HARVESTING AND HANDLING HONEY FOR HOBBY AND SIDELINE BEEKEEPERSJONATHAN R. ENGELSMA, PH.D.

TOPICS

• About Us

• Producing Honey

• Harvesting Honey

• Handling Honey

QUICK FACTS

• We are a family of nine from Nunica, MI

• Mieke and Jonathan share a background in agriculture

• Jonathan works as a prof in GVSU’s School of Computing and starting keeping bees in 1984.

• Family runs a sideline bee operation

• run 40-60 colonies mainly for honey production

• retail the annual honey crop

• sell nucs when able.

• Website: http://hudsonvillehoney.com

HONEY PRODUCTION - PREREQUISITES

• Scout for good yard locations and place colonies prior to main honey flow.

• Make sure colonies are strong and healthy prior to main nectar flow.

• Make sure equipment is assembled and ready prior to main honey flow.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

• Scout a year or more in advance for good locations.

• Take good care of the landowners and their land.

• Respect existing bee yards.

• Do the math when establishing remote yards.

STRONG AND HEALTHY COLONIES

• Good queens

• Encourage early spring buildup.

• Equalize colonies

• Monitor and keep mite populations in check!

• Keep a decent inventory of nucs on hand.

HONEY PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT

• Decide what kind of honey you are going to produce.

• Purchase / assemble supers & frames for surplus honey in advance of honey flow.

• Better to have more supers than you think you need!

PRODUCING CUT COMB HONEY

• Minimal amount of standard equipment required!

• standard honey supers /frames with “thin surplus” foundation

• bee brush to free comb of bees

• sharp knife to cut into sections

CUT COMB ALONG SIDE EXTRACT HONEY PRODUCTION

• Intersperse marked comb honey frames within extract supers.

• share the pain of drawing out foundation across all your colonies

• Use irregular shaped or partially capped sections to produce “chunk honey”.

HANDLING CUT COMB HONEY

• Harvest from hive as soon as capped.

• Cut and allow edges to drip dry.

• use clean queen excluder over a commercial serving pan.

• Package and freeze for 24 hours to kill any wax moth / hive beetle larva.

• Market / use before it crystallizes!

ALTERNATIVES TO CUT COMB

• Ross Rounds / Bassword / Hogg Sections

• Hard to get bees to work in the sections

• Equipment is much more expensive

• Must read: “Honey in the Comb” by Eugene Killon. Dadaist & Sons.

EQUIPMENT FOR EXTRACT HONEY PRODUCTION• What size supers should be

used?

• deeps - back breakers!

• shallows - easy enough for a healthy adult to lift, stack, etc.

• mediums - a little heavier than a shallow, but still manageable.

• We use wired foundation and embed horizontal wires … most of the time.

SUPERING

• Start adding super(s) in spring when the brood chamber(s) are ~ 70 - 80% full of bees/brood/food.

• Whitening of the combs means the honey flow is on!

• Several options to consider:

• Add all supers at once!

• Bottom supering - add supers under existing supers sequentially as needed.

• Top Supering - add supers directly on top of existing supers

WHEN TO HARVEST HONEY

• When to harvest?

• Not before it is (mostly) capped.

• When the main nectar flow has ended.

• Allow yourself time to knock back the mites!

MOISTURE CONTENT IN HONEY

• Refractometer: device used to measure moisture content in honey.

• Should be about 16-18.5%

• > 18.5% the honey will ferment!

• Good rule of thumb is to harvest honey when it is mostly capped.

HARVESTING HONEY (1)

• For the hobby beekeeper (< 5 hives).

• use a bee brush to remove bees.

• bee escape (takes 24 hours)

HARVESTING HONEY (2)

• For the sideliner with more hives:

• fume boards with a fumigant

• clears the supers of bees in minutes

• blower is handy to remove bees clinging to brood (inevitable if you don’t use excluders…)

HARVESTING TIPS

• Which fumigant?

• Bee Go - very effective, but stinks terribly and so will you when you’re done!

• Bee Quick - made of non toxic natural oils and herbal extracts. Smells is tolerable and works fine.

