How and When To Harvest Honey From My Beehive?
When Should I Harvest Honey From My Beehive?
Beekeeping is a delicate art that requires both patience and precision. One of the most rewarding aspects of tending to a beehive is the harvest of golden nectar – honey. However, the timing of honey extraction plays a crucial role in ensuring a bountiful and high-quality yield.
Want to know how to harvest honey? In this guide, we will explore the factors influencing the decision of when to harvest honey, providing beekeepers with valuable insights into the art and science of optimal extraction timing. Before we jump into the detail, if you want to a see a colony that is perfectly primed for honey extraction, click on the video below:
Understanding the Lifecycle of the Beehive
Before diving into the specifics of when to extract honey, it is essential to understand the natural lifecycle of a beehive. Bees work tirelessly throughout the spring and summer, collecting nectar from flowers and converting it into honey through a meticulous process of regurgitation and dehydration. As autumn/winter approaches, the hive's focus shifts to storing honey for the winter months when natural forage becomes scarce.
In the UK, we are privileged to experience two distinctly separate honey flows. We get a spring crop between April-June and a summer crop between June and September. If you are near heather, there can even be a late summer crop of heather honey between July – October.
In between the Spring and early summer flow, there is often a nectar dearth, called the ‘June Gap'. This is a period of 7-10 days where there is very little incoming nectar and honey stores can dwindle during this time. It’s important to understand when this is in your specific location and plan around it, or at least acknowledge the risks that it brings.
In this blog, I will first talk about the basics of how to harvest honey from the beehive and then detail some strategies that are followed by bee farmers in the UK. If you are looking for details on how to harvest honey from a Flow Hive, take a look at this page on my website:
The Importance of Timing In Harvesting Honey From The Beehive
Timing is everything when it comes to harvesting honey. Extract honey too early, and you risk spoiling the honey and depriving the bees of their winter sustenance; extract the honey too late, and the honey quality may deteriorate and you may not have enough time to artificially build the stores back up for winter. Several factors influence the optimal timing of honey extraction, each is intricately linked to the hive's dynamics and the surrounding environment.
Hive Strength: The strength of your hive is a fundamental consideration when deciding when to harvest honey. A robust, thriving colony with ample worker bees is better equipped to withstand the removal of honey frames without compromising their ability to survive the winter. Regular hive inspections and assessments of population size can aid in determining the hive's strength. A hive with insufficient bees probably wont even create an excess.
A simple formula applies here. More Bees = More Honey (nectar flow dependent). But it also linked to another important formula. More bees = more mouths to feed. Keep that in mind when removing honey. A large colony of bees can starve within days if you take all of their food without any supplementary feeding.
Honey Ripeness: Bees regulate the moisture content of honey, ensuring it reaches an optimal level for storage. Honey that is too moist can ferment, reducing its quality and shelf life. To assess honey ripeness, beekeepers often use a refractometer to measure moisture levels. The ideal moisture content for honey extraction typically falls between 15-20%. In the UK, most honey should be under 17% before it’s ready for extraction. Heather should ideally be below 20% but can be up to 23% and it’s very liable to ferment if it’s that high. Our heather honey always comes out around 20-21% - you can try some here:
If you have never used a refractometer before, you can watch this video – it’s really simple.
However, as long as 80% of the frame is capped over, we take that as a sign the honey is ready for extraction and we have never had a bucket of honey ferment. The only caveat to that rule is Oil Seed Rape/Canola that must be extracted following a shake test. Regardless of capping, if you shake the frame and honey remains in situ, it’s ready for extraction. If any shakes out, it’s not ready yet.
Flowering Season: The timing of honey extraction is closely tied to the local flowering seasons. Bees gather nectar when flowers are in bloom, and the honey's flavour profile reflects the predominant floral sources. Harvesting honey just after the peak flowering periods ensures a diverse and flavourful product and should help maximise honey yields. Keep a close eye on the bloom schedule in your region to maximise the honey's taste and aroma. We will details the UK strategies at the bottom of this post.
Weather Conditions: Weather conditions play a pivotal role in honey production and extraction. Warm, sunny days are ideal for bees to forage and collect nectar, leading to a higher honey yield. Similarly, extracting honey on a warm day allows for easier handling and processing. Avoid harvesting during inclement weather, as it can stress the bees and makes for an unhappy harvesting experience.
Hive Management Practices: The beekeeper's management practices also influence the timing of honey extraction. Regular hive inspections, monitoring of honey frames, and a keen understanding of the hive's overall health contribute to informed decision-making.
Additionally, implementing effective pest control measures ensures that the hive remains strong and productive. This is such an important step in the honey harvesting process. It’s impossible to give fixed dates for honey harvesting as climate change and seasonal variations keep us on our toes. The best way to understand when honey is ready is by regularly interacting with your bees and gaining experience through beehive management. You soon become aware of the optimum harvesting schedule for your specific region.
Steps for Optimal Honey Removal From Beehive
Having considered the key factors influencing the timing of when to harvest honey, let's assess the step-by-step process to ensure optimal results in honey extraction:
Regular Hive Inspections: Schedule routine hive inspections to assess the hive's strength, honey frame development, and overall health. Look for signs of disease, pests, and the queen's egg-laying patterns. A healthy and thriving hive is more likely to produce a decent surplus of honey throughout the season.
