Removing Honey Supers

Dr. Dewey Caron

Hi, I'm Dr. Dewey Caron. I come to you from Portland, Oregon. I present another audio postcard in my once-monthly Beekeeping Today miniseries podcast, Bee Science, with Dr. Dewey Caron. This is the sixth installment in this series, sixth already. In each episode, I seek to blend research, field experience, and seasonal context, focusing on the why behind honey bee biology and behavior. I welcome your suggestions for timely topics. The mini-series topics this month is usually considered the last of our summer managements. Removal of honey-failed supers and processing of the honey. In the last Beekeeping Today podcast, I said, timely supering can, one, greatly reduce swarming and two, significantly increase honey yields.

And I caution, don't remove honey from bees unless you are ready to process it. The bees know how to protect their honey. We can only ruin it. when we remove it, but fail to process it in a timely fashion within a day or two. Storing in the freezer is okay, provided you can easily warm this the frames and the honey before you start removing that. In discussing the management of adding supers, I discussed over-supering to challenge bees initially, then under-supering to consolidate frames as nectar flow is winding down. So you might take advantage of those colonies, those super colonies who are doing a better job of storing the honey.

I talked about adding supers on top, baiting of supers, and bottom supering. And I provided reference to a study from Georgia that demonstrated it didn't make a difference how we added supers, top or bottom. I did, however, recommend baiting for the initial super, especially if above a Queen's suitor. and baiting additional supers as they are added as proactive management. A critical management is to always check to be sure the bees have adopted the space you have added You want to ensure that they are actively occupying a super. Sometimes they are reluctant to go through into that new box, especially through an excluder.

During a summer peak population, most brood chambers are not examined, as it would be necessary to remove the supers to get to the brood chamber and bees are generally not continuing swarm preparations during a nectar flow. Now management focus is to manipulate the supers, adding more boxes or moving frames within or between boxes. Some individuals do not care to handle frames, preferring to only manipulate the boxes. And finally, as bees fill them up, we start the harvest at the end of this phase. It is important to harvest only surplus honey to avoid stress to fall colonies as they prepare for the winter.

Feeding a heavy sugar syrup to compensate for honey removal adds more work. But some individuals believe bees winter better on this honey source, especially if the fall nectar source is something that is very heavy, such as, for example, in the east the goldenrod. So now, sometime in the next month, you will have the task of removal of supers of capped honey. Maybe you've already been extracting a varietal of early season honey source. We were extracting our big leaf maple honey out mid-May out here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. If you are producing honey in a comb.

such as comb honey, section honey, cut comb honey, for example, removal should occur as the bees finish capping it. . . This helps avoid travel staining of the newly capped cells Travel stating is not of concern for honey you will extract, since you will first uncap those honey filled cells. For resources, I again recommend you view what your club or your favorite book on bees or what local beekeepers might have to say regarding removal of the supers. Betterbee Supply Company, one of our sponsors, has an informative flyer, best ways to get bees out of your supers.

Prolific YouTubers, such as Bob Binnie of Georgia, have videos you might consult. How we remove bees from Honey Supers. Hint, Bob prefers triangle escape boards Or in Kamon Reynolds of Tennessee. Removing bees from honey supers fast. Hint He shows use of of a fume board with repellent chemical honey bandit. See the end notes for those references. These two illustrate two different ways to remove honey-filled supers. We actually can distinguish four major means of removing supers. Escape boards, tune boards, a bee blower, or the one most of us might use is bounce and brush. And a fifth I might add, in case you have a flow hive, simply turn the crank and watch the honey flow out of the specialty super into your jars.

You do need to watch so the jars don't overflow and confirm the tubing and the uh frames, the special frames, have been opened so everything functions correctly, and they drain into your jars. So first, Bee escape boards. Bee escapes are a one-way passage device, literally a bee escape. The simplest is a metal or plastic bee escape that fits in the oval home of a standard inner cover. But most beekeepers prefer to use a special board that has more than a simple left and right passage for the exiting bees A board with multiple exits. Design so bees leave, but they can't return to the super.

