The Boojum Beeyard: Honey Harvest! Part 1

It is honey harvesting time at the Boojum Beeyard!

This week we pulled most of the honey supers off of our Boojum Bee hives. Here are some photos of harvest day:

 Kurt Merrill, chief apiculturist, points out the hive he's already started on when I get there.

photo: Robyn Young

Kurt has tacked a terry towel into the inside of a hive lid. Some scented liquid is squirted onto the towel. The bees don't like this smell and it will drive them down into the lower boxes. That way we can drive them out of a super, pull it off, and drive them down again. This way we can pull off the honey supers while leaving most of the bees in the hive.

photo: Robyn Young

photo: Robyn Young

The orange super is a honey comb super which holds "Ross Rounds", or honey comb cassettes. The bees will draw these out with comb and fill them with honey. When they are done, round honeycomb cakes will pop out yielding nicely shaped little raw comb sections.

photo: Robyn Young

photo: Robyn Young

photo: Robyn Young

photo: Robyn Young

The metal grate between the hive body and the honey super on top is called a queen excluder. The bars are too narrow for the queen to get through, but the workers can pass through just fine. This keeps brood out of the honey supers.

photo: Robyn Young

Here is the stack of honey supers ready to travel to the honey house. The towel covering the top is wet. This helps mask the smell of the honey and therefore keeps the bees from mobbing it and trying to take it all back.

photo: Robyn Young

photo: Robyn Young

photo: Robyn Young

Those six supers full of honey will yield over two hundred pounds of the sweet liquid gold. These will travel away from the beeyard to the honey house.

Then onto the extraction, the next step in the honey harvest!