HARVESTING THE MOTHERLOAD. 35 KGS FROM 1 SWARM.
Hey everyone, WOW just WOW, when I got into bee-keeping around 4 months ago little did I know that in a few short months I would be harvesting a whopping 35 kgs from 1 hive. This truly is unprecedented it really is. The average bee-keeper puts 1 maybe 2 supers on a a hive never 4.
Our thinking was to firstly put two supers on our biggest swarm of bees to free up some space for the bees, this is our biggest swarm and many bees sit outside the hive. For some reason they don't want to split (they normally split in spring to allow for more space in the hive and reproductive purposes)
A week later we then put another two on in order to be able to harvest in a few days time. We wanted all the bees to migrate to the top of the hive as to be able to make them more manageable in terms of having fewer bees to work with in the two supers we planned on harvesting.
Below we have a full frame of honey and an uncapping fork which I had used to removed the honey comb caps in preparation for spinning!
Harvest day arrived and we were in for a massive surprise. All the supers were just about full. I would guess around 80 % or more, It was truly incredible.
Below we have drone comb filled with honey and capped. Usually the workers (females) manufacture female honey combs and store nectar which becomes honey. My theory with these below capped honey drone combs is that there is an abundant nectar supply hence bees making larger cones to store bigger amounts of nectar faster!
We last harvested from this super swarm 2 months odd ago and removed around 10 kgs from this hive. Which was not bad considering that we had just finished the 'dearth' season, winter!
This time around we were really not expecting a massive estimated 30 kgs or more. Each honey frame here weights in around between 1.4 and 1.8 kgs. Without honey these weight in at around 400 grams which means you have around 1 kg per frame of pure delicious raw honey for harvest, amazing!!
Once the honey is spun off the comb and frames, we sieve it through a two grid sieve, firstly a larger grid then a finer grid which removes whatever solids may be in the honey. From there we literally bottle it. No radiation, no filtering no heating nothing. The best raw honey around! So healthy a super food not much better for you than honey exists, super vitamins never got better!
Here we have a full uncapped frame which I was just about to put into the spinner!
Weighing the frames full of honey to get a general average per frame as earlier stated a terrific 1.4 - 1.8 kgs per frame. There are 10 frames per super and we have 4 supers on this hive.
A general overview of the centrifugal spinner. This unit has different speed settings, it is always advisable to start off slowly and then increase speed to the max removing optimal honey volumes.
Here we have a few pics of capped honey in the frames as well as all the frames that we removed for this one super swarm.
Super Swarm, Super Aggressive, Super productive and SUPER honey.
Be sure to stay tuned for more of my epic bee-keeping adventures!
Have a super Sunday!
Cheer$;)
How are you getting so much honey!
It would be great to have that every month, make sure that you eat lots of pancakes and waffles!
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Hey my brother great to see you again. This is a very old strong mature swarm for a start and our area is fantastic a vast array of vegetation for them to forage on we also feed them feral honey, which clearly works ;) Doing another Wendy house rescue soon I will do a blog, lots of work but it promises to be epic, Cheer$;)
Thats great to hear. Its awsome that you have a great enviornment for your bees!
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I'm glad this beekeeping business is working out for you. How are you doing on the marketing side?
Brother that is what so nice about this business honey is liquid gold it sells itself. I now do a bring a bucket and buy per kg @R120 people are loving it :)
What a great post, thats some serious honey making by the swarm, if i ever grt a place with the space needed, to keep the wife happy not the bees 😄 theyll be first on my list, what do you do with the beeswax? Thanks for sharing
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Hey brother thanks a ton appreciate that. We melt down the combs and extract the wax it goes for 5 x the price of honey amazing right? Very in demand that. Good business this. Cheer$;)
Stunning! That's exciting. Congratulations @craigcryptoking
Thanks sis ye this is the very swarm that got me into this business. Incredible that it all started here 4 months ago. Have you ever got 35 kgs from 1 hive whats the max you have achieved or heard of? Love me x
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Fantastic thanks a ton I really appreciate that!
Gorgeous! I just love bees, they are medicine through and through!!
I can almost taste the honey through the screen. Great shots!
Xx ToL
Thanks so much I really appreciate that
You've only been at it four months? That's an awesome bit of progress and learning there man.
I think 35kg comes out around 70 pounds in retarded US measurement. That's a lot of honey, and some hard working bees.
I asked the wife last night for a hive, a book, and some equipment for beekeeping, and was promptly shot down. No bees here, as much as I'd love to have some.
Keep up the good work. Drown Monsatan in honey!
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Hey brother 4 months correct we had around 3 to start with, this was the biggest from the beginning, we now have 26. We have been waiting on the rest for a while to harvest as to allow for them to establish themselves first. Probably look at a harvest on many of the supered up newer swarms and hives mid to end Dec, I shall keep you posted. Thanks for the cool comment. PS: Sorry about the wifey not allowing for bees you really need to make a plan even get a few swarms/hives and leave them at a mates property and pay him with honey?? The deals I have made for honey are impressive, liquid gold that everyone just loves!!
Cheer$;)
Looks delicious ! Great to see your hard work paying off.
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Man oh man...that is a lot of honey!!! I bet that is tasty honey!