Harvesting Honey from a Warre Hive

Bee Escape in use

Harvesting honey from a Warre hive is not as straightforward as harvesting from a Langstrom hive—or from a top bar hive, for that matter.  There are three essential problems: bees on comb, comb attaching itself to the box, and comb breaking off of the bar. With a few extra tools, these problems are, if not solved, much reduced.

Tools Needed:

• ·         Box full of honey
• ·         Bee escape
• ·         Empty box
• ·         Hive tool—bright yellow is good
• ·         “Ultimate Hive Tool” from Bee thinking, which cuts the comb from the side of the box
• ·         A big platter
• ·         A colander and bucket or bowl

Problem One: Bees on the comb. Photographs of honey harvest always show a beekeeper, calm and pristine, gently brushing a dozen bees off of a honey comb, which is always in one piece, and one beautiful curve, hanging from the bar. In my experience, this is not what happens. My comb, if it holds together, is covered with bees. If I am able to brush some off, many remain and are squashed by the harvest. Bee Death is distressing.  I have wrestled with this problem for years. Early this year, I borrowed a triangular bee escape from a friend, but it was sized for a Langstrom hive and did not work. Still determined, I purchased a circular escape (four dollars, folks! This is a deal!), attached it to a board, and slipped it under my full box of honey, with an empty box—no bars—underneath. Within three days, the bees were gone. Not all of the bees—there were a couple of dozen really fat drones left behind (I don’t think they could fit through the gaps)—but enough so that I could brush them off of the comb. A Bee Escape, sized for your hive, should come with every hive, every “beginner’s kit.”

Tool Rack

Comb Attached to the Box:  This is one that never appears in the bee keeping books, but, along with crossed comb, happens regularly in the hive. Bees build comb out to the edge of the bar and attach it to the side of the box. It makes sense; the comb is much stronger when it is attached on three sides. It can hold more honey. It can reach down and bond with the box below. Attached comb creates a huge honey mess and more Bee Death. I’ve resolved this issue with a clever tool I found at Bee Thinking, the store in Portland where I buy my hives. It’s about a foot long, has a sharp flat blade on one end, which can be run down the side of the box when you turn it over to free the comb, and a turned blade on the other end, which can be fed  down between the combs, turned, and drawn up, releasing the comb. It is a little short and is quickly covered in honey when I use it, but it has transformed the Comb Attachment problem. I use it before I attempt to loosen the bar and  I have been able to lift out whole combs, if not on the bar, at least with my hands.  I can also use it between bars to push aside crossed comb.  It does not replace the hive tool, which I still use to separate boxes and pry out bars, but it fills a lovely niche. Much better than the old bread knife I was using.

                Comb Breaking off of the Bar: This is the dirty secret of Natural Bee Keeping, when you allow your bees to build comb without a foundation. It is never discussed in the books, but Comb Breaks Off. Regularly. If the bar is completely filled with honey, it will break. If it comes right out, then you know that it is not full. It does not matter if you hold the comb straight with the ground. It breaks. Even after I have cut it away from the sides of the box, it breaks. This is where the platter comes in really handy. When the comb breaks, if it is not covered with bees, I can reach in, lift it out, and drop it on the platter, which catches the dripping honey nicely, and move onto the next bar.

Both hives

Once I have harvested all of the comb, I put it into a colander, set it over a big bowl, break it up, and put it in the greenhouse, with all of the windows shut, to drain. It is essential to place the draining honey somewhere where the bees will not find it, as it will be quickly covered in insects if you do not. Inside the house can be a good idea, if the harvest went well and you do not mind a few bees buzzing around inside. They are not interested in you, after all, but the honey.  When it has drained, I pour it into quart sized canning jars for storage. 

Bee Mysteries

Bees are mysterious creatures.  I never quite know what they are about in my back yard, but as long as the hive hums like a well-tuned VW vanagon, I don’t worry too much.

We had a swarm move into a hive this spring. The old home, a huge willow tree, developed cracks then came crashing down in several pieces, so the colony was looking for a new home. My bee box was set up with some old, crossed comb in it, waiting to be cleaned out. I’d harvested the honey back in early February, when I knew the old colony had died, but left the wax for another day, which had just not arrived yet.  The scouts found the already furnished apartment and moved in. A few days later, the whole family arrived, cleared out the worst of the mess, and settled down. Pollen was carted in quickly, but I did not realize, until I opened the hive a week or so later, that they had also relocated all of their honey. The top box was two thirds full, by weight, and the bottom box at least half full, of dark, overwintered honey. There was no way they brought in and processed that much nectar in a week and a half.   I was a little distressed—I wanted to clean out some of the worst crossed comb—but thrilled to see the size and health of the swarm.  Who knew that colonies moved all of their food stores?

The swarm colony likes to camp out. For the first week, there was always a bearded clump hanging off of the entrance board in the evening. I was worried that they were thinking of swarming the first morning I saw this, but there was no other sign of movement, so I shrugged it off. After seeing how full the two boxes were, I added a third, which helped reduce the size of the camp-out, but it never went completely away. Over the next week, more and more bees moved inside at night, probably because it has been raining in the evenings.

Yesterday, we went into both hives. The “new” hive, of purchased bees, had not shown any queen sign for the first two checks, so I recruited a friend with sharp eyes and we cracked the hive. This time, there was considerable honey, pollen, and larvae in the hive, so we cleaned up a bit of weird comb and reassembled the hive. We both turned to the swarm hive, which had the new, empty box on top. “Do you want to drop that one down?” my bee partner asked. “Do you feel brave?” I replied. He shrugged, “It’s going ok so far.” Together, we lifted off the roof, quilt box, and burlap ad peered inside.

The swarm hive was packed with bees. They were building comb, nice and tidy, in the top box, which we lifted off. Bees flew everywhere, but not in a threatening manner. I cracked the second box and lifted it. Bits of honey comb stuck to the tops of the bottom bars. We scraped it all off and placed it to one side, then lifted the last box, also heavy with bees and honey. “What a mess,” my partner observed, looking at the crossed comb in the bottom box. “Yeah,” I agreed. We quickly placed the empty box on the bottom, the lowest in the middle, and the bottom one, which was the messiest, on top. “Harvest that one first,” my partner observed. “That’ll clear it out.” Lid on, no stings, bees everywhere.

Later last night, I went out to settle the chickens and rabbit in and checked on the hives. The New Hive was quiet, everyone tucked in for the night. Once again, the Swarm Hive had a camp out going—one small clump, perfectly circular, in the front of the hive and the other, much larger, on the small pile of honey and comb that we had scraped out. Bees, some laden with pollen, piled up and hummed softly to themselves. This afternoon, the clumps were reduced, but not gone. I think there is a contingent that just likes sleeping outside. Bee mysteries.