# Pulling honey in a dearth?



## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

It's recommended to treat for mites in mid-August which works out because that's when the honey is usually capped but when I tried to pull the honey today I set off a massive robbing frenzy because we are in a dearth. Last year I used a bee escape because I didn't have more than a few hives so this wasn't a problem but I have 8 hives now so I'm using a fume board. Needless to say the fume board was practically useless because as soon as some flew off, more poured on. 

What do you guys do? It's a nightmare out there.


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## Farmercal (May 19, 2015)

The wife and I harvestd our supers about 3 weeks ago. We used escape boards placed a day before. We pulled each frame from the super one at a time and put them into a spare super under a towel. We only had to brush off one or two bees before taking each frame. The bees weren't any more trouble than normal.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Putting on bee escapes and then pulling supers in the very early morning makes life easier when the bees are robbing.


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

Vance G said:


> Putting on bee escapes and then pulling supers in the very early morning makes life easier when the bees are robbing.


I think the act of taking off the supers to add a bee escape will set off robbing in my yard. Today, by the time I had removed one super they were already crazy and I still had one to go. If I did that through the yard hive by hive I'm afraid it would create a similar situation. 

Thank you for replying! Maybe early morning would yield better results for me for sure...


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Have you ever try night time beekeeping? I am using a 4 mode strong LED miner's light to 
do that. Time it well to put in the bee escape just before the sunset with the LED light on. I've
never seen a night time robbing before. Have you? If you time it right then you can harvest all
the supers the next night. Right now we're going toward the winter solstice with shorter day time and
longer night time, gradually. So time it out to see if it will work for your situation.


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

beepro said:


> Have you ever try night time beekeeping? I am using a 4 mode strong LED miner's light to
> do that. Time it well to put in the bee escape just before the sunset with the LED light on. I've
> never seen a night time robbing before. Have you? If you time it right then you can harvest all
> the supers the next night. Right now we're going toward the winter solstice with shorter day time and
> longer night time, gradually. So time it out to see if it will work for your situation.


This might actually work out! I wonder if I could work at dusk with a similar affect. I'm a slow beekeeper since the boxes are heavy and for me, if I'm taking the supers off to add the escape I might as well just keep them off lol. If I did this at dusk do you think there would be much robbing?


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

beware the crawlers and use a red light. Looking forward to hearing how this goes.


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## Spur9 (Sep 13, 2016)

Good luck. I've got to pull my supers soon. Not looking forward to it. Last 2 inspections have been awful with bees robbing.


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## Jarred1982 (Jul 14, 2016)

beepro said:


> Have you ever try night time beekeeping? I am using a 4 mode strong LED miner's light to
> do that. Time it well to put in the bee escape just before the sunset with the LED light on. I've
> never seen a night time robbing before. Have you? If you time it right then you can harvest all
> the supers the next night. Right now we're going toward the winter solstice with shorter day time and
> longer night time, gradually. So time it out to see if it will work for your situation.


Assuming you suit up head to toe, seems like they would get pretty ill with you--aren't they more on guard at night since that is when the preditors are out and about?


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## jooky (Mar 18, 2016)

pull the honey supers and remove as many bees as possible, stack supers and cover them so no bees can get to them. If honey dripped into hives, add screens.
Dont waste time, dont let bees find the supers


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## drummerboy (Dec 11, 2015)

We often set our escapes mid day and take them off the following morning just as the sun is coming up, or later when it has already gone down. 

Bees don't like to fly at night, in our experience most of those that do leave during the 'few seconds' it takes to remove some supers, simply fall to the ground.

However, even in the middle of the night, If there's too much disturbance, or it takes too long (bee prepared), bees can take issue and the battle soon begins.

On the rare occasions that we've had to deal with Bear in our bees, its always been DARK out, the bees are rightfully pissed and mostly landing/stinging the perpetrator with little actual flight taking place....Alas, the shotgun is kept handy all summer long.

Best advise I ever got as it pertains to this issue, is to BEE ready and BEE quick...In most cases the bees won't even know you've been there


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Get a helper to help with the lift of the supers if they are more than you can manage by yourself. 

Perhaps go earlier in the day and crack the uppermost super so it will lift more easily when you are ready to insert the escape board.

Late in the afternoon (but not at night), lift just the top super and insert the escape board, so you only do one super at a time to minimize the rumpus. This should only leave the hive open for few minutes, even less if you have a helper who can lift and hold the super while you set down the escape board. Very early in the morning, remove the bee-free super and carry it immediately away from the yard, cover each one while you fetch the next ones. And then, one frame at a time, remove any stragglers left on the frames. Keep them for the day in a cool, bee-free place. Do the same for the second super the following night. And extract them both that day.

If you think the bees will fly into the box while you are carrying it away, rig up a screened base to set it on and cover with a towel while en route.

Nancy


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## onestory (May 30, 2016)

I used to think bees don't fly at night because they can't see.  I was wrong.

If I can see them, they can see me and the flashlight...on my forehead...and fly straight for it. 

Bees can be weird in a dearth. Good advice above.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Jarred1982 said:


> Assuming you suit up head to toe, seems like they would get pretty ill with you--aren't they more on guard at night since that is when the preditors are out and about?


