I think it was 2012 or 2013 when I realized in June that I needed to begin extracting early mainly because I had run out of honey supers. It seemed to make good sense to simply pull off the top super from several hives, extract it and then place it back onto the hives that clearly needed it. Plus, I was learning that my back did not take kindly to supers stacked 4 and 5 boxes high! Before that year, I had followed the recommendations of my fellow beekeepers and started all extraction in early to mid-July.
Since that time, my practice has evolved into a late May/early June start regardless of the number of honey supers on hand (given the gradual hive decrease I have done over the past few years, I have lots of extra drawn honey supers these days!) I have found that the best time to start extracting (for me) is when the temperatures broach the upper 80’s or even 90’s. For one, my Honey-Bee-Robber works fast on my fume boards and, secondly, any honey from last Fall seems to be thinner and easier to filter and store. Thus, I started my extractions in late May this year and seem to have pulled in about 40 gallons so far. There is probably another 10 gallons out on the hives, but I am wrapping it up until July for now. It feels good to look out for all of June and realize I actually have some free weekends ahead!
I need to post some images, but my honey extraction process runs like this:
- Identify hive with 1 or more full honey supers,
- Use Fume board to push bees out of honey super (around 5 or 6 minutes each),
- Pull honey supers and place on front porch (make sure they are sealed!),
- Extract over 2 to 3 days,
- Return wet supers to any hives with strong colonies.
Hopefully, there is more nectar for the bees to convert into honey in June (so my July extraction will be a good one.) But, for now, all is good. I consider this a good year for many reasons.
