Archive Special: Removing Honey (292)

Episode 292 –  Archive Special: Removing Honey

Kim Flottum

Jim, I gotta get some honey off my I gotta get my honey off my s my hives here real quick And I was kind of looking at the bee yard the other day and I was thinking about what you got. And you got a bee yard. We're both we're both backyard beekeepers.

We both got neighbors, but your situation is a whole lot different than mine. And I'd like to explore what you do 'cause maybe I could 'cause you obviously are doing it pretty good, maybe I can learn something.

Jim Tew

Well I'll be I'll be happy to. I mean I can teach you what not to do. How about that?

Kim Flottum

Uh okay. Hi, I'm Kim Flottum. And I'm Jim Tew.

And we're here today at Honey Bee Obscura to talk about taking off honey.

Introduction

Welcome. To Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun.

And the challenges of managing honey bees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honey bees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk.

that'll delve into all things honey bees.

Kim Flottum

So Jim, let me describe you haven't been up to my bee yard, I think, since I moved it in my yard. Let me describe it. It's it's three colonies and they're facing they're facing uh both ways Some of 'em are coming into my yard and some of 'em are going o of over a brush pile into another part of my yard, so I don't see those very much But it's uh it's uh mowed lawn, it's flat, it's easy to get to, it's easy to work with.

I got a I got a hive stand that holds three colonies, but there's room for four, so I always got a place to put a box. So so for me this isn't too much of a task, but you've got a much different setup.

Jim Tew

In a in a way different and in a way not different. I've got a few more colonies. I don't really know how many are back there, Kim.

Maybe ten, no more than a dozen. And I'll bet ten probably eight or nine are producers. But Kim, if you've looked at any of the videos or any of the articles that I have pictures in, my yard is just notorious.

I don't spend a lot of time cutting grass. I'm not a young man anymore and I've got a very fixed labor potential. So I only cut grass when it needs it.

And one of the things I have to do this time of the year is get that tall grass weed knocked down so I can get to the colonies and deal with them with the carts and the wagons that I'll subsequently be using. So I'm I'm a lot like you, I'm just a little bit more insanity.

Kim Flottum

Well, mine works pretty easy. I Got a trailer put in the back of my lawnmower tractor and I can drive right up I can drive that trailer right up so it's touching a hive. I mean I can get that close.

I don't get quite that close, but I can get that close. So I get my trailer out there, and then I got a big box that, I don't know, came out of somewhere a long time ago, and I get that out there and what I do then is, well, uh kind of in a flow here. I get the super off, I get the bees out, and I put the super in the wagon and when I've got all the supers I want, I take the wagon away.

But it's getting from Getting the wagon out there and starting this process to getting the supers out of the wagon into the you know they go into my garage Start with you. How do you get how do you get your bees off? How do you get your supers off and the bees out of out of those supers?

Jim Tew

Well while you were talking, I was desperately trying to think of some way To make this sound like a happy, enjoyable job. Something that everybody would want to go do. Kim, I came up dry on that one, boy.

This is this is work. You know, I was I was thinking uh earlier this morning that this is kind of a test. This is the reason that new beekeeper bought the protective gear and learned a lie to smoker and knew how to put a hive tool in to separate those boxes.

This this is this is no nonsense beekeeping. This is heavy work. It's sticky work.

There's going to be a lot of bees there, and they're not going to be happy about giving up this honey. So make no mistake about it. This is big work for a big reward, but this is real.

So how do I go about it? Yes, I've got the grass cleaned up as much as I can. Let me tell you point blank, Kim, something that I've just never been able to make work I read that people mine your age should take out frames one at the time and then transfer them over instead of trying to pick up full boxes.

Well there's a good reason for that because I'm old and my back hurts. But when I start trying to take out one frame at the time and it's glued in, it's propolized in, and there's burcomb and honey all over it, there's bees stuck to it, it is as though we took a bad job and made it worse. So no, I don't take out one frame at the time and move it over like that.

I do exactly as you say, somewhere right there. I either have a small trailer behind a small tractor Or I've got a pan truck with pneumatic tires and a board on the bottom to something. I gotta have wheels somewhere right beside me.

Because it is only the briefest time that I can pick up that box and move it before I'm done. I don't take a step. I don't walk.

The most I'm going to do is just twist and pivot and drop that box.

