September first was the day we had decided to harvest our honey from our Purple Italian colony, the only one having a surplus this season. We drove to Shakopee and started by using a fume board. Ben made a wooden cover which has an absorbent pad on the underside, and a black painted metal sheet on top (see picture, notice the black top). We used some felt given by my friend Mary who happens to have a wonderful stash of fabrics! When we apply a liquid repellent aided by the sun's heat; an odor (almond smell) emanates and drives the bees out of the super in few minutes, making it easy to remove the supers as is. That's the theory!!!
We actually had to wait 12 to 15 minutes before most of the bees were gone below. We also had to use a soft brush to brush the remaining persistent honeybees from each of the 18 frames . We were glad we did not have to brush 100 frames by hand! After a while, the bees were a little bit annoyed with us. I think they sensed that we were "stealing" their hard gold labor. We took 2 supers, and paced them on a contraption that Ben designed to carry the heavy load, 50- 60 pounds through the high vegetation in the field, avoiding to walk on pumpkins and squash! We put the load in the car, ready to head home, and beaming!
The 2 supers with honey!
In the car we go!
Since we were in Shakopee, we fed 2 one gallon pails of heavy sugar syrup to the Carniolan bees, just to help them store more food for the winter. After removing the honey, we gave the Italian bees their first Thyme medication.
We will extract the following day, in our garage...we are happy :)
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