That's the principle of the one-way escape. Several one-way passages are work better than the simple one in the oval hole. A popular common modification is a triangle escape board. Literally a triangle. Bees can go in three different directions. Bee escapes work best if night is cool following the addition, so the bees in the super get chilled and will want to leave You also do not want to break many honey-filled cells when you add your bee escape, since that delays bees exiting. They stay to clean up the mess And more importantly, bee escapes will work only if there is no brood.

The bees don't want to abandon brood. Use of the bee escape does require lifting supers, since the board needs to be placed beneath the supers. Second one, Kamon's favorite, a fume board. The fume board is one of the fastest and most efficient tools beekeepers use to clear bees out of honey Supers involves applying a bee repellent to an absorbent felt inner lining inside the board itself, which is then placed on top of the super. The sun heats the board and drives the bees down into the brood chambers. One version, the bee breeze, directs the warmed air into the top box.

Fume boards are rapid. Can take just three to six minutes on those bright sunny days. You're not breaking open cells, so there's nothing for them to stay and clean up You can make one inexpensively or purchase one from bee supply companies. All of them have different types of models, different prices. The fume board itself is simply a back black aluminum sheeting designed to absorb solar heat. The inner surface is lined with absorbent fabric something like flannel or felt. Solar panels are the modern equivalent of heating at the top. Sunlight heats the black metal or the solar panel so the liquid repellent sprayed on the interior fabric vaporizes.

The quick release of an intense aroma drives the bees down and away from their honey frames With multiple supers, you can use it one super at a time, or wait until all the supers on a colony are clean of workers. This method obviously works best on warm, sunny days. Large-scale operations will use multiple frameboards at a time, going from hive to hive to remove clean supers. Two types of repellent chemicals are used. There is a food-grade, proprietary organic material mixture of essential oils and herbs. Hint benzaldehyde. It is sold as Fisher's Be Quick, Honey Be Gone, or Honey Bandit.

The pleasant aroma is of almond or cherry. but when volatized is quite strong, so it causes bees to go downward to where their brood is located. The second group of a fumig fumigant is the bee repellent, is the chemical butyric anhydride. Sold as Honey Robber or bee Go. Yeah, those brand names are very similar. It is sharply pungent and it's filled in vehicle or enclosed, the odor will last forever is the most powerful of the fumigants. Phenols such as carbolic acid were once used, but they are highly corrosive and quite dangerous and are not recommended.

Whatever chemical is used, you need to remove the board once a super is cleared, or you can get the bees to vacate their entire hive. As with escape boards, chemical repellents work best if there's no brood in the super. P. S. Another use of repellents is by individuals who do cutouts as a means of getting the bees to abandon their nest, or most of them. Bee blower. Third method. For commercial operations, a bee blower is often the device of choice. to use to get bees out of supers. A strong airstream similar to or in that actuality a leaf lower.

Directs air between the frames and the bees blown into the air. Battery or electric versions are are available, and a variable speed blower is preferable The sewer to be cleared is propped on its end. The bees then are generally blown back into space. with the within that Apri or back toward the entrance of their own colony, but not close enough so that they might be injured. This results in a tremendous number of bees in the air, but they are so disoriented that stinging is seldom an issue. Obviously, a blower should be done on a day when bees are flying Finally, B and B, bounce and brush.

You and I will likely use the bounce and brush technique to remove individual frames. What does this mean? First, air bounce. That is, hold the frame tightly and shake it in a downward fashion and make sure the dislodged bees fall back into their hive Or bounce the frame on its top bar, but not on the hive, then finish cleaning remaining bees clinging to the frames sparingly using a long, soft bristle brush Natural horsehair is a preferred material. You should use a gentle, short, flicking motion rather than a long sweeping stroke across the entire Bees dislike this brushing.

