# Warre harvest questions



## odfrank

If your bee escape works the top box will be empty of bees when you remove it so you will only be opening the top of the hive which is harmless enough. If there is brood in the box you put above the escape the bees will not leave it. You can only leave the box outside to be abandoned if there is no robbing going to occur. I use a leaf blower on boxes that are clearly broodless and queenless. I would think you are early to be pulling honey, but don't know your climate. I never nadir but top super with ladder combs.


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## Thomas1

odfrank, thank you for replying.

My reasons for thinking about harvesting now are twofold. One, with four boxes on this hive and three on my other hive, I'm fresh out of boxes. So I was hoping to free up a box. Of course I could make or buy another but funds are low and I'm not confident in making the top bars.

Second, the top box of this hive appears to have a small leak in the window. There's a small amount, maybe a tablespoons worth, of honey that has pooled on the outer ledge of the window. It's not a big deal now but I'm afraid that in the heat of July and August it could become one.

I'm just south of Reno, so temps are still mild but we've had a wet (for us) spring and there are tons of desert flowers in bloom.

All that said, I'd be fine with waiting until September, if that means a substantially lower chance of finding brood in that top box. Does any of this affect your opinion?

Thomas


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## Thomas1

No other input from anyone? I'd really appreciate another opinion or two!

T.


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## bjverano

Thomas,
I'm taking my top box off tomorrow and will use a leaf blower which I've not tried yet. Last year I just pulled the box off and didn't have any trouble -had a few I had to shoo out. 
We've used a bee escape board on our Langstroth hives and they work great. If I had an escape board I'd use it instead. I've decided to super and not nadir from now on. My bees never go down just up. If you set the box outside you'll attract bees from other hives - not something I would do. As soon as I pull boxes I cover them up quickly with a plastic sheet. 
Good luck! 
BJ


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## johnsof

If you have a bee escape board and find that after 6-8 hours or so you still have a number of bees in the box, then it's likely you have brood in that box.

I nadir a box first thing in the spring and after that I super rather than nadir. The queen seems to want to go down but the workers certainly don't. Around mid-spring when the hive is really starting to pack with bees I tend to reverse the bottom two boxes and super as required.

A couple of days ago I have taken a full box of honey off of two of three overwintered hives and will take another one from the third hive probably this weekend. I'm up to 6 boxes high on one hive and 5 on the others, I really don't like to be so high as the hives get a little tippy. I have switched over to frames rather than top bars, it has simplified monkeying around with the hives quite a lot. I average about 1.6 kilos of weight on a capped frame, that works out to be 1.2 kilos of honey and wax per frame, so about 2 to 2.5 lbs of honey per frame. Not too bad, that's maybe 20 lbs per each box, good enough for a hobbyist. And you have to consider where I am (nearby Minneapolis-St. Paul) and it's just getting warm, the heavy flow hasn't started yet. I expect to take a box of honey per hive probably every couple of weeks until the flow slows down.


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## Groves

johnsof said:


> I expect to take a box of honey per hive probably every couple of weeks until the flow slows down.


How many boxes per hive to you expect to take total, then?


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## BernhardHeuvel

Me, too, use an escape board with the Nicot escape (diamond shape) and a leaf blower. The leaf blower only is used to get the last five to ten bees out. 

It is important to give them some space below the escape board, so the bees can cluster there. Makes a fine opportunity for an artificial swarm, too. Just shake off the cluster into a new hive. Wait for two hours, add a queen and feed.


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## BernhardHeuvel

I made the wooden ring of the bee escape higher, about of 7 cm height. (2.76 inches) So the bees have enough room to cluster underneath the bee escape without the need to put an empty super below it. 









Stapling a wooden sheet on it. Cutting a hole into it. About 10 cm/4 inches wide. Better a bit smaller.









From beneath I staple in the Nicot bee escape which I found worked the best for me. 









Early in the morning, right after sunrise, set the lid on the ground, set the supers on the lid, ...









... install the bee escape and put back on the honey supers and lids.









At noon you remove the supers, blow out the few bees that are left in the supers with a leaf blower. Carefully. If you want the supers almost completely empty, leave on 24 hours. Morning to morning. Morning because bees could put fresh nectar in it during daytime and if you install the escapes in the morning, the nectar was dried overnight.









Most of the bees that were in the honey super cluster right below the bee escape. You can use them for artificial swarms.









Pull home the honey supers.


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## BernhardHeuvel

On the next day, just before sunset, I give back the empty honey supers. You can give them back in daylight, if it is raining. You don't put those honey supers on at daylight, because they are wet dripping from honey and that could cause a robbing frenzy.

Preparation:


















Some hives are bearding at the entrance because they've got lots of bees. 









Set the bee escape to the side, on a lid or so, put the honey supers on, and put back the bee escape. This way the bees, which cling to the underside of the bee escape, are drawn down into the honey supers and thus leave the bee escape on it's own. One could shake them down, if you are in a hurry, but it is more gentle if you let them go down by themself.









Next day you find this: 









Or this:




































Worst case is, all bees are still there. In this case you give the bee escape a sharp hit or shake, until all bees dropped down on the topbars and with a bit of a smoke they go down quickly.


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## Harley Craig

Benard, you got one brood box and that many supers? How did the queens not move up? You using excluders, didn't notice any in your pics


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