Monthly Archives: March 2014

31 Mar

EXTRACTED vs FULLY CAPPED raw honey frame weights review

Dear viewers,



Thank you for visiting. We did a little honey production/extraction experiment in this video and wanted to share it with you. It is suitable mostly for new hobby farm or city backyard beekeepers, but it may also be useful to the experienced and well seasoned beekeeping networks. 



Its all about yield when dealing with honey production, and selecting the most suitable frames and hive setup is very important. Many factors need to be considered: Your hive yard apiary location, your type of bees, your health and ability to carry the heavy honey supers, your capacity to extract and process large or small quantities of fresh honey and residual wax cappings, your extraction equipment, what product you are aiming to produce, and the list goes on. So, there is no “right” or “wrong” way do be a beekeeper and everyone has different views, needs and experience. The best you can hope for, is to implement the most optimal setup and environment for your circumstance and hope that remains constant for you as long as possible. But even then things will ultimately change as time goes by, as your hive numbers fluctuate, weather patterns change, and your circumstances change as a whole. So please, take all of our videos with a grain of salt, as nothing is set in stone. If you see a better way or have experience with similar situations, we encourage you to drop us a line in the comments below and share with the beekeeping community at large. This is fantastic hobby, and the bees need our assistance more than ever, so let’s aim to get as many people involved as possible and assist them along the way. 



So, back to the video:

We took two raw honey frame types, 

1) the “ideal” which is a two thirds in size when compared to a full deep honey frames, and

2) the full deep frames of raw honey that most professional and or commercial beekeepers use. 

We had one extracted and not extracted of each, and weighed them on our very accurate postage digital scales. Interesting outcomes. Plenty to discuss and debate in the comments below, so we invite anyone to add their experience, feedback or elaborate on this topic. It would be interesting to see what other beekeepers think and what their experience is with both frame styles and their honey harvests from each. 



If you are enjoying our beekeeping videos, we invite you to support us by subscribing and sharing with others. It helps us greatly to grow this channel.



Have a fantastic day

Mahakobees

http://www.mahakobees.com

30 Mar

Decapping fresh honey frame wax cappings with hot knife closeup

Decapping fresh honey frame wax cappings with hot knife closeup

This is a short clip of a fresh honey bee full timber frame being decapped with an electric hot knife. Rather a slow process, especially where the wax and comb have not been built up by the honey bees over and above the timber top and bottom bars. Those areas we decap with a decapping fork. We find the electric hot knife sufficient, but perhaps a steam hot knife would be better. Also a larger version would be nice. This one is cooled too quickly and does not reheat fast enough, so its slow and your hands get rather sore after a while. Before running the hot knife just under the wax cappings, we use a blunt knife to clean the frames and have them ready for use in the hives. This frame is a very light coloured but absolutely delicious tasting raw honey. 



I may do a video later showing the entire process and the setup we have. Beekeeping is a great hobby, and we are only just learning so any feedback or suggestions are very welcome.



Have a buzzing day

MahakoBees

29 Mar

INGENIUS IDEA! No more back or shoulder pain


Dear viewers,

This short video explains the use of a simple thing – just a SCREW to be exact – which literally will revolutionize the way you remove bees wax cappings from your honey frames. This is not my original idea, but I cannot recall where I have seen it in the past. Check out the video to see what I mean. Absolute MUST for small home hobby beekeeper.


A little more detail:

1)
we recommend you use a stainless steel screw as you are dealing with a consumable food, and it is raw, unprocessed honey, so stainless steel is a must in our mind.


2)
use a screw that is at least 5 cm in length (2 inches), depending on your thickness of the timber cross bar, and the type of frames you are using. You can’t go wrong by testing. Simply place the frame onto the screw, and rotate it in its fully vertical position. If it does not catch on the wooden cross bar, you got it just right. You may need to adjust by trial and error.


3)
We find this method is fantastic, simple, and saves you lots of back and wrist pains. You do not have to carry or continually counter weight the full capped honey frame, which can sometimes way up to 4 kilograms. However, having said that, it is still a relatively slow part of the honey extraction process and not suitable for any larger quantities of honey frames. If you have only a few hives, this is fine in a small hobbyist style homesteading environment, but the commercial decappers are far superior. Cost is probably the limiting factor, then space, and honey supply/demand that makes the commercial justification a little difficult to satisfy.

Please leave your comments below, we would love to hear from you, ask questions, and share your thoughts. We would love to hear from you.

We invite you to share our videos if you find them useful and quietly hope you can also click the subscribe and like buttons to help us grow this channel. Thank you in advance.

Enjoy your day or evening
MahakoBees


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