Topic: Honey Production/Supering and taking off honey crop

Honey Production

Add Supers before the nectar flow begins

For the commercial honey producer, any day lost adding supers to hives bringing in a nectar crop from the field is money down the drain.

Add Supers before the nectar flow begins  Add Supers before the nectar flow begins

I guess I have said this enough!  You can only extract what the bees store away in your honey supers and by supering you provide the room necessary for the bees to store away the honey they gather as nectar and provide room to prevent swarming.

Having enough supers on hand is a challenge for many beekeepers.  Commercial beekeepers handle this in many different ways.  One can have a supply of four or five supers for each hive in inventory or have only two or three on hand for each hive.

•  One can put them on all at once .  Just remember, that if the bees do not fill the boxes, you will have a considerable amount of labor involved in collecting empty or partly filled boxes when the crop is harvested.
• One can put on several to begin with and then remove honey supers as they are filled, replacing them with empty supers, extracting the crop and returning supers as needed.
• One must always have extra supers on hand ready to use if needed.
• If bees are moved from crop to crop, honey supers are generally removed before any move is made and thus the beekeeper must either be extracting the crop as it is removed before the move -- moving  the hive as a complete unit with boxes  for the brood chamber and maybe one honey super; or store the honey crop until time can be found to extract it.  In either case, extra supers are needed to place on  hives when they reach the new location.

How do you know if there is a nectar/honey flow beginning?

• Depending on the area where you keep bees, the season, weather factors, etc. honey bees will begin to gather nectar/pollen just as soon as temperatures are about 60 degrees and some plants/trees are producing nectar/pollen.  Much of this early flow comes from trees such as Maple, Willow, etc.  The bees use this much needed nectar and pollen to feed young larvae and thus build hive populations.   As long as nectar and pollen can be found, the bees will be humming with activity.  The beekeeper will see bees going to and from the hive in considerable numbers.  Arriving bees will be loaded with pollen and nectar.  Little time is lost depositing this load and returning to the field.
• The beekeeper upon removing frames from such a hive will notice a considerable amount of new white wax on various parts of the frame and cells.  If the frame is tipped slightly and shook, nectar will drop from cells freely somewhat like rain.  This indicates that a good honey/nectar flow is in progress.
• When there is no nectar flow, you will notice less activity at the hive entrance and more of a tendency for the bees to rob weak hives.  If you see great activity at a hive during this period -- bees entering and leaving a hive -- it is most likely being robbed.  Notice that the bees entering the hive do not carry in pollen on their legs and instead of flying directly to the hive entrance, the entering bees will circle and often land on the front of the hive and climb down to the entrance before entering.
• Nectar flows occur whenever there is a plentiful nectar supply for the bees to gather and it will continue as long as the nectar is available.

The job of the beekeeper is to anticipate a honey flow before it begins.

• Know the area and the plants growing in that area which produce nectar/pollen for bees.
• Know the length of the nectar season -- the amount of time the plants remain in bloom.
• Know when the plants generally bloom -- this may vary according to seasonal weather changes.

The time to super

• It is time to add supers to your bee hives after you have prepared them for spring build up -- the hives have reached sufficient strength to fill the brood chamber with some honey stores and lots of brood.
• It is time to add supers when the above conditions have been achieved and a honey flow is just about to begin.
• It is time to add supers if the bees are beginning to store honey in the brood chamber at the expense of leaving cells for the queen to lay eggs.  Usually the bees will fill the outside frames of the brood chamber and then start building swarm queen cells.  More is needed in this situation than just adding supers.  I would recommend the following:       

• It is prudent to add supers if you have a gut feeling that they are needed.  This is usually developed from experience.
• It is important to add supers to any hives moved into a honey producing area as quickly as possible.

When should the honey crop be removed?

Honey contains moisture.  Too much moisture in the honey will cause it to ferment.

Acceptable honey has no more than 18.6% moisture content.  Under normal conditions capped honey will be less than this.  Thus, you should not remove frames of honey from the bees until the cells of the frame have mostly been capped.  However, some beekeepers who move bees from location to location remove all honey supers which contain large amounts of uncapped honey.  This honey must be dried and there are commercial methods to do this. 

Honey with a low moisture content can be mixed with a honey of a higher moisture content to give a good average moisture content which is done on a large scale when honey producers are mixing honeys from various nectar sources.  This can be done in the extracting process when all honey supers are extracted without regard to where or what the honey source is and all honey from the extracting process is pumped into the same holding tanks before being put into drums.  The honey processor will take samples from drum lots and determine color, moisture, and the possibility of contamination before writing a check for the honey.  It would not be surprising for a honey processor to reject any honey lot with a high moisture content or a honey that has been contaminated with chemicals above government standards.

Fixed base honey producers -- those who do not move bees or those who move bees within their own region or state and extract at one location, may at times wait until late fall to remove the honey crop.  Honey crops are usually removed by September but some beekeepers delay until after the first frost.  In this case, the beekeeper needs to warm the honey before extracting  and delays the application of any treatment for mites.  It is an individual decision and it must be made by the beekeeper according to his labor and management needs.

Selling the crop

Honey is a commodity traded and bought just like wheat and corn.   The price is determined on a daily basis and what a producer gets for his/her crop will depend on what the honey packers/processors are paying for honey at the time.   For example, the price for honey in October 2002 in bulk sold at $1.30 to $1.75 depending on color and source.  This would have been for honey produced in 2002.   The price for honey in October 2003 in bulk sold at $1.25 to $1.60 again depending on color and source.

The decision to hold or sell is up to the beekeeper.  A beekeeper in heavy debt usually has no choice to wait for a higher price -- the crop must be sold at the end of the season.