Monitor Honey Frame Cap Seals: Observing the wax cappings on honey frames provides valuable insights into the honey's ripeness. Bees cap cells with wax when they believe the honey is sufficiently dehydrated. Gently lift the frame and check for capped cells – a clear indication that the honey is ready for extraction. Use the 80% rule for all honey with the exception of Oil Seed Rape. If the honey frame is 80% capped, it’s good to extract.
Use a Refractometer: Invest in a refractometer to measure the moisture content of honey accurately. Extracting honey with the appropriate moisture level enhances its flavour, texture, and shelf life. Take samples from different frames to ensure a comprehensive assessment of the entire harvest and then once in buckets, you can take an average reading to ensure it’s above the maximum allowed hydration level.
Consider Local Flowering Patterns: Be mindful of the local flowering patterns in your region. Harvesting honey just after the peak flowering seasons ensures a diverse and flavourful honey and generally aligns to optimum hydration levels. Keep a calendar of flowering times for common nectar sources in your area.
Choose the Right Weather Conditions: Select a warm, sunny day for honey extraction. Warm temperatures make the honey more fluid and easier to extract from frames. Ensure that the weather forecast is favourable, with minimal wind and precipitation, to facilitate a smooth and efficient harvest.
How To Harvest Honey From A Beehive
Clearing the Frames: Once you have established that the honey is ripe for extraction, the next challenge is how to harvest honey from the beehive without the bees clinging on. Detailed below are a few options for clearing the honey frames of bees:
Use a bee brush: Not my favourite method to harvest honey as its slow and can damage the bees. This method involves using a brush or feather to manually remove the bees from each from as you remove it from the beehive. You take out the frame and then brush the bees back into the hive. Not my preferred method. Try it and you will see why.
Use a clearing board: There are various options for clearing boards (rhombus, Canadian, porter-bee). They all work in a similar fashion. You placed the board in between the supers with the ripe supers on the top and unripe supers underneath. The bees can only efficiently pass through the boards in one direction. After 24 hours you return and the supers on the top of the stack are generally free from most bees. There are always a few stragglers but these can be easily shaken off before removal
Blowing the frames: This method is a little more extreme but the most effective at removing bees and certainly the most efficient in terms of time spent to achieve the end result. The honey super is lifted whilst its full off bees, placed on its side and with a heavy duty blower, the bees are blown from the supers and into the air. The bees return to their hive and empty honey super can be safely removed. See the video below:
Honey Harvesting Strategies
There are various removal strategies for harvesting honey that are used within the UK. In this section of the blog, I will detail the various strategies to harvest honey and talk about the ones we use at Black Mountain Honey.
One Season - One Harvest: This is the simplest strategy to harvest honey but involves a lot of lifting throughout the season. All you do for this strategy is leave ALL of the honey supers on until the end of the season and then harvest the honey. It involves heavy lifting as you need to remove ALL of the supers every week to do you weekly inspections.
You also run the risk of the bees eating all the honey if the weather is poor for any part of the season. You will generally end up with a few supers of well capped honey at the end of the year but you cannot use this strategy if you have any oil seed rape around you as the honey crystallises very quickly and it will become impossible to remove it from the frame. We used to use this strategy but have now moved over to the two harvest model below.
One Season – Two Harvests: This strategy to harvest honey involves a bit more work as there are two harvests to deal with but it’s less risky because as long as you are prepared to feed if the weather doesn’t play ball, the bees never get a chance to eat their honey in the case of inclement weather. This strategy involves taking a spring harvest after the spring flow but before or to just coincide with the June gap.
For us in North Wales, that is around the last week of May. We then add feeders and feed 2-3 litre of sugar syrup and double brood at this point to coincide with the June gap. Once the June gap has finished, we remove the feeders and add supers for the summer flow. We then extract again in mid-August and immediately feed and treat with Apitraz. This is probably the safest strategy and also maximises honey production over the full season. This is now our preferred method of honey harvesting at Black Mountain Honey. You can buy our honey on the link below:
One Season – Multiple Harvests: This strategy works better for smaller operations or back yard beekeepers and probably results in the best quality and diversity of honey. It involves closely monitoring the individual honey flows and extracting individual frames once they are capped. The frames can be extracted immediately and placed back into the hive. It’s a lot of work but results in a great variety of different honey that tracks the nectar flows through the season. More work. More mess. Not for me at the moment, but if I had two hives in the back garden, I would be tempted by this.
Conclusion
Hopefully this blog has helped you answer the question, how do you harvest honey?
Harvesting honey is a rewarding culmination of the beekeeping journey. It requires careful consideration of various factors to achieve optimal results. By understanding the hive's lifecycle, assessing hive strength, monitoring honey ripeness, considering environmental factors and determining a suitable strategy, beekeepers can make informed decisions about when to extract honey.
Remember that the art and science of beekeeping involve a continuous learning process. Regular hive inspections, a keen observation of nature's cues, and a commitment to sustainable hive management practices will contribute to the success of each honey harvest. Embrace the interconnectedness of bee and beekeeper, and savour the fruits of your labour – the liquid gold that is honey.
