Читать книгу Honey For Dummies - Howland Blackiston - Страница 33

Generally speaking, beekeepers (whether hobbyist or commercial) harvest their honey at the conclusion of a substantial nectar flow and when the hive is filled with cured and capped honey (see Figure 2-4). Conditions and circumstances and timing vary greatly across the country.

Photo by C. Marina Marchese

FIGURE 2-4: This frame is ready to harvest, as the bees have filled nearly every cell with cured honey and sealed each cell with a white capping of beeswax.

The honey that is taken from the beehive is considered surplus honey. This term refers to the honey that’s beyond what the bees need for their own consumption. This extra amount of honey is what the beekeeper can safely harvest from the hive without creating trouble for the colony (See Figure 2-5 for the components of a typical beehive).The bees may not have known at the time, but they made the surplus just for you and me! On average, a hive produces about 65 pounds of surplus honey each season. There is more in a really good season. Like farming, the yield all depends on the robustness of the bees, weather, rainfall, available forage, and other variable circumstances. Most are beyond the beekeeper’s control.

Courtesy of Howland Blackiston

FIGURE 2-5: This illustration shows the anatomy of a typical beehive. The surplus honey that is harvested comes from the top boxes, called “honey supers.”