{"id":643,"date":"2015-01-01T21:11:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-02T02:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naplesbees.com\/staging\/?page_id=643"},"modified":"2026-08-05T12:32:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:32:29","slug":"hive-inspections-and-harvests","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/naplesbees.com\/staging\/hive-inspections-and-harvests\/","title":{"rendered":"Hive Inspections and Harvests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the years, the NaplesBees apiary has grown.\u00a0 Our corresponding annual honey harvests have grown from just a few pounds to hundreds of pounds. Below are highlights of the many changes and various hive activities over the years.<\/span>
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<\/a>8\/5\/2026 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>The vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed again on all the hives in the apiary.\u00a0 The hive pans all had good use patterns and were cleaned up and new vegetable oil added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>6\/14\/2026 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>Seven 5 gallon buckets of honey were able to be harvested (384 pounds).\u00a0 The honey was bottled mostly in to one pound bottles and a few special order bottles supplied by customers.\u00a0 Harvesting and extraction was done over a period of several days after setting up the air conditioned clean room area.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>4\/2\/2026 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>The vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed again on all the hives in the apiary.\u00a0 A three or four month refreshing cycle of the oil seems to work out the best because if left too much longer then the pans can get dry from all the hive debris the bees drop through the screening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>1\/18\/2026 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>The vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed again on all the hives in the apiary.\u00a0 A three or four month refreshing cycle of the oil seems to work out the best because if left too much longer then the pans can get dry from all the hive debris the bees drop through the screening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>12\/9\/2025, 12\/14\/2025, 12\/19\/2025, 12\/26\/2025 – Oxalic Acid Vapor Treatments
\n<\/span><\/strong>The annual multiple oxalic acid vapor treatments were started on all hives. Oxalic acid is an all natural organic product that is present in many foods we eat and does not harm the bees but kills the varroa mites, a very destructive pest for honeybee hives.\u00a0 Spacing the treatments 5\/6\/7 days apart helps ensure good varroa mite exposure and reduces the varroa mites that are present in the hive.\u00a0 Varroa mites can cause a variety of hive health problems if present in significant numbers.\u00a0 We use the “Gas-Vap<\/span><\/a>” device that lets us treat the 20+ hives in about an hour.\u00a0
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<\/a>10\/17\/2025 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>The vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on all the hives in the apiary.\u00a0\u00a0 All the pans looked OK with a few pans a little dry due to the time since the last oil change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>9\/19\/2025 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>Another honey harvest from the apiary hives gave up seven and half 5 gallon buckets of rich honey. That translated to 385 pounds of honey upon bottling in to one pound bottles.\u00a0 Extraction spinning was done in an air conditioned clean room setup using the 4 frame motorized electric spinner.\u00a0 After extracting, the frames were put back in the supers and the supers moved outside away from the apiary so that the bees would clean up any residual honey off of the combs.\u00a0 After a few days, the supers are brought inside and cleaned by scraping all the wax and excess propolis and prepared for storage by first cycling through a freezer overnight and then placed in heavy duty bulk bags to keep things bug free.\u00a0 Collected wax was melted down, resulting in 18 pounds, which was stored for future candle making, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>6\/1\/2025 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>A honey harvest of 475 pounds was done. All to be put in to one pound bottles.\u00a0 As usual the honey was a medium amber shade and was very sweet.\u00a0 Moisture content was in the 17.5% to 18.5% range which is ideal.\u00a0 The harvest process involved harvesting only the capped super frames, then moving the remaining unfinished frames to the center of the super box and populating the remaining space in the super box with new frames and, finally, closing the hive up and moving to the next hive in the apiary to repeat the process.\u00a0 This makes for an optimum result by helping the bees to finish partial frames and provide another harvest possibility.\u00a0 A total of 17.2 pounds of wax was harvested from the honey extracted frames.\u00a0 The wax scrapings are run through a solar melter for the first melt and then will eventually be melted again through a fine mesh to make the wax ready for candle, etc use.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>5\/15\/2025 Honey Supers Inspected
\n<\/span><\/strong>A methodical inspection of all the 31 supers on the hives was done to see what the honey status was.\u00a0 93 of the super frames held fully capped honey and another 53 were in various stages of completing the capping process with most partially capped and the remaining uncapped honey cells nearly full.\u00a0 It certainly looked like there had been the beginning of a nectar flow and that means a honey harvest of 300-400 pounds is around the corner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>5\/10\/2025 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>The vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on all the 23 hives in the apiary.\u00a0\u00a0 All the pans looked pretty good with a few pans showing a few hive beetles.\u00a0 But one newer hive had some dead bees in the pan oil, so to be safe, the bottom board was changed out and any repair to the bottom board needed to make it bee proof will be made.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>3\/5\/2025 Hive cleaning
\n<\/span><\/strong>The bees are hygienic, ie, they have zero tolerance of most foreign matter in their hive. Rubber bands that were used to hold comb in place on the frames when doing a removal are gradually cut and dragged out of the hive to fall on the ground. This is a good indication of a strong and healthy hive.
