Harvested Soem Honey this weekend

[bwdenen]

Took the supers off 6 of my hives and extracted the honey this weekend. We ended up with a tad less than 240 pounds!  Not bad considering 3 of them were new package starts this spring, 2 were swarms I caught in April and only one was an established hive.  The girls did real good.  But I must say they were none too happy with me for stealing their stuff.  I pulled 20+ stingers from my gloves and suit.  Only 5 got through to me.  I no sooner had my fingers on the frames and my hands were COVERED with stinging mad (ahem), ladies.  I had to break out the old rusty hardly used frame grip.  And then they tried to sting that!  I used smoke and even tried misting them with sugar water with HBH, nothing would calm them down.  One hive was pretty good, had a queen from the COBA Queen Project here in central Ohio.  The rest, not so much.

I would like to extend a challenge to all you “au natural’ folks out there who don’t wear gloves, or veils or anything; those who like to get “closer to the bees” to come and deal with those angry girls!!  They’ll give you a close encounter you’ll never forget. 

These are the same hives I worked all summer with only a veil and thin gloves, and wondered if I needed all that a couple of times.  Funny how things change with the seasons.  But anyway, it was a good day.