June Harvest

louvred comb

On Sunday I harvested two supers of honey from Colony 1. They had filled three supers during the spring and had started building comb on top of the crown board.

Harvesting is fairly straightforward now. Cut; spin; strain; put into containers. Easy.

At the edge of one of the supers there was some louvred comb. This is where the bees cross-comb at the edge, reorienting their comb in a direction which looks like it's part of a circle. I cut this out. It's one of the downsides of comb without foundation. Over time I'm building up straight comb to put back into the hives so this happens less.

I also successfully extracted the foundationless comb without any damage to the comb: spin slowing on each side. Then a second spin on each side to get the remainder.