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<\/a>2\/1\/2025 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>The vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on all the current hives in the apiary.
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<\/a>1\/4\/2025, 1\/10\/2025, 1\/16\/2025, 1\/22\/2025 – Oxalic Acid Vapor Treatments
\n<\/span><\/strong>The seasons first of multiple oxalic acid vapor treatments were started on all hives. Oxalic acid is an all natural product that is present in many foods we eat and does not harm the bees.\u00a0 Spacing the treatments 5-6-7 days apart ensures good varroa mite exposure and helps to reduce the varroa mites that are present in the hive.\u00a0 Varroa mites can cause a variety of hive health problems if present in significant numbers.\u00a0 We use the “Gas-Vap<\/span><\/a>” device that lets us treat the 20+ hives in about an hour.\u00a0
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<\/a>1\/3\/2025 Wax from August 24 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>The wax was collected from the frames of the 8\/1\/2024 honey harvest described below.\u00a0 The winter months, when the apiary work is slow, is a good time to melt all the collected comb and cappings from the previous honey harvest.\u00a0 All the raw wax is stored in buckets until it can be melted down and refined in to blocks of beeswax, ready for use in making candles, etc.
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<\/a>9\/19\/2024 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>The vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on all the current hives in the apiary.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>8\/1\/2024 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>A honey harvest of 509.5 pounds was done. All put in to one pound bottles. The honey was a medium amber shade and was very sweet.\u00a0 Moisture content was in the 17.5% to 18.5% range which is ideal. The beautiful amber color is a result of the bees bringing in pollen and honey from various flora.\u00a0 This is the natural and pure honey that the grocery store honeys can’t come close to !!\u00a0
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<\/a>5\/18\/2024 Combining hives
\n<\/span><\/strong>Using the newspaper technique, a queenless hive is combined with a small queen right hive. The queenright hive has a sheet of newspaper placed on top and then the queenless hive is placed on top of the paper.\u00a0 Eventually the bees chew holes through the paper, but by then the queenless hive’s bees should be accepting the queenright hive’s queen pheromones.\u00a0 The paper is then removed and frames from the top box are combined in to the bottom box.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>5\/15\/2024 New foam cover boards made
\n<\/span><\/strong>All the hives in the apiary have always had a top board foam cover in order to mitigate the heat in to the hive from the direct sun.\u00a0 Over the years the boards get weathered.\u00a0 New foam boards were made and coated with a rubber roofing compound (Lanco White-Seal) in order to help them hold up to the elements.
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<\/a>4\/18\/2024 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>This morning the vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on all the current hives in the apiary. Many of the pans were dry and probably a little overdue for refreshing.\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>1\/18\/2024, 1\/23\/2024, 1\/28\/2024, 2\/2\/2024 – Oxalic Acid Vapor Treatments
\n<\/span><\/strong>The seasons first of multiple oxalic acid vapor treatments were started on all hives. Oxalic acid is an all natural product that is present in many foods we eat and does not harm the bees.\u00a0 Spacing the treatments 5-6-7 days apart ensures good varroa mite exposure and helps to reduce the varroa mites that are present in the hive.\u00a0 Varroa mites can cause a variety of hive health problems if present in significant numbers.\u00a0 We use the “Gas-Vap<\/span><\/a>” device that lets us treat the 20+ hives in about an hour.\u00a0
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<\/a>12\/28\/2023 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Today was a nice cool afternoon.\u00a0 The vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on all the current 22 hives in the apiary. Many of the pans were dry.\u00a0 One hive that had undergone a robbing a few days ago, showed signs of a lot of wax droppings caused by the robbing bees.\u00a0\u00a0 The hive might be lost.
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<\/a>12\/6\/2023 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>A relatively small honey harvest of 197 pounds was done. The honey was a light amber shades and had that distinctive autumn flavor and very sweet.\u00a0 The different amber shades shown on the comb are a result of the bees bringing in pollen and honey from various flora.\u00a0 This is the natural and pure honey that the grocery store honeys can’t come close to!!\u00a0 When the honey is extracted it will be a mix of all this flora and honey flavors…… nature is amazing and honey simply doesn’t get any better than this !!
