Capped Honey in Portland

[rjoki]

Wishing that more beekeepers in the Portland area would actively share the status of thier hives on this forum. I hate to be the only one posting here as it's not my forum, and I'm certainly not an expert beekeeper.

Let's try to join together and help each other by posting what's up with your Portland area hives.

I've added a third super on each of my three hives as of this week. The bottom super had about 1/3 capped on three or four frames, and nector storage in most of the rest. The other was fully drawn and filling was under way

I lowered super two down to the first position, making sure that there was a band of honey across the top of the brood boxes to keep the queen down as I decided not to use queen excluders this year in order to make movement in the hive as easy and natural as possible.

I added the new third super to the very top, as they frames are not drawn and I didn't want to freak out the girls by too dramatic of a change. My plan is to wait for a week or so and see if the top super gets drawn, then I'll do another rotation to get it down to the lowest position. The order of the rotation counting from the bottom super will be: 1,2 -- then 2,1,3 -- then 3,2,1

I will do some minor checkerboarding to try to keep the supers from getting plugged up, but at such a late date I think that I'll be lucky to get every thing full and capped before that evil Queen Anne's Lace fills the neighborhood.

Is anyone finding full frames of capped honey yet, or are we all about the same with some capping, but mostly still open nectar. Do most of you have three supers on, or more, or less ??

Inquiring beekeeper minds want to know......

[marksmith]

Elkton, OR

2 supers capped.
1.5 supers filled.
1 empty on top added today.

[marksmith]

Both langs are about the same.

Top Bar is out performing the langs so far.

[magista]

1 super capped, pulled & extracted. Replaced w/ Ross Round comb set up.
1 super 95% capped.
2 supers 90% capped.
1 super 90% capped.
2 supers just added.

Hives are at various locations in Portland.

[rjoki]

Magista - nice to know that you are close by as I'm just south of you a few miles at Woodstock and 77th (our bees might even know each other - lol)

Your report is quite helpful to me. Am I correct that you have 5 total hives with:

3 hives having 1 super
and
2 hives have 2 supers ?

(Also assuming that your hives are built on double deep brood boxes).

Are all 5 of yours from established colonies ?

I've got one that is in it's second year, and the other two are new this year from nuc's. My girls had a lot of foundation to build so it's not surprising that I'm a bit behind you on the capped honey percentage at this point. It sure is encouraging to hear about the fact that your girls are on course to a succesful summer production.

Thanks to both you and to Mark Smith for sharing in this section of the forum !!

Robert

[rjoki]

I was happy to see a lot of progress this week in the capped frames. I went in to rotate the empty supers that went on the top position last week, down to the lowest position directly above the brood boxes, and to my surprise, I found that two of my three hives were completing the process of capping the final cells on some of the frames.

I was able to pull 4 frames from one of my hives that were 100% capped, and I took note of about 8 more frames that were nearing completion in various positions between that hive and another sitting next to it. I didn't pull about 4 that were basically filled and capped as they also included nice groupings of brood in the lower half of one side. These will hopefully be hatched out by next week, and the cells filled, so I may be able to pull those 8 or more next week.

Not a bumper crop like last year's, but at least the action is started and all we need is some good hot weather and I bet the girls can do a lot of work in the next couple of weeks. We don't have too much Queen Anne's Lace directly around our house, but within the 2 mile radius there certainly will be enough to case some concerns. I pulled my last frames on August 15th last year, and it still tasted wonderfull - so unless I find a reason to change my mind, I think I'll shoot for about August 20th or so for my completion goal this year. With a little luck from the weather, that might just give the girls enough time to fill up and cap at least a couple more full supers.

What's up with the rest of you ??