Harvesting, storage and use of honey combs
Prepare winter-spring honey reserves should be in the form of full honey combs with sealed cells. Honey in the sealed cells is easier to store, since it is isolated from the surrounding air. In unsealed cells honey easily spoils. In a damp room, honey will absorb moisture, liquefy and can ferment. In an excessively dry room honey will be; give moisture, which will lead to its thickening and crystallization. Therefore, harvest and store only honeycomb with sealed honey.
Winter-spring stocks of honey should be in brown or dark honeycombs, in which not less than 4 generations of bees were bred. Light honeycombs are very cold for wintering and spring brood, and the uterus in the spring reluctantly lay eggs in them.
Prepare winter-spring honey reserves during the summer’s main honey harvest, when bees do not contribute to the fall. For this it is more convenient to use beehives with the same frames in the nest and extensions. In this case, when selecting honey frames from hives for pumping, the required number of full-weight, suitable for wintering combs are not pumped out, but are made up in empty cases or special boxes and stored indoors. In the hive, instead of the selected frames, frames are placed with empty honeycombs.
In 2-hull beehives, during a strong honey harvest, they take it out for pumping the honeycomb from the second hull. But with a small honey collector, when it is still going on, it is recommended to take not all honeycombs out of precaution, but only half, standing in the middle, with sealed (ripe) honey. The left 6 honeycombs are moved to the middle of the case, and 3 empty honeycombs are put on one side and the other. The bees will then supplement honey with the honeycombs left, and add the ripening nectar to the empty ones. In this case, with the unexpected termination of the honey collection in each such hive, there will remain in addition to the honeycombs
In addition, when selecting half the frames in the middle of the body, the honeycombs containing much unripe honey and spray will remain, and this will limit the egg production of the queens (they can lay eggs only in the lower shell) and increase the quality of the pumped honey, as bees can complete its processing and to seal.
Most apiaries contain bees in 12-frame hives with one or two shops that have frames of half the height. In such hives, it is necessary to specially organize the preparation of the main stocks in nest honeycombs by bees for winter and spring. For this purpose, it is advisable to install hulls or 2 store extensions in which the nest frames are placed on a part of the hives with the strongest families. Honeycomb honeycombs in these hives are stored and used as needed as a winter-spring stock of food for bees. If they are superfluous, then honey is pumped out after bees are prepared for wintering.
Some beekeepers, when setting up shops, take out the last honeycomb from the nests, leaving only 10 frames in the nest. In the store place, as usual, half-frames, but from the edges put 2 empty nesting honeycombs, dropping them into the left free spaces on the sides of the nest. In this case, along with shop honeycombs, honey bees and nest frames are filled with honey. From the half-frames honey is taken and pumped out, and honey-filled nesting honeycombs are selected and stored. Instead of the selected frames in the hives, new ones are put with good honeycombs. Thus, during the time of honey collection, it is possible to prepare for the family 4-6 well-filled honey comb nests for wintering.
If there are a lot of unsealed honey in the selected honeycombs, then the framework should be given for pre-printing into strong families. On their nests, they put shells or a corresponding number of stores in which the selected frames are placed.
In the hives, only the number of honeycombs left for winter is needed for successful wintering. The remaining honeycombs with sealed honey are stored until spring in the warehouse.
In multi-hull beehives during the harvest, not separate frames are prepared, but whole bodies (10 frames) with honey. Since spring, as families grow, the nest of bees in these hives is expanded by the setting of new hulls. The families are filled with 3-4 housings to the beginning of the honey collection.
The two lower bodies intended for the brood are separated from the upper shells by a dividing grid. As soon as the bees are filled with honey and the honeycombs are sealed in the upper case, they take it away and put it in storage for storage, and put a new one with empty honeycombs instead. In the future, selected all the honey that the family will collect, putting in return the selected housing with empty honeycombs. After the end of the honey collection, the family is left with one housing with brood (there may be some honey in it), a second prepared body with honey is placed on top, and the rest is taken away.
In the hills-beds for 16-24 frames when selecting honey, note and leave in the hive 5-7 honeycomb with honey, placing them from the edge of the nest opposite to the tap; honey from the other honeycombs pumped out. The prepared fodder reserves (18-20 kg) are used in autumn for wintering bees.
Storage of honey. Cells with sealed honey should be stored indoors without sudden temperature fluctuations. To do this, a dry winter hut, a cellar, an underground, cold storerooms, in which a relatively uniform temperature is held, will do. Frost does not damage honey in combs, but one should not allow frequent freezing alternating with warming in a thaw, since the seal of honey can crack while breaking the tightness of honey cells.
In specialized large farms store honeycomb with honey in the rooms allocated for this with shelves or in long boxes in an unheated building.
Well preserved honeycombs in the hive bodies, densely installed in the columns, carefully closed from below and from above. The slots between the housings caulk the glue and seal them with paper.
Use of honey combs.
In the spring honey honeycombs are substituted in hives with insufficient amount of food. Before dispensing honey combs it is useful to bring for 12-20 h in a warm room, so that the honey is warmed up. When staging honey honey combs in the first days after the exhibition or during the first inspection of bee colonies, the same number of empty honeycombs should be taken from the hives in order to not excessively expand it and not cool the nest. Honeycombs, entirely occupied with printed honey, should be placed on the side of the nest at the extreme or second place from the edge.
In the second half of spring it is useful to expand the nests with honeycombs containing in the upper part a small (0.2-0.5 kg) amount of honey (low-honeycomb honeycombs). Such honeycombs are taken from the hives after the termination of the honey collection with the reduction of the nests and when preparing the families for the wintering. Of these, honey is not deflated, but left to spring and used to expand the nests.
If honey or honeycomb honeycombs are substituted in the hives in the absence of honey, you can print a part of the honey cells, which will increase the egg-laying of the queens and brood rearing. Printing honeycombs, take the necessary measures to prevent theft of honey from bees.
Fodder hulls in multi-hull beehives.
At large apiaries, where bees are kept in multi-hive beehives, the supply of bees with fodder reserves is reduced to a low-labor operation. Before the beginning of the spring-summer season, the so-called honey houses are being prepared.
In each case, except for frames with empty honeycombs, put low-profile frames, which in total should contain 6-8 kg of honey. On the chalk chambers put the letter “K” (aft) and in the form of columns are stored until the spring. If there are no honeycombs or they are not enough, several honeycombs are filled with a thick sugar syrup.
In the early spring, from families, as a rule, an empty lower body is selected – all the honey and brood are usually concentrated in the upper housing. During the first month of spring, bees consume most of the food in the upper housing. When the second housing of the family is staged, 6-8 kg of feed is additionally received. Addition of feed is carried out with the expansion of nests without any additional labor costs on the part of the beekeeper.
The hull with honey for winter (20-25 kg), as already reported, is collected and stored until the fall, in order to have finished cases with benign honey.
In 12-frame hives with shops you can replenish honey reserves in storehouses by setting up such stores in the spring on the bottom of the hive under the nest housing. Bees, as you know, always add up honey reserves in the upper part of the honeycomb, above the brood, so they will restore the broken order, gradually open the honey in the store and transfer it to the top of the nest. In this case, it is possible to supply the families with food and increase brood rearing without the laborious process of feeding them.
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