2023 Honey Harvest

[Bakersdozen]

Except for doing some more cleaning I am done with my honey harvest.  I think it was my biggest harvest so far.  I need to put the wet supers back on the hives for the bees to clean up too.  This year I hired a young neighborhood man.  He was a good worker and fearless about pulling supers.  That kid was worth every dollar I paid him. 
I also had some challenges too.  A bushing on my extractor gave out after 7 hours the first day.  I put my name on the list for the local bee club's extractor rental.  The wait was 3 days for that extractor.  I had used that extractor several years ago but it's been "road hard and put up wet".  It is in really bad shape and needed constant adjustments to keep it running properly.  My floor drain backed up in my honey house.  Since it drains into the ground I think the recent rains contributed to that. 
Luck was still on my side regarding pulled honey supers and small hive beetle.  I was nervous about the supers I didn't get to on the first day of extraction.  I've only seen one small hive beetle this year and there were none in the pulled supers.

Anyone else have a harvest story to share?

[iddee]

TOTALS, please.
Number of hives, number of supers, total lbs. or volume.

[Jen]

RAh RAh SHISH BOOM BAH, Baker! I haven't done mine yet, but I have more frames of honey than I've had in the last few years. Last year was miserable for honey, so many fires, so much drought, the bees just couldn't find enough food for the winter. Us seasoned beeks new to keep feed in the hives every single week, no excuses! Our hives made it. But the less experienced beeks had a lot of colony loss.

This year is Wonderful!

[The15thMember]

I'm in the middle of our signature flow around here: sourwood!  I've got 5.5 gallons from the spring and early summer flows crushed and strained already.  I'm absolutely drowning in wax, I have got to get some melted into blocks. 

[Bakersdozen]

TOTALS, please.
Number of hives, number of supers, total lbs. or volume.

8 hives total.  Two of these were splits done this spring. 
18 supers, most with 10 frames drawn comb.  Don't ask me why I went with 10.  I should have and could have went with 9 per super.  Those 10 frame boxes were so heavy!  1 super with drawn comb was empty.  1 super without drawn comb came back untouched.
11-5 gallon buckets of honey.  A few are not filled to the top.  I don't have scales to weigh the buckets on. 
In the past I have ran with more hives and gotten less honey.  Based on that, I am saying that it was a good year.


This location is a farm where the owners invited me to put hives on.  The colony with 3 brood boxes was a powerhouse, as you can see.  They are Carnolians.  I did a split from that colony and put a 3rd brood box of drawn comb on to prevent swarming.  One of the supers from this location was empty.  This was the best year in this location.  The other colony was a package of bees I got in late April.  The tree hanging over those colonies is Choke Cherry. 
The remaining 6 colonies are in my backyard.  Every super frame I have assembled was out on colonies.

[iddee]

NICE. Congratulations

[Bakersdozen]

I miscounted.  It was 20 supers with 2 supers not touched.

[Zweefer]

Wonderful!  Congratulations

[The15thMember]

I finally got the last of my honey jarred up today.  The total came out to be 15 3/4 gal. from 9 hives.  I would have had a little more, but I lost one super to beetles.