How bees make honey Pumping honey Honey harvesting

Collecting and pumping out bee honey is quite an important and difficult job. In this case, it is important to accurately and correctly choose the time for pumping bee honey. In the case of bribes, it begins to slowly decrease, it is best to select honey at the end of the honey harvest, at a time when the control hive for 2-3 days will show a decrease in the weight of the nectar brought. By this time, the honey will have ripened and the probability of theft will be very low. This can be done when honey harvest from rapeseed, clover, raspberries and other honey plants.

If the honey harvest ends abruptly, then the selection of honey should be carried out 2-3 days before the expected end of the bribe. Such a situation can happen when, for example, meadows have been mowed or when lindens of the same species bloom.

When using honeydew, which is not easy to determine the period of disappearance, and with a rich honey collection, bee honey can be selected 4 days after the cessation of nectar intake, otherwise, the honey may turn out to be immature. The high water content in honey adversely affects its quality, it quickly begins to ferment. Mature honey is considered to be one that has been fully or partially sealed by bees. In the extension, honey should be sealed on 1/2 honeycomb, and in the nest - 2/3-3/4 of the area.

The larger the honey harvest and the rainier the weather at this time, the more attention should be paid to the maturity of bee honey. With a small honey harvest and dry weather, all the honey in the hive is usually mature, even though some of the honeycombs may not be sealed. A trickle of mature honey, which will flow out of the honey extractor, should lie down in a well-defined mound.
In order for honey not to deteriorate during harvesting and in order not to weaken the bee colony, bee honey cannot be selected from the brood frames. An excess of honey in the nest is formed only if the nest was incorrectly formed before the start of the honey harvest. It is necessary to temporarily place the honeycombs sown by the queen behind a separate lattice and scroll them on the honey extractor only after the bees come out of them.

In the honeycombs in which the brood appeared, after each selection of honey, a small amount of it should remain. It will be a necessary help in prolonged bad weather and the starvation associated with it. In addition, it must be remembered that hungry bees are most often inclined to engage in theft, often get sick, stop working, and sometimes can even leave the hive or sleep.

When selecting honey, it is necessary to have special tools that will help scare away bees. When using them, it will not be necessary to sweep the bees off the honeycombs. The most common remedy is benzenaldehyde. Its vapors are harmless to brood and bees, and the smell of this substance is not absorbed into honey or honeycombs. The selection of honey must begin with the strongest and healthiest families. In such families, a lot of honey is produced, so they are more crowded and more susceptible to the swarm mood. The selection of honey from such families provides an increase in free space in the hives, which means that the likelihood of swarming is reduced. It is best to collect honey after lunch. Containers with selected honey must be immediately transferred to the workshop and start pumping, since if the honey cools down, it will be more difficult to choose it from the cells, which means that there will be more honey in the honeycomb.