Taking Honey from the Hives

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This article appeared under my pseudonym, Skep, in the NZ Beekeeper No 189, Autumn 1986, pp 15-17.

My last article dealing with supering up your hives mentioned that you can save on equipment costs by extracting supers as they are filled and then replacing them to let the bees work on them a second time. If you have done this, you will already have dealt with the subject of this month's column: Taking boxes of honey off the hive.

I'm going to outline several methods of removing boxes from the hives because I think it is important to know your options. I'll try to indicate when I am drawing on personal prejudice.

The ability to remove full frames of honey from the hive, extract them, and then replace the empty frames is (along with disease control) one of the greatest advantages of the moveable frame hives that we use. Beekeepers have come up with all sorts of schemes and gadgets to help them to get the bees out of the boxes. This column will deal with four methods: shaking and brushing, fume boards, bee escapes and blowers.

Shaking and brushing the bees from the full frames is not as difficult as it would first seem. Every beekeeper should learn how to shake bees in such a manner that they do not get too irate. This ability is one of the 'building blocks', the necessary skills of the proficient beekeeper.

Hold the frame by its lugs between thumbs and middle fingers. Lift it rapidly 50-100 mm, then without hesitation push sharply downward, catching it with the middle fingers. This upward movement, followed immediately by the downward 'jolt' seems to catch the bees by surprise to dislodge them from the frame. If you have done it properly, there should be few bees remaining.

If you want to remove a honey crop by this time honoured method, it pays to be prepared with some other equipment. Take a couple of empty boxes along with you in which to place the frames as you clear them of bees. Use inner covers to keep the honey covered at all times. Especially if you are taking your honey off toward the end of the season, robbing can be a real problem. By keeping the inner cover on the hive except when you are actually working it and by avoiding exposing honey combs, you minimise the chances of its starting.

To remove the last few bees from the frame, you can use either a soft bristled brush or a handful of grass. The bee brushes sold by the equipment suppliers are ideal, though you may be able to find a similar brush in the hardware store, such as the type used for wallpapering. I like to keep a tin of water handy as well. After brushing several frames, the bristles of these brushes clog up with honey and become difficult to use properly. There are three major advantages to taking honey by the shaking and brushing method.

1. It takes little in the way of equipment
2. It takes little pre-planning and so can be done with no previous hive preparation
3. Because frames are handled individually , you need never lift a full box of honey if you so choose.

A fume board is basically just a telescoping lid with an absorbant pad fitted on its inner surface. One of several chemicals are sprinkled on this pad. When the board is placed on the hive, the heat of the sun begins to vapourise the chemical and the smell sinks down through the hive. Because the smell is a repellent one (to me as well as to the bees!), the bees move down through the hive, leaving the honey supers.

Though it seems like a fine system, and some beekeepers work it with great success, I have never liked it much. The chemicals used can be toxic as well as bad smelling. If there is not enough heat to vapourise the chemical, the boards are ineffective. A final danger comes with possible tainting of the honey from the odour of the repellent chemical. I've mentioned fume boards here for the sake of information, but as you can tell, I am not one of their major backers!

For most hobbyist beekeepers I highly recommend the use of the bee escape board for taking off honey. Though they might have disadvantages for a commercial beekeeper, they suit the style of most hobbyist beekeepers down to a 'B'.

The escape board is inserted into the hive below the boxes of honey that are to be removed. It acts as a 'one way gate', allowing bees to move down through it, but not letting them back up into the supers. As soon as all, or most all, of the bees have moved down through the escape board, the boxes of honey now empty of bees can be lifted from the hive.

For elegance of construction in the field of beekeeping gadgetry some of the designs of bee escapes are hard to beat. I'll only describe two of the most common, as they are all equally effective.

