# Not seeing much discussion on harvests- how's everyone doing?



## groffja (May 27, 2013)

Discuss.


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

Haven't pulled mine off yet, but at last nights Meck B Assn meeting. Everyone was talking huge #'s and saying the "flowing is still going".


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## cg3 (Jan 16, 2011)

Southeast Ohio. Cold Spring, no early crop. Dry Summer, poor harvest.


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

Southern IL, the girls are doing OK but all the early cool, wet weather seemed to be detrimental. Like cg3 I'm not seeing much to write home about. Hopefully fall will better.


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## groffja (May 27, 2013)

This is my 2nd year, and I ask because I really don't know what a realistic harvest should be. I've got 3 tbh's and have harvested a few bars here and there, but nothing too impressive, yet


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

I am not far from cg3 and I am seeing the same thing he is, my hives gained their wintering weight by the end of our spring flow then it was over, we will see if the Fall flow brings anything.


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## garusher (May 28, 2012)

I have not harvested anything yet, however i feel the bees have not stopped bringing nectar in since spring. this morning on the drive to work i see even more yellow flowers, black eyed Susans etc. The indeterminate soyabean are starting to flower and i have the cotton to come. Currently most of my production hives are in 3 deeps with the occasional 4 deeps. I've inspected them and they have capped honey, just need to press the button on that 20 frame dadant. today might just bee that day.

G.


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## matt1954 (Sep 8, 2010)

CG3, I have 600 colonies on pollination in North Central Ohio and I am very impressed with what I am seeing. Colonies are so honeybound and filled with brood that we had to make another 100 splits. We put honey supers on and are going back this week to look at them. The honey is almost clear with only one yard looking like it has darker honey in it. We are pollinating cukes, eggplant, squash, etc.


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## cg3 (Jan 16, 2011)

matt1954 said:


> CG3, I have 600 colonies on pollination in North Central Ohio and I am very impressed with what I am seeing.


Thanks for cheering me up. 
I'm in a forested area. The majority of our forage is trees. The early stuff didn't bloom this year. Honey is pretty dark.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

CG3. I am slightly north and an hour east of you and in spite of the late spring I am having the best year in a long time. We are not done pulling supers yet, but even our spring splits have full supers. We pulled from our hives on a buckwheat field which is notorious for short yields and have bumper crops of the black gold. 
Funny how a scant 80 miles can make such a difference. We have and still do have had a very wet year so far. If you can believe this, The goldenrod is starting to bloom here already. Just bring a few hives on over. we'll get them full for ya!


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## mppatriots (Jun 11, 2013)

The flow seems to be constant here in western mass. This is my second year and so far it seems that they just keep producing more honey. My problem is that the honey doesn't seem to sell fast enough. Drowning in honey could be a problem soon.


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## mala54 (Jul 18, 2014)

I harvested 3 1/2 pints of honey(capped comb) this week from 1 hive. This was all on 1 bar. Bees are very active, bringing in pollen and nectar. I should be able to harvest again before winter gets here.


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## Hollywood Bees (Jun 3, 2014)

Send some this way!! 



mppatriots said:


> The flow seems to be constant here in western mass. This is my second year and so far it seems that they just keep producing more honey. My problem is that the honey doesn't seem to sell fast enough. Drowning in honey could be a problem soon.


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## jamneff (Mar 5, 2012)

In southeast Pa, I have 2 hives, I pulled some frames from both hives, I crushed and strained, I got about 70lbs. I put the frames back in the hives about 2 weeks ago. I checked them yesterday, both have built out the frames again, filled and capped them. I am going to put a super on both of these hives. I am planning on building an extractor in the next few weeks and then pulling all the extra and extracting them.


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

I am more than ready for a decent spring flow and harvest, I haven't seen one for such a long time that I am forgetting what they are like. Next year has just got to be the year, all I have now are bees in waiting and me with far off dreams of what could be. .


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## HappyBeeing (Apr 6, 2013)

This Spring when flow began I got 1/2 gallon from last year's TB hive's bees extra stores(honey in partially filled combs from last Fall). 3 partial combs gave medium color brownish-orange and wonderful flavored honey. They built up so fast I split them, so I won't be taking any more from them.
In June I got a full dark 1/2 gallon+pint (like buckwheat "takes getting used to" Strong) honey comb from my April package! They built it on the first bar(it had a spacer in front making it a little wider)so I replaced it with the pollen bar that came next and put a blank in 2nd. First Full size white capped comb on both sides I'd gotten! That hive was 2/3 full with the rest of it lots of brood with honey on top. Our flows for this great-blooming year are slowing down so I won't be taking anymore unless I need to make space for the queen.Last year I had to feed a real dry Summer dearth and Fall didn't yield more than what the bees needed for winter so it's "wait and see".


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## Bee Clause (Jun 8, 2014)

I cannot speak for anyone else since I am new to beekeeping and haven't made any local honeybee connections yet. But, here in eastern NC, my hive is doing fantastic IMHO. If I was to include the honey in the cutouts and what drained from the wax, I got a little over a quart of honey from one bar. There are still 4 more bars I left in there and they haven't shown signs of slowing down. They even back filled brood comb. I hope everyone else is doing good.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Great year all around. Normally our summer dearth starts in June. I put stickies on to be cleaned last week and instead many have been refilled with nectar.


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Not bad. I'm going to pull some this weekend I think.


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## NCbeek (Mar 23, 2011)

Not bad. Average is 40# per hive so far. Some were splits. Some still on the hive but may leave it in case of another long cold winter.


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## keswickb (Jun 8, 2012)

I got 100lbs from three hives in June.I have honey supers on two hives now, hope too get some sourwood.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I am in northern Ontario. I have just been combining some nucs and new hives and looking over the honey supers; not happy.  I extracted a weighed 120 lbs. total of honey around the end of Aug. from 4 overwinterd hives. I am embarrassed by the predictions I made then about the next extraction. I have a lot of frames only partially capped and the bees are making very little progress. They are not putting it in the brood boxes either! Looks like I will definitely be into feeding sugar syrup. Our night time temperatures have been just around 50F. and not many days over 75F. Will be getting a refractometer next week and do a test to see what the water content is in the partially capped frames.


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## bwdenen (Feb 3, 2012)

I'm in South Central Ohio. Have 6 hives, 4 mature and 2 from new packages started in the Spring. Went out last week for a routine inspection and ended up pulling 50 framed of nearly 100% capped honey. Extracted between 170-180 pounds. Got about 60 pound of light from the new hives and the rest was pretty dark. Still a lot of frames wit 50% or less capped. Also found 2 of the 6 have no queens.


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## Country Roots (Jul 30, 2014)

matt1954 said:


> CG3, I have 600 colonies on pollination in North Central Ohio and I am very impressed with what I am seeing...


Up here around the Findlay area, my buddy at work says it's a record year for his hive. However, none of the bees visiting my clover patch seem to be loaded down too heavily...


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## mppatriots (Jun 11, 2013)

The honey flow here appears to have ended. Do you guys just simply pull the super or do you replace it so your bees are not crammed in there?


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

Worst year I've ever seen, was better my first year when we started packages on foundation.
Most beeks are blaming the drought.


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## Thomassen (Jul 6, 2014)

Nothing in Oakland, CA, yet.


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