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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, NOVEMBER 2016
Never mix plastic frames and wax
foundation frames in the same honey supers
frames. There is a drawback to cutting frames back to the midrib. When there isn’t a honey flow, the bees will refuse to drawn them out unless stimulated by sugar feeding. Never mix plastic frames and wax foundation frames in the same honey supers, as the bees will draw out the natural wax ones first and build them wider, leaving the plastic ones alone. They will sometimes build natural comb between the plastic frames, especially if Manley frames are used. R.O.B. Manley was an English beekeeper in the early- to mid- 1900s and wrote several books; perhaps the best known is Honey Farming . (It’s well worth reading as a lot of the plants and practices are applicable to New Zealand conditions. Read it just for the queen introduction description in chapter VIII). Manley is credited with inventing wide 43-millimetre frames (eight to a ten-frame box) and his practice of sugar feeding in the autumn. Eight frames requires less work than 10 frames for the same amount of honey. This wooden frame design left no room at the end-bar sides and often the bees propolised them, making them hard to remove. I used six of the wide Manley frames and two normal Hoffman frames in the centre of the honey supers to make them easier to remove. Start with the Hoffman frames in the middle and gradually move them out as the Manley frames get built out. Nowadays with plastic frames, the bees don’t wax/propolise them in, so this problem is overcome. Remember to air your plastic frames before they go on the hive. Bees don’t like the smell of new plastic
Speaking about wax, during my spring inspections I remove brace comb and comb on top of and under frames (created because the bee space is wrong) and place it into buckets for melting later. I clean off about a paint pail of wax in each apiary. Having clean frames makes it easier to inspect hives and you don’t squash bees when replacing the supers. Squashed bees spread nosema and if the bee happens to be the queen, you set the hive back six weeks. I have seen beekeepers just throw wax on the ground. One MAF Apicultural Officer used to put $10 notes on the ground in front of the hive. When asked why he was doing it he said, “Well, you are doing it by leaving all the wax on the ground. What’s the difference?”. Apart from being a waste of money, it’s also dirty beekeeping. Wax with honey attracts robbers and with high concentrations of hives can quickly spread disease. Please keep your apiary sites clean and tidy. A small beekeeper can separate honey from the frames using a household fork. Carefully scrape the new capped cells back to the foundation midrib into the bin while holding the frame on an up-ended nail, or screw in the middle of the board that goes across the centre of the bin described above. If you haven’t got a honey gate in the bottom bin, lift off the top one and carefully take any floating wax particles off the honey in the bottom bin with a spatula. Very tiny flakes can be removed with a bit of plastic film (lunch wrap) laid carefully over the top. The top layer of honey and wax will stick to the film surface and lifts off when the film is removed. Then pour out the honey into your containers.
Note that in New Zealand, most of our honey granulates (crystallises) within a few weeks of extraction. This is a natural process but it can be improved by stirring in a tablespoon full of smooth purchased granulated honey so your honey takes on a smooth crystallised form. Stir until it is spread right through your honey, screw the lid on tightly to prevent moisture entering (honey is hygroscopic), then leave in a cool area (13°C). Honey can be restored to a liquid form by gradual heating. A common method is to leave a glass jar of honey in the oven while it’s cooling after cooking a roast meal. Place wets (sticky frames) on the hives after dark for the bees to clean out and remake. If you put them on earlier, the bees will get excited and fly around the neighbourhood looking for the source of nectar that is nearby, creating a disturbance. By constantly extracting frames as they are fully capped, hives will produce a greater amount of honey, in most cases stimulated by the empty
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Kamahi Photo: Frank Lindsay.
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