A talk on harvesting and processing honey that I gave at the 2015 Heartland Apiculture Society Conference in Albion, Michigan.

1. HARVESTING AND HANDLING HONEY
FOR HOBBY AND SIDELINE BEEKEEPERS
JONATHAN R. ENGELSMA, PH.D.

2. TOPICS
• About Us
• Producing Honey
• Harvesting Honey
• Handling Honey

4. QUICK FACTS
• We are a family of nine from Nunica, MI
• Mieke and Jonathan share a background in agriculture
• Jonathan works as a prof in GVSU’s School of Computing and starting
keeping bees in 1984.
• Family runs a sideline bee operation
• run 40-60 colonies mainly for honey production
• retail the annual honey crop
• sell nucs when able.
• Website: http://hudsonvillehoney.com

5. HONEY PRODUCTION -
PREREQUISITES
• Scout for good yard
locations and place
colonies prior to main
honey flow.
• Make sure colonies are
strong and healthy prior
to main nectar flow.
• Make sure equipment is
assembled and ready
prior to main honey flow.

6. LOCATION, LOCATION,
LOCATION
• Scout a year or more in
advance for good locations.
• Take good care of the
landowners and their land.
• Respect existing bee yards.
• Do the math when
establishing remote yards.

7. STRONG AND HEALTHY
COLONIES
• Good queens
• Encourage early spring
buildup.
• Equalize colonies
• Monitor and keep mite
populations in check!
• Keep a decent inventory
of nucs on hand.

8. HONEY PRODUCTION
EQUIPMENT
• Decide what kind of
honey you are going to
produce.
• Purchase / assemble
supers & frames for
surplus honey in advance
of honey flow.
• Better to have more
supers than you think you
need!

9. PRODUCING CUT COMB HONEY
• Minimal amount of
standard equipment
required!
• standard honey supers /
frames with “thin
surplus” foundation
• bee brush to free comb
of bees
• sharp knife to cut into
sections

10. CUT COMB ALONG SIDE
EXTRACT HONEY PRODUCTION
• Intersperse marked comb
honey frames within
extract supers.
• share the pain of
drawing out foundation
across all your colonies
• Use irregular shaped or
partially capped sections
to produce “chunk
honey”.

11. HANDLING CUT COMB HONEY
• Harvest from hive as soon as
capped.
• Cut and allow edges to drip
dry.
• use clean queen excluder
over a commercial
serving pan.
• Package and freeze for 24
hours to kill any wax moth /
hive beetle larva.
• Market / use before it
crystallizes!

12. ALTERNATIVES TO CUT COMB
• Ross Rounds / Bassword /
Hogg Sections
• Hard to get bees to
work in the sections
• Equipment is much
more expensive
• Must read: “Honey in the
Comb” by Eugene Killon.
Dadaist & Sons.

13. EQUIPMENT FOR EXTRACT
HONEY PRODUCTION
• What size supers should be
used?
• deeps - back breakers!
• shallows - easy enough
for a healthy adult to lift,
stack, etc.
• mediums - a little heavier
than a shallow, but still
manageable.
• We use wired foundation
and embed horizontal
wires … most of the time.

14. SUPERING
• Start adding super(s) in spring
when the brood chamber(s) are
~ 70 - 80% full of bees/brood/
food.
• Whitening of the combs means
the honey flow is on!
• Several options to consider:
• Add all supers at once!
• Bottom supering - add supers
under existing supers
sequentially as needed.
• Top Supering - add supers
directly on top of existing
supers

15. WHEN TO HARVEST HONEY
• When to harvest?
• Not before it is (mostly)
capped.
• When the main nectar
flow has ended.
• Allow yourself time to
knock back the mites!

16. MOISTURE CONTENT IN HONEY
• Refractometer: device
used to measure moisture
content in honey.
• Should be about 16-18.5%
• > 18.5% the honey will
ferment!
• Good rule of thumb is to
harvest honey when it is
mostly capped.

17. HARVESTING HONEY (1)
• For the hobby beekeeper
(< 5 hives).
• use a bee brush to
remove bees.
• bee escape (takes 24
hours)

18. HARVESTING HONEY (2)
• For the sideliner with
more hives:
• fume boards with a
fumigant
• clears the supers of
bees in minutes
• blower is handy to
remove bees clinging to
brood (inevitable if you
don’t use excluders…)

19. HARVESTING TIPS
• Which fumigant?
• Bee Go - very effective,
but stinks terribly and
so will you when you’re
done!
• Bee Quick - made of
non toxic natural oils
and herbal extracts.
Smells is tolerable and
works fine.

