This picture is of the honey comb being uncapped.
Today I put the escape boards on my bee hives. This contraption is like a one-way door for bees. Once placed on the hives (between the surplus honey and the bottom chambers where the baby bees are raised) the bees will leave the hive within 2-3 days. Then, the honey can be harvested without much of a fight, and with very few bees to contend with. The trouble is that the bee escape is not really a one way door....if left on for more than 3-4 days, the bees will learn how to go back in, and the honey supers will be full of bees again.
Thursday morning, while it is still mostly dark, and cold, I will pull the surplus honey off of the hives. I will store the supers in my house, and after dark on Thursday I will extract the honey once the bees are in their hive for the night, and will not be out and about to try and take their honey back.
All in all, it has been a very very impressive first year of bee keeping. I am expecting between 30 and 50 lbs of honey total. Many people told me to expect very little honey, if any, my first year, so to have a harvest at all is very rewarding. There are still many new aspects of bee keeping between now and spring (when I start my new 1st year hives), but to make it to the honey harvest, given the pitfalls that I experienced this year, is a rewarding feeling. I didn't think I would feel this good about the honey harvest. Its wonderful.
I will post again after the honey harvest, with pictures of the process, and the removal of the surplus honey. I will take a lot of photos and post them in the next blog.
Side note: I have had so many people ask me what sort of stuff is needed to be a beekeeper that I thought it might be helpful to post this link: http://www.sfbee.org/pdfs/equipment.pdf