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Kim Flottum

That's kind of how I do it. I got my because I don't have so many in the way I got it set up, I've got it I got my wagon and I got up uh an unused cover in the bottom of that wagon that I'm going to stack these supers on so that it's bee tight on the bottom And I'll take a c I'll take the cover off 'em the first super that I'm going to take honey off 'em. I've already examined 'em yesterday to see how many supers done I'm going to have to go, so I know how tall my stack's going to be.

So that's already done. I just know I'm taking only one Super off this hive, two supers off the middle one and one super off the other end one. I know how much I'm going to have to move, so I'm ready for that kind of volume.

And I and I, you know that box I told you about, I got that situated so that I can take the cover off that first hive and the inner cover, and I just take the super off and I set it on that box And then I take my leaf blower. And I'm close enough that I can run an electric cord out to my leaf blower, but you know, you can use a gas one or a battery one. And I can blow all the bees out of that super and I'm blowing them towards the front.

I'm I'm standing behind my row of hives and I'm blowing them right to the front door. So suddenly they're not in the hive, but they're almost home. They're not scattered all over the neighborhood and all over my yard So I get all the bees off that box and it doesn't take long.

And now this is an eight frame medium. I went to eight frame mediums a long time ago and my back has said thank you every day. It still groans, but it says thank you every day.

And I take that eight-frame medium and I put it on that cover in my trailer and I put a cover on top of that. And then I get ready for the next one And so for me, I'm I've made this as uncomplicated as I can and as easy as I can, but you are still exactly right. A ten what is a ten frame super weigh?

A hundred pounds full of honey? Deep.

Jim Tew

Yeah, if it's a deep, yeah, that's about eighty-five to ninety pounds. That feels like two hundred and seventeen pounds when I'm picking it up.

Kim Flottum

Well my forty pound eight frame medium feels like about sixty-five pounds, but I can handle sixty-five pounds anymore. How do you make that work? How do you go from getting your stuff out there ready to go to going?

Same way

Jim Tew

I don't use bee repellents. Years ago in my lab, I had technicians and I had students who constantly used fume boards and bee repellents. I'd I use them then or they use them then, but I've never personally used them.

So there's that. Secondly, I don't use escape boards. Just because I have to handle the equipment so much.

You gotta go out, you know, break all the colony apart, get the escape board put in place, put the equipment back on, have a night or two or three of Low temperature, not get any robbing started, then go back, and in theory, most of the bees have voluntarily left the supers, and there's fewer bees. No, none of that, Kim. I get out a gasoline-powered bee blower and I blow bees all across the county.

I mean, I'm not trying to be funny, but I need to get those bees out. Uh this is an ugly job. The bees don't want to give it up.

I don't want the bees attacking my neighbors who's reasonably close by. I don't know how far the bees would go, but I'm causing so much confusion. I have to assume they're going to be checking out the neighborhood.

So I just go for a blower. And I used to use, you know, the bee industry manufactured blowers, but Anymore, everybody has a leaf blower. And I even have a little battery-powered blower that's just more of a dust gun that for those hard-to-reach spots.

I can't get them all out, I have to tell you. I get out 99%, but that but back in my shop, that 1% looks like a million bees So I just blow them out standing the colony up on its edge. I've got a small uh rack that I use in the yard that I built, a sawhorse contraption that I set them on.

So I'm fully suited. Kim, I want to make that point. This is the time, but I am fully suited, top to bottom, to include About a third of a roll of duct tape, somewhere on me.

This is this is not a time for a casual, lightweight, mid early spring bee suit. You you need the big boy suit for this. And I want to encourage the big boy smoker too and have that thing going.

I'm the guy who said don't use a lot of smoke, don't breathe smoke, don't do well on that particular day. On this particular job, with these bees being this crazy, me opening ten colonies, r taking honey from them, they don't want to give up, that's the day that you need smoke. So all deals are off on that day.

So heavily dressed, using smoke, two hive tools of different sizes to break those big colonies apart, gasoline blowers running. Sticky gloves on, everything you described, the drip boards on the trailer, all of that. Get those colonies off, get those boxes off, get those bees blown out twist, drop that thing on that colony and wonder how many more years I can do this.

I don't drop it per se, but I can't gently Just delightly set down an 80-pound box. So mine's really the same procedure as yours. Like I said, just a little bit more insanity.

I mean I'd I'd just go Probably double to triple the number of colonies. And I gotta get 'em off. I gotta get that stuff off, Kim, because it's time to treat for mites Uh golden rod right now, have you noticed up in your area that golden rod is got that tight bloom on top, it's ready to go.

Started yet started yesterday. You can you can put it off, but I but Goldenrod and the bees don't put things off. They are right on schedule.