MORE HARVESTING TIPS…

• Watch the weather forecast and harvest on a nice warm sunny day.

• Paint your fume boards black to absorb heat and work more effectively.

• Have enough fume boards for speedy super removal (we plan on 1 board for every 4 hives).

• If loading on a truck or trailer, always cover harvested honey immediately to avoid robbing.

HONEY EXTRACTING FACILITY • Some very important requirements

for honey extracting facilities:

• Must be “bee tight”. Very important or you will have an out of control disaster and lots of competition for your honey!

• A warm room: like molasses, honey doesn’t flow if its not warm!

• The proper electrical service if you are running powered equipment.

• An abundance of hot water to facilitate clean up

OUR EXTRACTION PROCESS

• Typical Extracting Day:

• 9am - 10am: make sure we have enough buckets for the day. hook up trailer, load fume boards, etc.

• 10am - 1pm: remove around 50 supers, 1 - 1.2k pounds of honey

• 1pm - 8 pm: immediately extract the honey while it is still nice and warm!

EXTRACTORS

• For the hobby beekeeper (< 10 colonies)

• A hand powered 2-4 frame extractor ($300 - $400) will suffice.

• For the larger hobby / sideline operation:

• powered 8+ frame extractor ($1,000+)

• Radial vs. tangential extractors

THE UNCAPPING PROCESS• For the hobby beekeeper

(< 5 hives)

• Cold knife or capping scratcher ($5 - $20)

• For larger hobby / sideliner (< 60 hives)

• hot knife/plane will suffice ($120)

• For larger sideliner, you’ll want something less labor intensive and more efficient…

PROCESSING THE CAPPINGS• Possibly your biggest bottleneck!

• Hobby Beekeeper (< 5 hives)

• Build your own solar wax melter! (< $50)

• Larger Hobby / Sideliner

• Walter T. Kelley’s Capping Melter / Separator ($600)

• Maxant Jr. Capping Spinner ($1500)

Steve Tilman’s Solar Wax Melter - http://www.michiganbees.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Solar-Wax-Melter_20100727.pdf

PROCESSING THE HONEY

• Our current process:

• screen strain immediately out of the extractor to remove larger debris.

• immediately filter with a 400 or 600 micron filter while still warm from the hive (sold as raw unheated honey)

• Remaining honey is put into 50 gallon buckets and warmed / filtered (400 micron) bottled as needed.

SCALING UP

Source: http://www.maxantindustries.com/pdfs/packages.pdf

DECRYSTALLIZING HONEY

• For the hobby beekeeper:

• put honey container in a pan of water on stove with burner on low for several hours.

• dashboard of vehicle parked in the sunshine?

• Siderliner:

• for buckets use a round pail heater to liquify overnight ($110)

• Similar (but larger) heating bands can be used for honey stored in drums.

BOTTLING HONEY

• For the hobby beekeeper

• Use a 5 gallon bucket with a gate on the bottom. ($15)

• For the sideline beekeeper:

• We use a 16 gallon Maxant bottling tank.

ANOTHER CONSIDERATION: CREAMED HONEY• Easy to make, and honey

customers love it! (Google for recipes).

• Lessons we learned the hard way:

• Use a high quality drill (1/2 inch w/ 10.5 amps or more) for mixing seed honey. ($140)

• Purchase a stainless steel paint mixer attachment. ($50)

• Mix in a stainless steel container to avoid plastic chips in your honey!! ($35)

POST EXTRACTION CONSIDERATIONS

• Prior to storing, place extracted “wet” supers outside at least 100 yards from your apiary to allow bees to clean them up.

• Protect your stored supers against wax moth infestations (and mice).

• Para-Moth crystals

• Wrap / Shrinkwrap

SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS

• Don’t be afraid to experiment and find a process that works efficiently (and economically for you!)

• Learn from your fellow beekeepers.

ANY QUESTIONS?

Jonathan Engelsma’s Contact Info:

• email: jengelsma@gmail.com

• web: http://hudsonvillehoney.com

• twitter.com/honeyandcandles

• Like us! /hudsonvillehoney

• A copy of these slides are posted on:

• http://slideshare.net/jonathanengelsma