Bees won't finish capping?

[murph101]

Hello,

 

First off, thanks to everyone for the flow of advice coming through this forum.  As a new beekeeper, I look forward to the new messages every day.

 

I have one hive that does not seem to want to quite finish capping frames.  One whole super is full of honey, but each frame is only about 75% capped.  I can see honey in each of the un-capped cells, and they seem full, but no cap.  I would not be too surprised to see partially capped frames, but the bees have moved on to other frames in other supers.  They are working diligently on filling new frames, but have left 10 frames only 75% capped.

 

Should I just extract them as-is, or is there some value to waiting to see if the bees finish capping the remain?

 

Mike

[jeanne hansen]

When Wally Brown, an experienced beekeeper, spoke to our club recently, he said, if the bees have stopped working on combs, the honey is ripe even if not capped, and you can extract.

After the black locust (mid June), my honey super had only 4 frames of thin combs .  After sitting there for a month, still uncapped by mid July, I pulled them.  According to my new, hot-shot refractometer, the moisture was 17%, hooray!  (18% is the target.)  So I guess Wally was right.

You can bring a small sample of the honey from the uncapped cells to our club meeting next week, and borrow a refractometer, just to be sure.

 

Thanks!

Jeanne Hansen

824 Jacobson Ave

Madison, WI 53714

608-244-5094

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From: murph101 <mike.mur...@gmail.com>
To: mad...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 3:47 PM
Subject: [madbees] Bees won't finish capping?

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[blu...@madtown.net]

Mike,

It is a bit early yet and with the high humidity the bees may not be able to finish it so fast. If you give them another box under the full super they should cap the top full super off as soon as the  weather drys out a bit. 

Dale

[donald...@gmail.com]

Stick a queen cage under the cover to give them better air flow.

Sent from my iPad

[Dan Curran]

Be very careful. I try to extract frames that are 100% capped, not 90% or 70%, etc. If you value raw honey, moisture levels are critical and should be monitored closely. So far, I've been fine this year, but I had a couple of friends use my extracting equipment and both of their refractometer readings came back at 19.5%. Most of their honey was completely capped but not all of it. A refractometer is a very worthy investment as a beekeeper. Fermented pails of honey can be a huge buzz-kill.

[murph101]

Thank you to everyone for the responses.  After reading the replies I did a crash Google-course on moisture content and honey curing, which was all new to me (I figured, they're full, so they must be done).  I also watched the hive yesterday after work, and saw that bees are fanning air into the hive like crazy.  That seems to be consistent with the honey not being cured.  I am going to move some things around and add venting like has been suggested and keep checking it over the next couple of weeks. 

 

Thanks!

 

 

On Wednesday, July 31, 2013 3:47:16 PM UTC-5, murph101 wrote:

[Gourlie, Michael]

I harvest only from non-brood cells (those above the excluder).  I routinely harvest combinations of capped and non-capped during my later harvest rather than to try saving uncapped.

The water content is a summation of harvested capped and non-capped cells.  As Larry said he does in an earlier email, I'll place a dehumidifier in the closed room I use for storage of supers and allow it to run for two to three days.  My measured water content for the combined harvest has always been below 17% when using this process.

mike gourlie

5102 open wood way

madison, wi  53714-3455

h - (608) 221-4900

m - (608) 556-2012

email:  mic...@gourlie.com

Sent from my iPhone4

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