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Interesting variety of honey color showing from the different flora nectar the bees collected. Click on picture for a larger view.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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<\/a>12\/9\/2023 Honey Bottling
\n<\/span><\/strong>A novel Christmas party bottling idea……. Honey from a recent NaplesBees harvest was used to make Christmas tree ornaments containing a few ounces of the honey.\u00a0 Party guests could then take one and enjoy a sampling of local Naples raw honey.
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Christmas tree honey bottle ornaments. Click on picture for a larger view.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a>11\/21\/2023 Honey Bottling
\n<\/span><\/strong>A recent purchaser of a 55 pound bucket of the last NaplesBees harvested honey sent us this picture of their beautiful Christmas season bottling technique. <\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Click on picture for a larger view.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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<\/a>10\/23\/2023 Wax Harvesting and Refining
\n<\/span><\/strong>An accumulation of wax from the many honey harvests was given a second melting and screening in order to better purify it for candle making.\u00a0 The net result was 97 pounds of beautiful beeswax ready for use.
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Click on picture for a larger view.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a>8\/4\/2023 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>Our largest honey harvest ever has been completed.\u00a0\u00a0 The hives have been amazing this year and the recent nectar flow produced a record honey harvest of about 852 pounds. This is all from an apiary that consists of 23 hives, of which about 20 were mature enough to produce harvestable honey.\u00a0 There were 264 super size frames with honey which calculated out to about 3.2 pounds of honey per frame after being spun out.\u00a0\u00a0 After extraction the frame’s wax comb was scraped off and run through a solar wax melter which resulted in about 29.6 pounds of beautiful beeswax ready to be used for candle making.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\nWatch a short Video
\nof this honey harvesting…..
\n3 days in 3 minutes…….
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<\/a>7\/21\/2023 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>On a Friday 95 degree afternoon, the vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on all the current 22 hives in the apiary. I was a little late on changing the oil and many of the pans were pretty dry, but all looked good.
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<\/a>4\/27\/2023 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>A honey harvest of about 192 pounds was done.\u00a0 All the frames (approx 66) were removed over a few days and then extraction using the spinner was done.\u00a0 As the frames were removed, fresh frames were used to repopulate the supers and make things ready for the next flow.
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<\/a>1\/31\/2023 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>On a Tuesday 83 degree afternoon, the vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on all the current 22 hives in the apiary. All the oil pans looked pretty good with normal trash for healthy hives. Most hive were bringing back white and orange pollen. Cleaning the vegetable oil pans for good pest trapping helps the bees with their natural hive hygienic behavior.
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<\/a>12\/22\/2022, 12\/29\/2022, 1\/4\/2023, 1\/10\/2023 – Oxalic Acid Vapor Treatments
\n<\/span><\/strong>The first of multiple oxalic acid vapor treatments were done on all hives. Oxalic acid is an all natural product that is present in many foods we eat and does not harm the bees.\u00a0 Spacing the treatments 5-6-7 days apart ensures good varroa mite exposure and helps to reduce the varroa mites that are present in the hive.\u00a0 Varroa mites can cause a variety of hive health problems if present in significant numbers.\u00a0 We use the “Gas-Vap<\/span><\/a>” device that lets us treat the 20+ hives in about an hour.\u00a0 Short video of this treatment is here<\/a><\/span>.
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<\/a>11\/9\/2022 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on the current 23 hives in the apiary. Cleaning the vegetable oil pans for good pest trapping helps the bees with their natural hive hygienic behavior.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>7\/28\/2022 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on the current 23 hives in the apiary. Cleaning the vegetable oil pans for good pest trapping helps the bees with their natural hive hygienic behavior.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>6\/28\/2022 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>A good size honey harvest of about 420 pounds was done.\u00a0 Techniques refined from the last honey harvest that used the spinner extractor<\/a><\/span> made things go a little more smoothly this time.\u00a0 Even so, it is a hot and physically demanding few days of work.