20. MORE HARVESTING TIPS…
• Watch the weather forecast
and harvest on a nice warm
sunny day.
• Paint your fume boards black
to absorb heat and work more
effectively.
• Have enough fume boards for
speedy super removal (we
plan on 1 board for every 4
hives).
• If loading on a truck or trailer,
always cover harvested honey
immediately to avoid robbing.

21. HONEY EXTRACTING FACILITY
• Some very important requirements
for honey extracting facilities:
• Must be “bee tight”. Very
important or you will have an
out of control disaster and lots
of competition for your honey!
• A warm room: like molasses,
honey doesn’t flow if its not
warm!
• The proper electrical service if
you are running powered
equipment.
• An abundance of hot water to
facilitate clean up

23. OUR EXTRACTION PROCESS
• Typical Extracting Day:
• 9am - 10am: make sure we
have enough buckets for
the day. hook up trailer,
load fume boards, etc.
• 10am - 1pm: remove
around 50 supers, 1 - 1.2k
pounds of honey
• 1pm - 8 pm: immediately
extract the honey while it
is still nice and warm!

24. EXTRACTORS
• For the hobby beekeeper (< 10
colonies)
• A hand powered 2-4 frame
extractor ($300 - $400) will
suffice.
• For the larger hobby / sideline
operation:
• powered 8+ frame extractor
($1,000+)
• Radial vs. tangential extractors

25. THE UNCAPPING PROCESS
• For the hobby beekeeper
(< 5 hives)
• Cold knife or capping
scratcher ($5 - $20)
• For larger hobby / sideliner
(< 60 hives)
• hot knife/plane will
suffice ($120)
• For larger sideliner, you’ll
want something less labor
intensive and more
efficient…

26. PROCESSING THE CAPPINGS
• Possibly your biggest bottleneck!
• Hobby Beekeeper (< 5 hives)
• Build your own solar wax
melter! (< $50)
• Larger Hobby / Sideliner
• Walter T. Kelley’s Capping
Melter / Separator ($600)
• Maxant Jr. Capping Spinner
($1500)
Steve Tilman’s Solar Wax Melter - http://www.michiganbees.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Solar-Wax-Melter_20100727.pdf

27. PROCESSING THE HONEY
• Our current process:
• screen strain immediately
out of the extractor to
remove larger debris.
• immediately filter with a
400 or 600 micron filter
while still warm from the
hive (sold as raw unheated
honey)
• Remaining honey is put into
50 gallon buckets and
warmed / filtered (400
micron) bottled as needed.

28. SCALING UP
Source: http://www.maxantindustries.com/pdfs/packages.pdf

29. DECRYSTALLIZING HONEY
• For the hobby beekeeper:
• put honey container in a pan
of water on stove with burner
on low for several hours.
• dashboard of vehicle parked
in the sunshine?
• Siderliner:
• for buckets use a round pail
heater to liquify overnight
($110)
• Similar (but larger) heating
bands can be used for honey
stored in drums.

30. BOTTLING HONEY
• For the hobby beekeeper
• Use a 5 gallon bucket
with a gate on the
bottom. ($15)
• For the sideline
beekeeper:
• We use a 16 gallon
Maxant bottling tank.

31. ANOTHER CONSIDERATION:
CREAMED HONEY
• Easy to make, and honey
customers love it! (Google for
recipes).
• Lessons we learned the hard
way:
• Use a high quality drill (1/2
inch w/ 10.5 amps or more)
for mixing seed honey. ($140)
• Purchase a stainless steel
paint mixer attachment. ($50)
• Mix in a stainless steel
container to avoid plastic
chips in your honey!! ($35)

32. POST EXTRACTION
CONSIDERATIONS
• Prior to storing, place
extracted “wet” supers
outside at least 100 yards
from your apiary to allow
bees to clean them up.
• Protect your stored supers
against wax moth
infestations (and mice).
• Para-Moth crystals
• Wrap / Shrinkwrap

33. SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS
• Don’t be afraid to
experiment and find a
process that works
efficiently (and
economically for you!)
• Learn from your fellow
beekeepers.

34. ANY QUESTIONS?
Jonathan Engelsma’s Contact Info:
• email: jengelsma@gmail.com
• web: http://hudsonvillehoney.com
• twitter.com/honeyandcandles
• Like us! /hudsonvillehoney
• A copy of these slides are posted on:
• http://slideshare.net/jonathanengelsma