Honey Harvest Follow Up (Thurs, June 4, 2015)

After I brought home my giant bucket of honey on Tuesday, I decanted it into about 36 500 gm jars. I did not whip it, as is the custom here in Luxembourg. Yes, I will undoubtedly have crystallization. But I like runny honey.

After completing the extraction, I had ten frames that had previously held honey. We took these back to the hive on Thursday (this was when the DH got stung on his hand). We put two of the frames into the brood box of the Big Hive. To make room for these, we took out two frames from the Big Hive brood box that had uncapped brood/larvae. We brushed off most of the worker bees, and put these two frames in the Little Hive (which only had about five frames in it anyhow). In retrospect, we figured any Big Hive bees left on those frames would eventually exit the Little Hive, be a bit befuddled, and then just go home to the Big Hive.

We added five other honey-extracted frames to the Little Hive. It is now just one brood box with ten frames in it. We have not yet seen anything resembling a queen in it, and those bees were fractious and angry. Hopefully those workers will turn one of those new eggs we added into a queen.

Below, you can see Charlotte, Queen of the Big Hive (green spot).