No swarm = more honey

To my surprise, all three colonies have gathered a lot of nectar for honey production. There's a good chance I will harvest within the next ten days. This is an interesting prospect, as I wasn't too sure about colony #2 ever making their way to being a productive colony. One thing that helped in this was swarm prevention.

By cutting out the drone frame and by also creating nucs, it is easier to manage the swarm behavior. Swarm behavior normally begins when the bees feel as if they are crowded. By constantly giving them more space to build, the swarm behavior is somewhat circumvented. No swarm ultimately means more honey.

Last season I had harvested my first round of honey on May 22nd. This shows how much affect the weather has on nectar collection. This year we are harvesting a bit later, as the canola blossoms are starting to dry up. Timing is still important here, especially with honey that is largely consisted of canola nectar. Due to the higher fructose content in canola nectar (ca. 1.5 : 1 fructose:glucose) the honey can begin to crystallize while still in the cells. The other problem however, is that if the honey isn't capped, it may have too much water in it. Anything over 20% water content is too much (there is a higher chance of fermentation) and should not be extracted. I may check some of the honey with a refractometer on Friday to see if I should extract this weekend or not.

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Hotham Family Apiary

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