the bees through the winter. After all that’s why they are storing the honey.
In mid August Martin removed the full supers from the apiary’s hives after first inserting a clearing board to remove most of the workers from each super. A task best done with two people as there is much lifting of heavy boxes.
On Sunday 17 August we held the first of two training sessions at the Gower Honey Cooperative’s honey room in the kitchen of Llanrhidian Village Hall. DOC gave a short talk about the need for hygiene at every stage of the process from removal of the supers from the hives, transporting to the honey room, extraction of the honey from the frames and the ripening of the extracted honey (allowing the honey to settle with air bubbles and flakes of wax rising to the surface).
On Sunday 31 August the Hive to Jar process was completed. The honey is ready for sale at Llys Nini in support of RSPCA fund raising.