Collecting Honey
A day collecting honey generally begins early. When the dawn chill is still in the air, the bees are less active and it is possible to collect the supers without excessive disturbance to the colonies.
The first job is to light the "Smoker" - Smoking the bees is a handling method that Apiarists/Beekeepers have used for a long time.
The Smoker is filled with woodchip and other combustible material like leaves or dried grass.
The Smoker is ignited.
Working the bellows, the fire begins to smoulder, and more combustible material is added on top, creating a slow burn for the required smoke...
Successfully lit, the Smoker can be used to emit controlled puffs of smoke.
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Why Smoke the Bees..?
A brief description of why Beekeepers use smoke in this way is as follows. In a natural setting, a beehive would be positioned in perhaps a hollow tree or log. The only time the bees would encounter smoke would be in the event of a forest fire. This could be a localised fire, depending on weather conditions, or a large and destructive inferno, destroying everything in its path. The bees therefore have developed an evacuation plan. When a colony first encounters some smoke, the bees begin to eat all the honey they possibly can. From honey, their famous primary food source, the bees can generate all they need, energy for flying, wax for building cells, Royal Jelly for feeding potential new queens and so on. If the smoke genuinely preceeded a fire that would destroy their hive, the majority of the bees, with their queen, can swarm off en masse. When the displaced colony finds a new suitable hollow tree or other cavity, they have ready the basic building ingredients to begin construction of the new hive. If however the smoke passes, the colony resumes its normal activities, evacuation unecessary. The only effect on the colony is that there are a lot of very full bees, who are considerably calm with a kind of "after Sunday roast" lethargy!
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Above, a full Super of honey is taken off the Clearer board, which separates it from the rest of the colony. The Clearer boards are inserted a day or two before, once it is established which Supers are full and ready to be collected.
Below, the full Supers are loaded onto the truck..
Below, we see the Clearer board being removed, exposing the filter through which the bees have made their way down into the hive previously, but which does not allow them back up into the Super waiting to be collected. In this way we can take the honey with minimum disruption to the hive.
A little bit of smoke, to maintain calmness in the hive...
..and then the lid can be replaced.
The spare equipment, Clearer boards, and of course the honey, is stacked neatly onto the truck...
..and we're done & ready for the next site!
