I was asked by a mate if I could give him a hand with some hives that he has on his property that he hasn't had a chance to open up for the last two years. Let's just say it was a big afternoon of hard work! Beautiful weather certainly helped, as did lots of smoke. The boxes had deteriorated in the weather, some to the point of falling apart, and the bees had filled every spare bit of space with burr comb and honey. Of the two hives, the smaller one had to have the top box replaced, and eight full frames of capped honey removed and replaced with clean sheets. The bigger box had a queen excluder above the bottom box, so the bees were doing well to fill four supers with only one box to hatch brood. The top super had been empty (no frames) so was filled with burr comb and honey (see the third pic). I removed three supers and took the queen excluder out so the bees have a super of honey for winter and can make a double box brood hive over spring. This weekend is the Easter long weekend, so I plan to extract the frames with my extractor and the burr comb with a 'crush and strain' method. I'll let you know how it goes : ) I will also be rendering the wax down to make beeswax cubes.
The big takeaway here is that, while bees will look after themselves if left to their own devices (they do exist quite happily in nature without beekeeper intervention after all) it does make it much harder to work with the hive if it has been left for this long. If you do have a hive that has gotten away from you, contact me or your local beekeeper and ask for help - the sooner the better. In this case I was happy to do the work in exchange for the honey extracted. The bees should be much easier to mange next season with a stable double brood box ready for some supers in the spring (all with frames this time!)
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