Spring honey crop

[Curly green finger's]

Dandelion is easy because the combs are yellow, the honey a much deeper yellow and the flavour distinctive.

The big spring crop I've had (everywhere) is lemony/OSR yellow with white cappings.

Aye some of the frames have dandelion yellow cappings and white on the same frame .
I’m taking 16 brood boxes of on Thursday and they are mixed cappings

 

[Garry R]

Just taken the sealed stuff off 3 hives and ended up with 200lbs but about the same off a couple more and those three not sealed and finished off yet. Just fantastic. Reckon it's hawthorn - very wet so missed out the dandelion althouggh a great show of blossom and we do not have OSR here. Clover and blackberry to go now so a bumper crop hoped for but as ever weather dependant

 

[Helmb1360]

Here are some of the pictures i took when harvesting. Peppa pig managed to sync up with my honey extraction, i was looking after my 2 year old at the time.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Someone’s been busy then , I’m still on apiary 1 hopefully finish clearing them tomorrow.
A good spring crop so far?
We’ve had a lot of rain here planting into the garden is nice for a change.

dandelion then
Hawthorn is in the darker medium scale of colour - just extracted 300 kilos of the stuff, albeit one apiary had a high ratio of dandelion - smellier and much lighter.s

 

[Newbeeneil]

I've extracted about 300kg so far with another 250 next week and about a 100 the week after, still to get round to taking off the spring honey in the smaller apiaries and saw today that the ones I extracted 3-4weeks ago are all refilled so that will be another load. I have never experienced such large crops!

 

[protheroe]

It has been an amazing spring flow for a change.Running out of supers so had to take a week off work to extract.Taken half a ton from four sites with another four to do.Majority is hawthorn.Im going to be in a pickle if we get a good summer flow.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Im going to be in a pickle if we get a good summer flow.

It's starting now - supposed to be a relaxing day today requeening a few hives, the apiary was only inspected six days ago, the first hive to requeen should have been a doddle, really poor layer so far with only a few frames of brood and virtually no stores. opened up and it was jam packed with honey, so packed I was struggling to lift the frames so a quick swapping of some frames for drawn comb. I thought I'd better check the rest. One was given an empty super together with the less than half full super already on her, today it was absolutely jammed with honey, they were even stashing it behinds the dummy board. Same story with the other hives - ran out of kit and had to go home to refill the truck before going to the castle apiary as planned, and even though, going by last week, they shouldn't have needed more space. Each one was begging for a super!

 

[Jon.21]

61kg off 4 hives. First time I have done a spring crop. Last year it was back breaking to leave them on and extract it all at the end of the year and also I fancied separating the taste which is why this year I’m doing spring then summer.

A lot of the super frames were uncapped but I did the shake test to check at the hive and most were ok. Any that shook out I didn’t extract. All samples were below 20% water.

 

[Kaz]

My spring harvest was epic this year, my best hive produced 138+ lbs

 

[fian]

Today in one of the local newspapers there was a news item referring to the resolution of the "London Honey Awards" although I think that they give a medal to all the participants, I was surprised by two facts:
- No UK participants
-5 of the 21 Spanish participants are Galician and of them I know one who is a close neighbor. A few months ago I uploaded a photo with one of their products.

 

[madasafish]

79kg from 4 hives. No OSR just trees and weeds.

 

[Curly green finger's]

42 buckets from one apiary so far a little more to take but frames are not capped so I’m going to leave and extract mixed spring/summer honey .
Starting apiary 2 tomorrow putting clearer boards on now .

Of home at some point to extract a bit more but a bit more leisure like .

I’ve had one super frame partly crystallised and 6 brood frames better than last year even though these colony’s were right next door to osr this season.

The clover scent is lovely now as my honey room is next to 80 acres of it .
Red clover field is starting to flower .

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

42 buckets from one apiary

how many hives? what size buckets?

 

[Curly green finger's]

how many hives? what size buckets?

how many hives? what size buckets?

30 colony’s emyr and 30lb buckets some of the colony’s are only single brood Is that crap?
There’s two brood boxes and 4 supers left to extract.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

not bad this season if they're all single brood

 

[Curly green finger's]

not bad this season if they're all single brood

Not all singles 4 double brood , as I said some of it isn’t capped so I’ve left it on them.
I haven’t worked it out yet as I wanted to finish these few of in the honey room first.

 

[Erichalfbee]

42 buckets from one apiary so far a little more to take but frames are not capped so I’m going to leave and extract mixed spring/summer honey .
Starting apiary 2 tomorrow putting clearer boards on now .

Of home at some point to extract a bit more but a bit more leisure like .

I’ve had one super frame partly crystallised and 6 brood frames better than last year even though these colony’s were right next door to osr this season.

The clover scent is lovely now as my honey room is next to 80 acres of it .
Red clover field is starting to flower .

Your bosses grow 80 acres of clover?

 

[Erichalfbee]

not bad this season if they're all single brood

I’ve managed 480 lbs from 6 colonies. No stopping them though as summer forage is at full tilt. But I reckon if I had 30 here they would be robbing each other

 

[Curly green finger's]

Your bosses grow 80 acres of clover?

They don’t personally but we have a few fields of clover .
Phacelia.
Mixed nectar rich flowers which consists of vetch, dead nettle , fake cabbage , clover im not sure what else is in that field. Some of the headlands are wildflowers on a few fields .
Also this season they are not mowing lawns a few pastures close to the house untill sometime in July they will make some hay from it.

 

[Erichalfbee]

They don’t personally but we have a few fields of clover .
Phacelia.
Mixed nectar rich flowers which consists of vetch, dead nettle , fake cabbage , clover im not sure what else is in that field. Some of the headlands are wildflowers on a few fields .
Also this season they are not mowing lawns a few pastures close to the house untill sometime in July they will make some hay from it.

Is this a hobby? Or a going concern?