This is the second colony we are rehoming with another local beekeeper. It was originally supposed to be collected at the same time as the first nuc but it has now had an extended varroa treatment (using brood removal and bait frames). This has set the development of this colony back considerably but it's now in full health so should easily build up their numbers rapidly over the next few weeks.
I came out at 10:30pm and there were still quite a large number of bees crowding in the entrance and over the front of the nuc. They need to be sealed inside tonight so that it is safe to relocate the whole colony tomorrow morning but I didn't want to squash any with my bung! I decided to come out later at night and try again...
As I walked back to the house I heard a real noise coming from this colony, Dipsy's. I could hear a definite humming noise from both of the other hives but this one was almost roaring!
Peeping inside the entrance explained the noise - the whole left hand side was crammed full of fanning bees! They were all sitting there forcing a cool draught up through the hive. Hopefully this is a good sign of there being a large amount of nectar stored in there to evaporate (nectar is about 80% water but stored honey is less than 20% water).
I came out again just after midnight armed with my handy water mister - there were just two in the front entrance and a quick squirt of the water spray made them disappear inside. Before they realised it was just a trick, not a shower of rain, I bunged up the entrance with a wedge of hessian.
I used a short ratchet-strap in one direction (also holding the entrance bung securely in place), then an elastic bungy cord in the other direction - not nearly as fragile-looking as those lengths of packing tape I used last time!
It was pitch dark by this time of night but I didn't want to leave the nuc standing here until morning - the early morning sun on it could be fatal for all those bees shut up inside with so little ventilation. This meant feeling my way along the darkness carrying the nuc back to the barn, with a torch secured under the strap on top pointing the way!
I made it all the way back with everything still secure and found a good shady spot to leave it until the morning.
It was collected at 11am and they should be out in their new home by lunchtime.
I chose to remove them from Bea's colony - this is the one with the greatest quantity of stores at the moment - I guess that there's about 30lb of surplus honey sitting here right now and there could easily be much more than that by the beginning of August, when we'll be ceasing any harvesting.
This is one of the frames I took out - there were only a handful of bees on it and when I brushed them off they soon lost interest in it. It's a gloomy, gusty day and there were hardly any bees flying - those I brushed off soon disappeared back inside.
With the lid back on the hive, and these two full frames replaced with empty ones, not one single bee hung around to bother me, so I just took them straight indoors.
We got out all the equipment ready - luckily I always have plenty of muslin squares left over from my gigantic marmalade cook-up in February. We had a few empty honey jars (there can't be more than 8lb in these two frames, probably less than 7lb), a sharp knife, a good-sized pyrex bowl, and a regular kitchen seive. I also had to borrow the communal giant preserving pan from next door, so it wasn't technically just equipment we already had in our own kitchen.
The first step is to remove all the comb from the wooden frames by cutting it out over the bowl.
It was easiest to do this is in sections, as the weight of the honey here dropping out can make quite a mess.
The knife sliced thorough the warm comb really easily, no need to heat the knife in warm water even.
With the two frames emptied of all their contents we tried to scrape every last drip from the frames into the bowl.
The huge pan was filled with heated water, then the dish was suspended in it. It's very important not to heat the comb directly because natural wax has a specific 'flashpoint' - if a certain temperature is reached (I forget the exact temp, but it's higher than boiling water) it would just instantly combust - along with all our eyebrows, presumably!
While I attended to the melting, the kids spent a happy few minutes picking over the 'bones' of the empty frames, with sticky fingers and spoons!
I put a plate over the pyrex bowl to keep the heat in and sliced up the comb into small pieces as it softened.
After a few minutes it had all become very soft and easily stirred.
Before long practically every last bit had completely melted, but the wax was quickly solidifying on the surface.
I removed the bowl from the pan and the top surface set very quickly as the air temperature cooled the wax - wax is less dense than honey (as is any dross in it - lumps of pollen, bee legs, etc) so that all floats to the surface, then sets solid. We left it like this for a while for the wax to solidify, then we could continue.
With the wax on the surface cool now, it would be simple to separate from the honey...
... and it just lifted off!
As there was not much wax (surprisingly little, actually), it all broke up as I lifted it off. I removed every bit and placed it with the empty frames for the bees to clean up later.
I returned the honey to the warm water to make it as runny as possible - it still needs to be filtered and it'll be quicker the more runny it is.
I spooned it into the seive, containing two squares of muslin on top of each other, and we funnelled it directly into the empty (and recently sterilised) honey jars.
I'm not much of a honey expert, but it looked just perfect as it poured in.
As soon as one jar was filled up to the 1lb line, we switched to the next one.
Before long. with one of us holding the seive over the funnel and the other refilling it from the bowl, the whole process was almost over - in the end we had about 6 and a half pounds of honey from the two frames (the last few dribbles in the large jar took ages to finish).
We selected two as gifts for the grandparents (with our own home-made labels, of course!), leaving us with a whole 4 and a half pounds of honey - so exciting and so much easier than we were expecting!
10:00 pm There was no sign of movement from the outside at all - I came out about an hour earlier and surprisingly some bees were still flying then.
I stuffed a small chunk of foam padding into the entrance hole.
My proper hive strap is too large to surround this small nuc. I should find a more professional-looking solution for another time, but for now I just secured it tight with packing tape, wound round a few times.
It's not a pretty solution, but it makes sure that nothing could accidentally come loose tomorrow.