Author Topic: What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today? (Read 186174 times)

NigelP · « **on:** October 24, 2021, 08:58:21 am »

I'm always intrigued and fascinated by what other beekeepers are doing in their apiaries, bee yards.
Today I removed the Apitraz strips from my hives as they had been on for 6 weeks. Then jarred a load of soft set honey ready for a farmers market next weekend.
Just need washing and labelling and they are good to go.

Ben Framed · « **Reply #1 on:** October 24, 2021, 02:22:54 pm »

NigelP I confess I only walked through yesterday. Today will be a repeat./No physical hands on. I want to say I like your soft set honey jars! What size by weight are they rated?

Thanks,

Phillip

NigelP · « **Reply #2 on:** October 24, 2021, 02:29:55 pm »

12oz or 340gs. I like using hexagonal jars as they stack better (and more of them) in the crate.
Sell them at of 8$ each. Once customers get hold of real smooth soft set honey they are hooked and back for more....which is good for me.

Ben Framed · « **Reply #3 on:** October 24, 2021, 02:34:02 pm »

Quote from: NigelP on October 24, 2021, 02:29:55 pm

12oz or 340gs. I like using hexagonal jars as they stack better (and more of them) in the crate.
Sell them at of 8$ each. Once customers get hold of real smooth soft set honey they are hooked and back for more....which is good for me.

Thank you; Yes I see the advantages, adding these jars promote an extra attractiveness.
I am also curious as what our members are doing in the bee yard. We have members from so many countries and climates.

Phillip

CoolBees · « **Reply #4 on:** October 24, 2021, 03:09:26 pm »

Pls pardon my ignorance - what is Soft Set honey?

NigelP · « **Reply #5 on:** October 24, 2021, 05:02:30 pm »

I'll try and help if I can.
Basically most honeys will eventually set. Problem is they usually set hard and with coarse crystals. To cut a long story short if you seed liquid honey with a very fine set small grained honey the crystals will act as a seed and crystals will form in the liquid honey at that size and make a soft set honey. To make a small grained honey you take a set one and grind it down with a pestle and mortar to produce your "seed". It's not the end of the story as crystals will aggregate during the process and although the final product is a soft set it will have some large crystals that are a bit like sandpaper on your tongue. To make it smoother you need to grind the crystals against each other. I have a machine, bit like a butter churn, that does the mixing and grinding so the crystals break down to their smallest form. Result is a soft set hidey that is like a paste that always remains soft and spreadable but is has an incredibly smooth texture. Original process (Dyce) was invented in USA for clover honey, but that involved pasteurisation which is not part of the current soft set process.
Hope that helps.

The15thMember · « **Reply #6 on:** October 24, 2021, 05:33:48 pm »

Quote from: CoolBees on October 24, 2021, 03:09:26 pm

Pls pardon my ignorance - what is Soft Set honey?

Alan, we call it creamed honey in the US.

Nigel, I can't believe how white that honey is! I've never seen honey that color before, even creamed/soft set. What variety is it?

I'll be in the bee yard tomorrow, so I'll let you know how my day goes. This is a fun idea for a thread, I'm surprised no one has started one like this before.

NigelP · « **Reply #7 on:** October 25, 2021, 04:46:06 am »

Thanks to the European Union we were not allowed to call it creamed honey as it had no cream in it!!!
The secret to getting it as white as it is hard work. As the crystals form from the "seed" honey, they tend to aggregate a bit and these need to be broken down. I used to use a long handled potato masher which did the job but was hard work as I was working the honey every few hours for a 2 or 3 days.
Now I have a machine, like a giant butter churn that works the honey for 15 minutes then rests it for an hour before repeating.
You get the same result with any type of honey, but the real secret is I can only get it this white during our winter months as it needs to be cold. And even when it's cold like 2-3C in my bee shed the friction of the crystals rubbing together generates heat so the mixture ends up around 21C, which is about the max you want.
If I try to make it in our summer months it just won't work as well and you bet a darker (read larger crystal) product.

