Nearly Complete Supers Late Summer with Onset of Goldenrod Discussion

[blueblood]

Okay keeps, have you ever been in a position where you harvest late summer and pull a fifth of your supers and leave the balance for them to finish capping?  But, you are concerned about the looming goldenrod buds that are sure to open up in all their glory within the week?  I don't mind the smell but really despise the propensity for quicker crystallization. 

So, my hopes are:  A little golden-stinky doesn't taint the majority of summer honey.  And, that possibly I need to consider that they are not capping all of it as is the case this time of the year and pull it sooner than later.

Just a little wisdom and convo starter....

[apisbees]

If you have the confidence with the flow of golden rod in your area, that a good flow will come in. You could pull full capped frames of earlier honey from the sides of the brood chamber extract them and return them to the hive to be filled with golden rod and leave it for the bees to winter on.

[blueblood]

That's a great idea.  In my case however, I have 196 frames in honey supers still waiting to be pulled.  They are heavy with nectar but not fully capped.  I am wondering of if a week or two of goldenrod will taint my honey enough to cause it to granulate faster.  Goldenrod honey granulates really fast but I am hoping just a little mixed in to summer honey will not be too bad?

[apisbees]

When bees collect honey the keep the different honeys stored separately. So you have cells that have high percentage of glucose, The honey in these cells will start to crystallize quickly and then when extracted honey that has started to crystallize in the cells will mix in with the other honeys and seed it so the honey will crystallize faster.

[Perry]

Honey is honey, it's all good! Folks here prefer the goldenrod 3 to 1 over the summer (clover) honey. Most understand it granulates quicker. Just tell them they have to use it faster.

[neillsayers]

Personally, I love goldenrod honey. Perfect in coffee!

[riverbee]

dave, not sure this will help......but here is what i do.....

i harvest once a year. i will be taking my supers off this weekend, all of them, and with goldenrod. i have done checks to see what is capped and not. late summer, the bees can 'lose interest' in capping what they are doing..... best and short way i can describe it, or under other circumstances.  your bees are probably not going to cap anything left on. that's just what i think. they just get to a point and quit capping. they may fill frames, and cap a little.......but not the rest.

when i extract, i stack the boxes and pull frames from them, uncap, and sometimes the frames get mixed to balance the extractor.  if i have frames that are not capped or fully capped, i usually follow the old rule of how much is capped and do a shake test.......if anything flys out it goes back to feed the bees.  if i have some late frames that are 1/2 to 3/4 capped, shake test and nothing flys out, i will mix two of these frames in for every 9.........i have a 9 frame extractor, so two of these not fully capped frames go in with the fully capped ones.  i don't have a refractometer....., maybe someday i should invest in one............

some beeks say they are comfortable with adding frames that are not fully capped with a little flying out to mix in with fully capped frames. i guess it depends.

if you mix a frame or two of goldenrod into the rest of your honey as you are extracting it's not going to matter. goldenrod does crystalize quicker, but does have a great flavor, that's just my humble opinion. if you have full boxes of goldenrod, just mix them up with the rest of the frames as you are extracting.

also, like keith said, the bees when they collect honey, honeys really are stored 'separately'....i will have boxes of different blooms as everyone else does and as you do.  with certain blooms i want to harvest separately, i will mark the box of what i think they are collecting as well as  with comb honey; i usually know or have an idea of what the honey is from, from the bloom time of the plant they are visiting as the boxes are filled. i super bottom to top and i don't move around.

goldenrod does have a sparkly smell to it on the hives............ but once harvested, it's good honey!

[Bakersdozen]

blue, do you actually see bees working goldenrod?  Around here, we never see them actually working goldenrod.  I did a little reading on goldenrod.  There are about 100 different species of goldenrod in North America.  There are 12 different species of goldenrod in Kansas.  Not all are desirable to honey bees.  As luck would have it, honey bees don't seem to care for the goldenrod in our area.  That's a shame, because we have a lot of it.