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<\/a>3\/26\/2022 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on the current 23 hives in the apiary. Cleaning the vegetable oil pans for good pest trapping helps the bees with their natural hive hygienic behavior.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>12\/30\/2021 – 1\/20\/2022 Oxalic Acid Vapor Treatments
\n<\/span><\/strong>5 treatments of an oxalic acid vapor application were done on all hives. Oxalic acid is an all natural product that is present in many foods we eat and does not harm the bees.\u00a0 Spacing the treatments 5-6 days apart ensures good varroa mite exposure and helps to reduce the varroa mites that are present in the hive.\u00a0 Varroa mites can cause a variety of hive health problems if present in significant numbers.\u00a0 We use the “Gas-Vap<\/span><\/a>” device that lets us treat the 20+ hives in about an hour.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>12\/22\/2021 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on the current 23 hives in the apiary. The recent large honey harvest resulted in the honey empty spun comb frames being put back in the hives.\u00a0 The bees then make the comb ready for reuse which results in wax flecks dropping through the bottom screening into the oil pans, soaking up the oil.\u00a0 Cleaning the vegetable oil pans for good pest trapping helps the bees with their natural hive hygienic behavior.
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<\/a>11\/4\/2021 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>The largest honey harvest we have ever had was done this week.\u00a0 490 pounds of medium amber honey was collected and extracted in to nine 5 gallon buckets for bottling in to the special one pound bottles we use.\u00a0 The weather cooperated beautifully with a few cooler and rain free days.\u00a0 A 4 frame electric motor spinner was used for extraction which significantly sped up the honey harvesting process.\u00a0 Below are a few pictures of the beautiful frames of capped honey. Click on the pictures and get a good view of the thousands of tightly packed beeswax cells that contain a tiny amount of that perfect honey. Around the frames of honey you can see what might look like “dirt” but is instead the antiseptic “propolis” which is what the bees produce to seal up any cracks or voids in the hive.\u00a0 The bees are very hygienic and a healthy hive does NOT tolerate any pests or foreign matter.\u00a0 The interior of the hive is kept pristine and tidy by thousands of bees in constant action.\u00a0 Propolis is often harvested by beekeepers for various health related uses.
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<\/a>8\/3\/2021 Another oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Vegetable oil in the bottom board pans was changed on the current 23 hives in the apiary.\u00a0 With the high bee numbers this time of year, the hives are producing a lot of trash droppings through the screening into the oil pans and most of the pans were past due for the cleaning and fresh oil.\u00a0
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<\/a>6\/11\/2021 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>A harvest resulting in about 216 pounds of sweet medium dark amber color honey was bottled in to our special order one pound bottles. The honey came in at a refractometer reading of 17%, which is perfect.\u00a0 The harvest was a little slow coming this year, probably due to the very dry weather for the previous months. The hexagon pattern on the sides and bottom of the bottle gives it texture and character, and the valve type top allows drip free honey dispensing while always maintaining an air tight seal.
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<\/a>4\/14\/2021 Another oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>A change of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all 21 hives. Also the need for more supers on the hives were checked and a few were added.\u00a0 Some of the hives are getting close to the 80% build mark on the top super, but I held off adding another and will check again in a couple weeks.
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<\/a>2\/9\/2021 Another oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Another change of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all hives. The oil helps trap hive related pests, but eventually the oil is soaked up by hive debris and the pan needs cleaning and fresh oil.
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<\/a>1\/16, 1\/22. 1\/29\/2021 Varroa mite treatments
\n<\/span><\/strong>A 3 week oxalic acid vaporization varroa mite treatment of the brood boxes on all hives was started and continued weekly for 3 weeks. All supers were removed during the treatments.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>11\/22\/2020 Another oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Another change of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all hives. The oil helps trap hive related pests, but eventually the oil is soaked up by hive debris and the pan needs cleaning and fresh oil.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>11\/13\/2020 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>A harvest resulting in about 178 pounds of sweet medium amber color honey was bottled in to our special order one pound bottles.\u00a0 The hexagon pattern on the sides and bottom of the bottle gives it texture and character, and the valve type top allows drip free honey dispensing while always maintaining an air tight seal.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>9\/10\/2020 Another oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Another change of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all hives. It was needed as the bees had been busy and dropped lots of comb flakes, etc, and had pretty much soaked up all the oil. That minimizes the pest trapping effectiveness of the oil pan.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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<\/a>7\/2\/2020 Honey harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>First honey harvest of the year gave 170 pounds of honey and seven pounds of wax.\u00a0 The bees do an amazing job of producing amazing looking frames of delicious capped honey. The processed frames were placed away from the hive for the bees to remove any of the residual honey……. nothing goes to waste!!
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Typical frames from the honey supers showing that classic capped honey that is so delicious.
\n		Three 5 gallon buckets of medium amber harvested honey each weighing 60 pounds
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The processed frames and supers are placed near the apiary for the bees to clean up.
