I intentionally left quite a bit of honey in the hives (I harvested honey from the log hive and the top bar hive, but not the box hives with frames) so they should have plenty of honey remaining to overwinter successfully. The weather is cool right now, but not cold, the the bees are actively foraging and should be able to replace much if not all of the honey I removed. Fall wildflowers are in full bloom, especially goldenrod, and there is also a lot of Mexican heather in bloom in front of my building that the bees are busily foraging from too. Recommendations say that honey harvest from Japanese honey bee hives should be done in May or October. Since it is quite a disturbance for the bees, they are least likely to abscond and abandon the hive during those times.
The day after I took honey from the top bar hive, there was a very large cluster of bees formed underneath the bottom of the hive. Today when I took the above pictures there were still bees clustered under the hive, but much fewer, and most of the bees in the hive appear to have returned back to normal activity. There is probably not enough space for all of them to get back inside the hive because I removed so much comb surface area when I cut the honey out last week. Honey harvest took place by removing the top from the hive and then using my hive tool to cut out honey comb from the top of the hive. I used the smoker to drive most of the bees down lower, so was then able to cut the comb out without harming too many bees. Combs are attached at the sides and bottom of the hive, so are “free-standing” and do not fall when the top of the hive is removed. The comb was attached to the top bars, but not aligned on the guide strips, so I just broke the top bar attachments when I removed them from the top of the hive to harvest the honey. The brood is in the bottom part of the nest while the honey is stored at the top. They honeycomb was all capped and should be well ripened. It tastes great.