To me day and night inspection is almost the same. My skills toward working the hives still the same as the 
day time. That will never change. The only change is the beekeeper's attitude toward the bees because it is
dark outside. It is kinda scary at first but over time you will adapt to the night inspection bee environment. The reason for using the miner's LED flashlight is that they have made significant improvement on the lights over the years. The regular handheld straight flashlight does not has the wide spectrum feature as cost effective as the miner's LED light. Right now the improvement is the 4 phase LED lights with wide spectrum which will enable you to see better at night. With 3 AA batteries it will last you up to 20 hours per charge. I've tested it before by leaving it on after an inspection at night. I use 2 sets of rechargeable battery for exchange. 
If you want to learn through the baby steps at night inspection then make up a 3 frame (5 with 2 drawn frames) queen right nuc to practice on. Try to keep inspection around 15-30 minutes to start off. The same swiftness and gentleness skills still apply here. After 4 year of night inspection experience adapted from the commercial night operation I can inspect a full size 3 deep hive without any issue. The full suit protection and right inspection skills still applied in doing so. I wear long garden boots and tug in my bee suit legs to protect down there. Make sure you don't leave any hole for them to get inside. Double check all your zippers! Be safe on your surroundings is important too. You don't want to do a night inspection in a bear laden environment without being in a safe location. 
Here is the scope of it. Bees will stings and bite trying to get in your suit whenever given the chance either in the day or night time. On day inspection you will rarely see crawling but flying bees trying to sting you. On night inspection it is exactly the opposite. Bees cannot fly far distance so they will crawl all over you trying to find the hole to get in. They will fly short distance and then land on anything nearby because they cannot see that well to fly. So crawling, biting and stinging are what they do best in the night time. Full suit protection must be use because of these behaviors.
So what is the advantage of doing a night inspection? For those hard working day folks maybe they have some free time at night with nothing to do but watch tv. This is a good chance for such an exciting night bee activity. Until you are used to it and calm yourself down, your blood will be flowing faster alright. Try to focus on what you need to get done there. Other than that doing a mating nuc inspection to see if the virin has emerged or whether or not she is mated will be beneficial because she will not fly away. In the day inspection she will if you inspect the nuc hive. This will shorten the time to see if a mating nuc has a laying queen or not. Especially during the queen rearing season I will do night inspection a lot to check on the QCs and virgin queens. Seeing the eggs will be better with a bright light because the light will reflect back from the cells.
How do we use the bright LED flashlight? For those that commented on putting the miner's light on your forehead for hive inspection, that is the wrong method used. Either you have never done a night inspection before or just use your imagination of what a night inspection should be without the actual experience. For one, you do not ever want to put the bright light on your forehead. Why? Because bees are attracted to the bright light at night. Imagine what will happen to your already reduced vision when all those aggressive eager to get you bees clinging on your veil. I'll bet you will quit after the 1st experience! Another advantage of the night inspection is that the bees will not oozed out of the hive like the day time. So the hive disturbance is close to none because they will calmed down after a few hours after inspection. Unlike the day time inspection there will be no bees flying for hours after they got disturbed. And be back on their normal foraging mode as soon as day lights hit. It is the most undisturbing way to inspect a growing hive. From my experience they will never boiled out like some beekeepers claimed when they inspected the hive in the day time.
I like to use this bees attracted to the bright light opportunity. At night inspection only the foragers or older bees will fly, stings and bite you. The queen, drones, and young nurse bees will stay on the frames. This is good if you don't have that many older guard bees to worry about. That is why using a small nuc set up to start with will give you the more pleasant experience at first. Now imagine 2 bright LED lights on either left and right side angling in on the hive that you want to open up and inspect. With these lights on opposite end at 6-10 feet away at full bright spectrum, almost all the foragers and angry bees will be flying away from you. Try to play with the distance of where you put the lights to assess the hive situation first. They will be at these bright lights instead of clinging on your veil. Don't get me wrong though some will be on your suit but not that many depending on how many angry bees you have in the hive. I have the gentle type bees so don't have this angry bees issue now. The aggressive hives will be moved to the open field on top of an ant hill. Whether or not your bees will be agitated depends on the beekeeper's inspection skills and the behavior of your bees. Glad that I finally got all my nasty hives requeened to the gentle type. Makes night inspectin a lot easier now. I don't use smoke for the last 4 year on hive inspection day or night. 

The story about using red light (LED) is somewhat misleading to us beekeepers. I've found that using either red or bright light will work the same. The behaviors of the bees toward the beekeeper once got distrubed is also the same. That is why I don't buy the red LED miner's light anymore. And settle for the bright light with wide spectrum instead. Already tested out both light version.
For your honey boxes, I would crack the box to gently move it to the side a bit without using smoke and then wait a few seconds. Then either removed 4 frames into another box or take out the entire super to stack it on another empty box on the ground nearby. Arrange the empty box so that you can easily stack the honey box on top. Then put the bee scape on and put all the boxes and frames back. I've also read on another post to put all supers on top of each other then use the bee escape board. This may take longer to vacate the bees some said.


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