They get bopped in the head and will attack the brush. If the bristles get matted with nectar or honey, the brush will become much less effective. A large bird feather, such as a turkey or macaw feather, is a good alternative over a brush. Feathers are incredibly gentle The bees rarely get agitated by them, and they are easy to replace. Well, provided your turkey or macaw is willing to contribute If there is brood, as you're trying to take out the the honey, replace it. Uh let it uh merge. If the queen is up into the super, then you need to push her down and then put an exudor before you put the uh brood back on.

Sometimes there might be brood from uh, for example, laying workers, drone brood, uh will be scattered. If there's just a little bit, you can go ahead and do your harvesting. But if there's a lot, put it back on over the excluder, let the bees emerge, and then remove the super layer. If you have difficulty removing a full box of eight or ten frames, depending on the box size you're using of the capped honey, or if you have colonies on a hive high stand which you you have so you can manipulate brood boxes with a minimum bending over.

My advice is don't. Don't remove full supers. To avoid lifting boxes off a high tower super, you can harvest individual frames. Place removed frames in an empty extra box, adding only the number you can easily lift. Make sure you cover boxes you are emptying, as well as the box used to carry the frames. Robbing is your enemy at this point. Boxes left open. Frames left unprotected by bees are liable to be robbed. By leaving open supers or frames, you are giving the bees an open invitation to start robbing. The alternative instead of one-time removal of supers is to remove individual frames one or two or three at a time during the nectar flow period itself. You might continue to add supers as the nectar flow continues.

In fact, recently extracted frames are a strong incentive for the bees to clean up and refill the cells. This is proactive management. David Burns basically gives this advice in his removing honey video, how to remove supers without crowding your bees. Robbing in honey bees occurs when bees from one colony invade another to steal its honey stores stores is most common during a nectar durce when natural flowers are scarce or when we expose honey from a colony we are harvesting. Robbers target weakened or defenseless hives, such as the colonies we have opened. If unchecked, robbing can destroy a weak colony in a few hours and lead to defensive bees in the aparate In the end notes, I reference a Betterbee flyer on robbing and University of Florida flyer ENY163 that both give lots of details on robbing and how we might avoid it We might be unsure if it is okay to remove a frame or a super of honey if cells are not completely capped.

You can use a refractometer to measure the moisture content of honey before harvesting A standard fruit or beverage refractometer, which typically max out at 30% bricks, will not work. We have to use a dedicated honey refractometer that is needed because of the features of a high brick scale ranging from 58 to 90 percent. BRICS, by the way, is a unit of measurement that indicates the percentage of dissolved solids, primarily sugars, of course, in these products, in that liquid What we actually do read, we don't actually read the brick scale, but we actually read a companion scale in the refractometer.

that gives us a m measure of moisture and you want that moisture be between the range of twelve and twenty seven percent. So the dedicated one for for honey. And some other pro uh some other fruits and vegetables. As well. The price of a refractometer will vary considerably. Some are manually read while digital versions are also available. Sample several cells on the frames that are less than 80 to 100% capped Tip the frame to see if any honey droplets fall from cells that are uncapped. If there are uncapped cells, some might be of lower moisture, just not yet capped by the bees.

As a rule of thumb, honey below 18% will not spoil. So readings in the range of 17 up to 18. 6 moisture is ideal Above 18. 7 moisture, the risk of fermentation increases. The higher it goes, the more the risk. Don't remove and try to store it filled supers of individual filled frames unless you have a freezer with enough space for honey frames. The bees know how to protect their honey. All we will do is ruin it when we remove it and don't process it within a day or two. Commercial beekeepers will extract honey removed the day before.

They place supers in a hot room overnight so it flows well when extracted from the combs the next day Also, bees can cap honey before it might be fully reduced in moisture content, particularly in areas of high humidity. So if you're if that is the case. you find some that's too high in humidity, make sure you purchase a refractometer and check it first. In conclusion, firstly, I hope you have honey filled frames or supers to remove Secondly, I hope you remove them in a timely fashion to be able to process the honey. And thirdly, I hope you plan to use the removal method that is best suited to your management It is our reward for work well done by the bees and by ourselves, the beekeepers.

Until next time, be well