CoolBees · « **Reply #8 on:** October 25, 2021, 02:59:24 pm »

Thank you Nigel. That was a very detailed explanation. I had heard of this, but never understood it. Now I do. I'm impressed at how much work it is.

Very nice!

LawyerRick · « **Reply #9 on:** October 25, 2021, 04:17:10 pm »

Mountain camped nearly all my hives, put bee cozy on the wooden hives, stuffed 2 inch thick XPS into telescoping cover & closed up the hives. I don't use upper entrances or moisture boxes etc. during winter since they are unneccessary, especially in my poly hives. It's raining alot right now so I can't finish putting the girls back to bed quite yet, will finish when the sun finally decides to come out.

The15thMember · « **Reply #10 on:** October 25, 2021, 07:07:51 pm »

I also had intermittent rain which eventually became too heavy to work in today. I opened up three colonies of my five. In the one I inspected and did a sugar roll; in the other I found the queen quickly enough that I didn't do a full inspection, just a sugar roll; and in the third I didn't pull any frames, just sugar dusted them, as they are in the middle of a treatment regimen.

Beeboy01 · « **Reply #11 on:** October 25, 2021, 11:49:01 pm »

Spent a few hours cleaning up and putting away my decapping sink, extractor and filter screens after my last extraction for the year. Stacked the cleaned out honey supers, did a quick equipment inventory and packed everything away in my shop till spring. Also finished bottling around eight cases of pint jars with the Brazilian Pepper that I pulled last week.
Already have a table reserved at the local flea market for Halloween and expecting it to be a busy weekend for sales.

TheHoneyPump · « **Reply #12 on:** November 12, 2021, 11:38:38 am »

10 below and blowing snow. Decided to put winter wraps on the backyarders. While getting the rest of them put indoors for the long dark sleep.

Brian MCquilkin · « **Reply #13 on:** November 20, 2021, 12:04:00 pm »

47deg F here in Wisconsin today, doing a round of OAV

LawyerRick · « **Reply #14 on:** November 20, 2021, 05:47:56 pm »

Drove into a muddy field, got my inverter going & OAV'd all of the colonies at that location. Used 4 grams of OA in each colony, got to kill mites!!! It was around 40F when I vaped the 4 hives & windy but my Covdid mask kept me from inhaling OAV. Cloudy, kinda rainy/snowy...normal Michigan weather in November.

BeeMaster2 · « **Reply #15 on:** November 20, 2021, 07:24:27 pm »

Rick,
Bee careful depending on regular masks for OAV. If the wind shifts, you could bee in serious trouble.
Jim Altmiller

rast · « **Reply #16 on:** November 20, 2021, 07:47:47 pm »

Did my 4th round of OAV this morning also, windy here too but in the low 70's. Pollen still coming in.

NigelP · « **Reply #17 on:** November 24, 2021, 07:17:29 am »

Spend time hefting hives to see which are gobbling up their winter stores. One was very light so added an eke and slab of fondant. Check again in early January.
Bee work finished here (apart from messing in workshop).

Oldbeavo · « **Reply #18 on:** November 26, 2021, 05:18:32 am »

We have had a terrible swarm season, so we are at present fixing double swarm hives. Main swarm, then when the maiden goes for a mating fly the bees go too.
So we are left with a hive with no eggs to form a cell.
we had 4/28 hives in a group queenless, Just as well we have heaps of nucs.

NigelP · « **Reply #19 on:** January 03, 2022, 12:37:27 pm »

Just past our winter solstice and first work of the new season was to vape all the hives and check for store usage. All was fine although one or two insert boards had higher varroa levels than I would like to see....but should now have got the little blighters.. Now I just need to figure a way id adding back stored frozen frames of pollen without disturbing the bees.....they won't quite lie flat ion top of the frames already in place.