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06/05/2006 Archived Entry: "Be fruitful and multiply"
Well this past week has been a nice flow of UPS and Fedex deliveries. I received the hand crank extractor I ordered. I also got two cases of 12oz honeybears. Finally I received 30 more units of permacomb. The last set of mini inspections confirmed the bees in hive #2 were filling the permacomb with honey. That also meant that hive two was getting very full. It was time to extract some honey. So with the materials ordered and the cheap labor source(wife). I had everything I needed to do an extraction.
Some notes on the hives. Since I had enough time I updated the plans for the hive top entrance. I also a week ago I put the top entrances on both hives. I have left the bottom entrances in place because I don't have the screen bottoms on hive #1 and I haven't removed the excluder from hive #2(however it is most likely going to get removed). The new foraging bees however are using the top entrance and the bearding at night has cut down dramatically.
I had a discussion with John Seets who makes permacomb and a couple of things came to light. The permacomb can after being primed the first time just be reinserted after an extraction. 10 frames fully loaded weighs approximatly 78 lbs (that's heavy). Until the worker bees finish the regression of going to the smaller more natural size cell, worker cells will be domed like drone cells.
Well I went into hive #2 Friday night and pulled 7 of the 10 frames. The other three had substansial brood in them so they stayed. I rotated 7 new preped permacomb frames into the box. I then loaded the seven frames into a medium along with three preped frames and took the screened bottom I am going to use on hive #1 and a prototype top entrance and went to the palm beach county beekeepers meeting. The full frames and the top entrance were a big hit.
Saturday I had my wife take the seven full frames and run them through the extractor. The hand crank extractor is really really good. In less than a minute of easy hand cranking two mediums had one side spun out. She flipped the frames and repeated it. In under 5 minutes She had hand cranked and extracted 2 medium frames with honey. This action was repeated until all seven frames were empty. Now some notes, these frames were intended for brood so there were 10 frames in each box, normally for honey frames you want 9 frames in a box. The reason is the bees do more of a comb build up on the frames. The more buildup the easier it is to cut the cappings and extract the honey. If the wax cappings are close to the surface of the permacomb the harder it is to run a knife across the top. You want the cappings to be somewhat above the surface of the comb. So I had 10 frames that had flush cappings. It wasn't bad but on the frames that had any build up you could tell the difference. The cappings were cut in a large tup. The cappings were gathered and placed in my solar wax melter. I achieved almost a pound of wax.
The seven frames produced a gallon and a half of honey. That filled 22 of the honeybear jars. The frames after extraction were places in an open medium. Then the medium was placed near the bees so they could lick the frames clean. The honey from the cappings was also given back to the bees.
So the status now on Hive #1 is this, the queen is now laying brood in the permacomb frames which is great. Hive #2 still has 10 frames with honey above the extractor. I will probably rotate those in 2 weeks.
By that time Hive #1 will be ready for another box. Hive #2 will go through rotation on frames until the end of summer when I will probably pull the excluder.
You can see pics here:
http://www.brendhanhorne.com/coppermine_dir/thumbnails.php?album=46