The Porter bee escape is probably the oldest and most commonly used. This device causes the bees moving down through the escape to push through two spring wires. After passing through, the bees are unable to return. Each of the escapes has two exits. Most beekeepers when constructing escape boards mount two of the escapes in each, giving a total of four exits down into the hive. This may speed the movement of bees down through the board, but more importantly it gives a bit of insurance should one escape get blocked. This can easily happen with either a drone getting stuck or the bees waxing or gluing up the fine wires.

I prefer the designs of escapes with no moving parts. They all seem to work on the same basic principle: Bees can be easily channelled through a funnel, but they find it very difficult to come back in through the small end.

Before waxing eloquent on the use of bee escape boards, I'll admit they have some drawbacks. They do require some planning ahead. You won't be able to just suddenly decide that now is the time to take off your honey. The boards work surprisingly quickly, but I find I need to leave them on overnight in most cases.

Another disadvantage is that bees will just not leave some boxes. This can be true when using fume boards as well. If brood is present in the supers to be cleared of bees, especially unsealed brood, or if there is broken burr comb, the bees will be very reluctant to leave the boxes. If this is the case, you may have to do some shaking and brushing.

There is a certain knack as well to inserting the boards into the hive without first having to lift off the supers. If you are going to lift off the supers and replace them on the escape board, I would suggest breaking the boxes apart with your hive tool several days before. This will give the bees time to clean up the dripping honey from the broken burr comb. They will then tend to leave the boxes much quicker.

One last 'trap for young players'. Don't put the escape board on the hive upside down. It won't work that way, will it? And don't look so smug; its easy enough to do. Try painting the top of the board a different colour so you'll notice it as you place it on the hive.

One of the greatest bits of information I've picked up in recent years is that a 50 mm rim around the bottom of the escape board will make it clear more quickly. It seems that the bees coming down through the escapes are rather slow to actually fan out into the lower box. Giving them this clustering space seems to cut down the 'bottleneck' at the escape exit.

One of the real advantages of the escape board over other ways of clearing supers of bees is that there is minimal disturbance. If you are in an urban situation, it is essential that you not be a nuisance to your neighbors. Used properly, escapes can be inserted and boxes of honey lifted off with no need to declare the beeyard 'off limits', and no danger of innocent bystanders being stung.

Many if not most commercial beekeepers use a bee blower to remove bees from the supers. This device has only really become popular in the last 20 years or so. Several models are used commonly in New Zealand. One is simply a modified backpack sprayer that is fitted with a small two-stroke engine and fan. Other beekeepers use a unit with a larger engine that is carried around by a handle from hive to hive.

The initial cost of a blower is far beyond what you as a hobbyist should outlay. Their main advantage is speed, critical for the commercial operator, but not necessary for the backyard operation.

If you feel you must experiment with the principle, by all means have a go. I've heard all sorts of descriptions of reversed vaccuum cleaners, modified sprayers and the like.

For myself, I'll stick with the use of the bee escape board. They need not be complicated or expensive in construction, they rarely fail to perform as expected, and there is no danger of tainting of the honey.

Whatever method of taking honey you choose, there is one more unbreakable rule to learn. NEVER TAKE HONEY FROM A COLONY THAT YOU HAVE NOT INSPECTED FOR DISEASE. If you don't know what to look for, or have any doubts, get in touch with your Apicultural Advisory Officer or an experienced beekeeper. There is no easier way to come unstuck in a big way than failing to carry out this inspection. If a colony is found to be diseased, it can be dealt with in the proper manner. If you don't find it at the taking off honey stage, you risk spreading it to all your other hives, either through the extractor or when you super up with the extracted frames I hope you have all had an enjoyable and profitable season with your bees. With winter coming on, its a good time to sit back and look at your beekeeping with the perspective of a completed cycle. Its also a good time to catch up on your reading. There's a wealth of information in books about bees.

Our own Beekeepers Technical Library, run by Mr John Heinemann, contains volume upon volume of both technical and general interest beekeeping books, enough to keep you going through all the coming winter evenings. If you haven't taken advantage of the library yet, why not try it this winter?