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\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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<\/a>6\/4\/2020 Another oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Another change of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all hives.\u00a0 It was needed as the bees had been busy and dropped lots of comb flakes, etc, and had pretty much soaked up all the oil.\u00a0 That minimizes the pest trapping effectiveness of the oil pan.
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<\/a>3\/6\/2020 Another oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>A change of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all hives. Besides the pest trapping reason, the vegetable oil pan gives a good indication of the health\/activity of the colony in the last few months.
\nWhat you see in the picture is an examples of what normal and healthy hive activity should probably show in the oil pan. Because of winter month delay, the pans show what accumulates as of 4 months which is a longer time span because of the slow activity winter months. In the summer, the shown amount of debris can happen in less than 2 months and I usually end up changing the oil at least that often.
\nThe yellow spots are pollen and the striped pattern follows the most active frames the bees are on. I didn’t see any significant hive beetles or moth larva, which is very good. If you saw a lot of dead hive beetles or wax moth larva then there could be some problems with the bees being overwhelmed by the pests.
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<\/a>2\/19\/2020 Wax Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>I finally got around to rendering the wax left over from a few of the most recent honey harvests. \u00a0 When we do a honey harvest, the honey comb left over from the pressings is laid out on large trays and the bees quickly clean it up of any residual honey.\u00a0 During that process they will powder the wax as they search for every little bit of honey.\u00a0 The wax is then ready for melting and straining in to one pound blocks.
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<\/a>11\/7\/2019 Another Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>An inspection a week earlier revealed a lot of capped honey was available in about 8 of the apiary 20 hives. The honey was a medium light amber color and very sweet. This time of year, the flora available generally yields a lighter amber color compared to the darker amber summer honey.\u00a0 All together, 226.75 pounds of honey was harvested and bottled in one pound bottles within a few hours to preserve all that is good in local raw honey!
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<\/a>10\/21\/2019 Another oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Another changing of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all hives. Besides the pest trapping reason, the vegetable oil pan gives a good indication of the health\/activity of the colony in the last few months.\u00a0 Over the years I have honed in on what the pan should look like after a few months with a normal pan showing a nice even layer of flakes of wax, pollen, and other hive debris.\u00a0 Today’s inspection revealed no problems and strong hive activities.
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<\/a>8\/26\/2019 Cane Toads
\n<\/span><\/strong>Caught these two huge cane toads sitting in the apiary feeding on the occasional bee.\u00a0 This is the first time I had seen these around here although they are a common invasive toad in Southwest Florida.\u00a0 The picture below shows them in a 5 gallon bucket after being euthanized by freezing.
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<\/a>8\/6\/2019 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>Another changing of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all hives. The pan collects all the debris, mites, hive beetles, etc that falls through the screened bottom board and get trapped in the oil.
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<\/a>7\/30\/2019 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>The second honey harvest of the year was done today. The apiary provided a honey harvest of 178.75 pounds. We bottled only one pound squeeze bottles.\u00a0 The honey is medium dark amber and very sweet.\u00a0 A significant amount of uncapped honey was seen and left in the hives since we only remove fully processed (capped) frames of honey which results in the very best honey for our bottling.\u00a0 If the bees can finish processing the uncapped honey, we might be able to do a third honey harvest for the year and still be able to leave enough honey for the wintering bees use.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>5\/16\/2019 Oil pan refresh
\n<\/span><\/strong>A changing of the vegetable oil in the bottom board was done on all hives.\u00a0 The pan collects all the debris, mites, hive beetles, etc that falls through the screened bottom board and get trapped in the oil.
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<\/a>4\/18, 4\/25. 5\/2, 5\/9\/2019 Varroa mite treatments
\n<\/span><\/strong>A weekly oxalic acid vaporization varroa mite treatment of the brood boxes on all hives was started and continued for 4 weeks.\u00a0 All supers were removed during the treatments.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/a>3\/6\/2019 Honey Harvest
\n<\/span><\/strong>3\/6\/2019 – The first honey harvest of the year was done today. Because of the relatively warm winter, the bees were productive and provided an early honey harvest of 141 pounds.\u00a0 We bottled mostly 8 ounce bear jars and one pound squeeze bottles.\u00a0 A little over 7 pounds of wax was obtained from the melted down comb.\u00a0 The left over wax from the honey removal process is spread out in a large tray for a few days and the bees will eagerly remove any residual honey and leave the wax pristine — nothing goes to waste!!!
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