Red Bee Lights And A Mega Honey Harvest!

Hey everyone, did you have a fantastic weekend? Mine was pretty chilled, I love 'chillin'. Did you check out my last video where I showed us harvesting some delectable honey from a really big swarm of ours around 20kms from where I reside? If not check it out here very interesting indeed: https://steemit.com/homesteading/@craigcryptoking/45-kg-s-of-honey-harvested

This was such an incredible evening. We have had quiet a bad year for honey sadly, as the weather (too much or too little rain) has played havoc with the bees and honey-flow. However on this exciting night that all changed!

We have not harvested honey from this site in over a year, no honey-flow = no harvest, so just let the bees be up and until all order was restored and nectare returned and so it did and in abundance!

This is quiet a rare and privileged sight. Normally when you open a langstroth hive (more here as per wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langstroth_hive) you see only many wooden frames and lots of bees. This evening was different, very different...

As we opened the hive saw only honey wax millions of bees and no wooden frames, BUT what was going on? This is an amazing sign of incredible honey flow. When bees have an abundance of nectar and no space to store any more honey reserves, they simply start new combs between the lid and the frames, this space is called bee-space. This swarm was so big and powerful and the honey flow so good had we not harvested when we did we risked the possibility of losing half the swarm. As they grow too big for hives half or up to 60% of the swarm may leave to 'greener pastures' to make space in the hive and naturally secure the survival of the species, isn't nature just too amazing for words?

Here my landlord and bee partner (Wynand) was gently smoking the bees to calm them down, they generally feel threatened when there is smoked in the vicinity so tend to gorge themselves full of honey which has a calming affect on them. Ten minutes and we have replaced all their frames closed the lid and we are gone for them to calm down and carry on as they were!

Above: myself taking a quick shameless selfie and below my Landlord working another frame as I play 'cameraman' we really need to get a professional photographer at some stage to take some action pics of us some night on another bee adventure, it is tough to do so whilst working bees at the same time!

We recently just got some amazing red headlights, in the past we used to battle with handheld torches which really was not a good idea based on the fact that you always had 1 hand full with a torch. Tonight with these new head-lamps really was a game changer, my landlord and myself work very well together him pulling out the frames whilst I get the next frame ready to be put back into the super as well as brushing off bees on the full frame!

The last pic I took of the inside of the lid where they had attached their combs with all the excess honey. Whilst we are working on the bees we put the lid horizontally next to the door so all bees on the lid can slowly make their way back into their hive. Those still left on the lid we simply brush off back into the hive and replace the lid there after!

Nice hey? Bee-keeping really is such an honour. I trust you have an amazing week and be sure to stay tuned for more of my epic bee-keeping adventures!

Cheer$;)