As part of the series (See Part 1, 2, 3, 4) on the Myerstown Method of Beekeeping, here is a quick overview of how I/we take care of Population Management in relation to beekeeping.

The Harvest

In the first four articles, I outlined the methods I am using or plan to use for our self sustainable farm. Though this farm is not fully self sustainable yet, we hope to continue to work towards greater sustainability and to make this micro farm the most productive farm that it can be while I am still working a regular job. 

In this article, I want to outline my plans for harvest of the honey. The work involved in keeping the bees alive and healthy throughout the spring, summer and fall is all but over, now it’s time to prepare for the Harvest of that Golden Nectar.

The first year I was able to extract was last year, of which I had one super of 6 ¼ frames to extract. So it was not that big of an issue to extract in my little two frame extractor. I got the extractor for a really good buy back when I first started keeping bees, long before I would need it.  With ten frames of honey it took me 5 runs to do one Super of honey.

This year, thanks to a friend of mine giving me the heads up, I found a great buy on a 30 frame extractor.  This will allow me to extract three Supers per run rather than the 5 runs per Super!

Towards the end of summer I finished up my Honey house and as fast as I could afford it, I set out to establish the extraction facility.

The system I setup is designed to be “pumpless” so I have as little electrical usage as possible. The honey house currently is being powered by three extension cords, one for light, one for extractor, and one for uncapping plane. I’ll explain these in a minute. So the design is part of the larger design of the farm. My hope is to make the honey house completely “Off Grid” which most would assume easy. Yes, with the money flowing in, that would be easy, however, I do not have that luxury so I set the system up to use as little power as possible. The layout is simple, the uncapping tub is at the right height to uncap from the floor level, then that tub is piped in a food grade tubing to the holding tank which is at a slope but the holding tank is a sufficient height to get a bucket with a filter underneath the honey gate. The extractor is above the holding tank so that the honey runs down into the tank to be filtered into buckets.

When the bees put the honey into the comb, they leave the honey open until the right water to honey ratio is met. If the water content is below 18% the bees will cap the honey comb with a layer of wax. This wax is to protect the honey until the bees need it. The bees just know when it is the right time to cap the honey.  So as a beekeeper extracting your honey you must cut off that capping. The industry has come up with very simple machines that automate all of this for you. These machines are very expensive. So I searched around for the “Low tech” way to do a larger number of hives. Most of the small hobby beekeepers uncap using an uncapping knife. This knife is long and is drug sideways across the top of the comb, cutting the cappings. Well after time, your hand becomes very sore from the sideways motion, even if the knife was heated. So I found an alternative.  It is an Uncapping Plane. This rather than being drug sideways is pulled downward in a natural motion for the hand. It is estimated a person can do 10 to 100 hives using this tool.

This uncapping plane is heated and there is some debate over the effect to the label “Natural” when honey is uncapped. It is my opinion that the honey is not heated sufficiently to constitute it being “pasteurized” and thus not raw or “Natural”. So I will use the heated element on the uncapping plane. The wax is extremely hard to uncap if heat is not applied, and the majority of beekeepers use heat to uncap the wax.

Once the wax is uncapped, the frame is placed into the honey extractor. The extractor I have is an older model created before the Stainless steel regulation was enacted thus the reason for being able to get the extractor cheaper. But due to the large number of extractors existing, the workaround for these was to coat the inside of the extractor and all the inside parts with a food grade epoxy paint that can be purchased at beekeeping supplies and other food related suppliers. I purchased this epoxy resin and coated all parts of the extractor as required.

The extractor of this size must be loaded symmetrically. This means that if you put a frame in on the south side, you must balance the spindle by placing the next frame on the north side and so on. Once all the frames that can be loaded are loaded, the extractor is closed up and turned on. There are usually two directions on the extractors. It is a good idea to run the extractor forward and backwards so that every last bit of honey is extricated from the comb. Once the run is finished, place empty comb back in frames and set outside to allow the bees to rob out the remaining honey. They will clean the comb well. Just make sure there is no chance for rain, you don’t want to get your comb wet then store it and have mold for you in the spring.

Then the honey is filtered. I am using a bucket filter system that works well for a smaller setup. Some day I will get a better filtration system setup. I do not filter too much as I want to retain some of the pollen for allergy sufferers.

Storage is important. If you don’t store your comb well, it will be destroyed by wax moths. Many beekeepers place the empty frames back on the hives so that the bees will keep the moths off. You can store the Supers on a pallet off the ground and place a solid board with no gaps around stack your boxes then place a board at the top and to keep moths out. Be sure there are no cracks between the boxes where the moth can get in.  

I have a holding tank that all the freshly extracted honey goes into. This will contain wax and bee parts as well. I have a 5 gallon buck filter system. This allows me to place the filter on top of the bucket and open the holding tank gate and filter just the right amount of honey. Then my bucket has a gate that allows me to fill the bottles or jars for using or selling.

I hope you enjoyed this series on beekeeping and I also hope you learned a lot as well. So until next time, God bless you and yours.