So if You know, I got a friend who

Kim Flottum

A lot like you. He's got a lot more colonies than I do and he's got neighbors that are closer and he's using still using his deeps. But one thing that he did a f started doing a few years ago is he went yesterday when he was cleaning up his yard, he put an escape board uh below the last super that he was going to take offers is one or two or three or whatever it was.

But he put an a skateboard on So that when he got out there this morning there were hardly any bees in there anyway. Now I don't have an escape board. I don't use them anymore, so uh but I'm thinking about even doing that next year is putting an escape board at But you mentioned one thing about bringing a million bees back, and I don't bring a million, but I bring a bunch, some.

And then what do you do? You know, you got bees in your I take mine and I put 'em in the garage and people have to go into my garage twice a day any day because that's how I get my garage is ch attached to my chicken coop, so I'm locking 'em up at night and I'm closing them or letting 'em out in the morning, so you gotta go in there. And I one thing I found was that I've I cover I got two windows in my garage and I cover one of them with just a I made a thing a butt a wh whole long time ago.

It takes the light out and any bees in there are going to go to the only window I got left. Now I can do two things. I can open that window, I cranks open and it opens vertically and I can let 'em out or I can take soapy water if that doesn't work.

And uh I don't like the soapy water trick, but sometimes you gotta that's what you gotta do, but um I don't want bees in my garage because I'm going to I'm not going to extract it. I don't extract my honey. A friend of mine does that for me, but they're going to be there overnight until the next day.

So I got bees in my garage. You get bees in your what how do you handle bees in your storage area?

Jim Tew

All that work you're doing. First of all. I get as many out as I can.

You do that too. That's common sense. But you just can't get them all out.

Even though I cover them in the yard, you can't get them all out. So the bees that come back to my shop where I extract I need to tell anybody listening that I love my bees. I do whatever I can to keep them healthy, but a lot of those bees are going to die, Kim.

They're going to die on the up at the windows on the shelves in front of the windows They were already older bees. I try to tell myself they were going to croak anyway, but they fly around the lights. Uh you know what I do, Kim?

I just tell people don't go in the shop unless you're a trained beekeeper Don't go in there. I mean that I have high ceilings. The ceilings are about twelve feet from me.

So they're up buzzing around the lights, but when there's two hundred bees up there, you know, they're dropping and buzzing and doing whatever What do I do? I'm ashamed to tell you, Kim. I get as many out in the field, and then I just deal with those that get brought back to the shop where I'm trying to extract.

If I raise the door to let them out, I just let that many more in that are out there buzzing around because of the smell. So I just replaced the bees with a new batch. So I'm sorry, I don't do much.

Kim Flottum

Well, you hit the magic term there, getting ready to extract and that's a whole different depending on your space and your time and the number of supers you got to take honey out of and we could be here for another hour talking just talking about getting ready for that. So I think I think we got our honey off. I think we got honey from the bee yard safely into where we're going to extract it or store it or whatever it is and without I do it without a lot of work.

My back says you're not doing a lot of work anymore. So I uh I gotta do it without a lot of work and I try to do it safely so I don't bring hardly any bees in and the bees that are left outside are close to home so they're not Terrorizing the neighborhood. So it's the best I can do and I've lived through it for thirty years, so I guess I'm not going to change much.

Jim Tew

I was just sitting here thinking yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. It's work, Kim. There's nothing I can do to make it any easier.

I mean it's work. This is this is not re-queening. This is work.

But it does leave me with this point, and I guess I'll finish after this. When someone hands me a pound of honey in a jar that's not sticky And they saw nice and filtered. I fully appreciate what a gift that is And what they had to go through to get that honey in that jar that nice, clean, and neat.

That is a true gift, Kim. The work And the labor that had to go into getting that honey in that jar for them just to say, here, here's a pound of my honey. That's like giving me two pints of their blood.

I mean that was that was a lot of work to get to that point. So I faked them kindly and I realized what they went through. I have to do it.

It's it's big work, big reward. It's a part of beekeeping that you have to grow into.

Kim Flottum

I think that's a good way to put it. Big work, big reward. Good good way to end this one.

I think maybe soon we're going to talk about extracting, getting an extracting area ready and then and then going through that process, but that's for another time, eh?

Jim Tew

That's for another time. That's just as much fun as getting it off the bees, getting it out of the coal. Alright.

Thanks everybody for listening and  Kim I enjoy talking with you. We'll see you next time.