(Texas) My bees are like neglected children. Life has intervened to prevent me from attending to my honey harvesting duties of pulling honey-filled supers from my hives. The largest hive (5 supers tall) had a deep super on top above the queen excluder. I knew that wasn’t ideal. But it was the practical thing at the time I placed it. A full deep super is a beast. I’ve read that a full one weighs 90 pounds, and I don’t doubt that.
I pulled the supers Saturday evening. I didn’t have time to spin any frames, so I decided that I would try and leave the supers out overnight unattended in the back of my truck. The idea was that all the bees in the supers would go back to their hives before nightfall (Picture 1), and then I could put them in the deep freeze in the morning. From the second picture, you can see that this wasn’t the case. In at least one super, the bees decided to stay put. I checked the forecast (no rain) and went to bed. Sunday morning I looked out the window and saw a cloud of bees above the supers in the truck. This is not what I wanted. Bees in a robbing frenzy. Robbing is exactly what it sounds like. When bees find available honey, they will “rob” it by ingesting it and taking it back to the hive. That honey could be out and about, or could even be in a weak hive. A weak hive can be literally killed and destroyed by robbing, marauding bees. Kill and rob. As I’ve said before, it’s a story as old as Cain and Abel. Robbing bees are also more likely to attack and sting a beekeeper as well.
I suited up (isn’t that something only superheroes usually do?) and started the smoker. I brought each super to the edge of the truck and smoked from underneath to try and drive bees out of the super. I’ve tried my leaf blower in the past, and that didn’t work well, believe it or not. The smoke was doing a somewhat adequate job. I could have removed each frame, and brushed off the bees, but that would have been time consuming and also caused honey leakage through accidentally broken comb. The supers were put into the chest freezer (the deep super was wrangled in by brute force and dropped in). A number of bees remained in each super. Sacrificial bees. These bees will huddle together on the comb, eating honey and trying to raise their collective temperature. But they will be overcome by the technology of man that relentlessly brings the cold, and they will die in place as their metabolism slows and all movement ceases. And then the frozen water crystals inside their cells will distort and pierce membranes and organelles, causing death. It ain’t easy being a bee. Nobody ever said it was. Dead bees littered the truck bed after the supers were moved (Picture 3).
I had some old comb with honey in the freezer. This was the leftover comb from the hybrid top-bar/Langstroth hive that I had taken apart with my garrote wire. After my failed attempt to extract wax from this old comb, I decided to leave this comb out in the bed of my truck so that the bees could recycle the remaining honey. In this case, I am inviting robbing. Mission accomplished. In less than a day all the honey was gone (Picture 4). I noticed more bees bearding on the outside of the hives after the supers were removed (Picture 5). It’s like coming home to find your 2500 sf house is now 2000 sf. Something’s gotta give.
So that leaves me with three supers cooling their heels in my freezer. I will take them out before the weekend to thaw out, and will then proceed to extract the honey. With my new extractor. Honey. Liquid gold. Best stuff ever.
