Harvesting Honey from Your Beehive

If you’ve asked yourself the questions in our previous PerfectBee Snippet, “Before You Harvest Honey” and feel confident that taking some honey won’t harm your colonies, it’s time to complete the fun & exciting task! 

It’s important to note that the steps and guidance in this Snippet are based on harvesting honey frames from traditional Langstroth style, 8 or 10-frame hives. If you use a non-traditional hive, like a Top Bar Hive, A/Z Hive, or Warre hive (or even a Flow Hive), the process & tools needed to harvest honey may be a bit different and should be adjusted based on the hive manufacturer’s, or other users’, guidance.    

Completing a honey harvest is relatively simple, if you’re prepared and know what tasks you should be completing. Follow the steps below and your honey harvest is sure to flow much easier.  

• Collect Tools & Equipment Needed – Making sure you have all you need when you head out to the bee yard will make things much easier for you and your bees and will ensure you don’t need to run back and forth to the bee shed, saving time and energy. Read on to find out what products you might need during a honey harvest. 
• Stay Protected – Ensure you minimize stress on yourself (and your bees) by keeping calm and moving slowly. Keep your smoker lit (and/or have your bottle of sugar water handy), wear your protective clothing including a hat/veil, and move quickly but calmly. Bees are often a little testy during warmer times of year, especially if robbing is occurring, so keep that in mind!  
• Bee Aware of Robbers – When harvesting honey, you’re exposing the smell of sweet honey to the world, and robbing insects will absolutely be interested! An increase in robbing activity can stress bees, so ensure to keep entrances reduced and the hive covered (with a cloth inner cover) when not actively working in the box.
  • Ensure you do not leave any equipment out in the bee yard that was used for honey harvesting. Any spilled honey or tools with honey on them are a beacon for robbing insects!  
• Time it Right – Harvest on a calm, warm day when bees are a little bit less active. It may help to harvest early-ish in the morning or later in the afternoon when less bees are inside the hive.  
• Removing Honey from the Hive – There are many products (see below) that can help remove bees from honey supers. But once the bees have gone and you’re ready to remove frames or boxes, ensure to do it quickly but calmly. Some bees may follow you, so keep your bee brush handy just in case a few stragglers need to be removed. 
  • If removing just a few frames instead of an entire super, make sure to replace them with empty frames as soon as possible. Bees will build comb in any space not filled with frames, so replacing frames will help to avoid a burr comb mess.  

Removing Honey from Frames

Uncapping Honeycomb Cells

After you’ve removed your supers/frames full of capped honey, bring them quickly to your honey processing space. This area should be clean and protected from other bee and wax moth access, and very warm if possible. It’s helpful to extract honey ASAP after removing it from the hive as it will be warmer and flow a little easier. If frames cannot be extracted right away, make sure you store them properly (read on to learn more about storing frames).  

Then, you’ll need to be able to remove honey from the frames. Since honey cells are sloped downward, it can be tricky to get honey to flow out.  

The first part of getting honey flowing is removing the wax cappings that are on the outside of cells, sealing the honey inside. There are various methods for uncapping honey frames, from the simple option of using a fork that slides under caps & lifts to remove them a few at a time, to the more complex equipment like steam un-cappers, for those who have many frames to uncap.    

Some beekeepers refer to different types of honeycomb caps as either “dry-capped” or “wet-capped” honey. Some comb cappings will have an air pocket between the honey and the capping, creating what’s referred to as a “dry cap”. There is no difference in quality, color, or taste between honey that’s under a wet cap versus a dry one, but the finished and sealed combs do look quite a bit different.   

 When uncapping and extracting honey frames, wet or dry capped honey doesn’t really make a difference as you’ll be uncapping & extracting it anyway, just ensure you’re only extracting from frames that have been 80% capped (or more). If you’re hoping to sell comb honey, many consumers do prefer the clean, crisp whiteness of a dry capped honeycomb section, but wet-capped honey will work perfectly fine for chunk honey.  

Check out the “Learn More” section below for various uncapping products available in the PerfectBee Store and more details about using them to help you uncap your honeycomb cells.   

Honey Extraction

Once cells are uncapped, you’ll need to extract the honey from cells, or remove it from the frames and honeycombs.  

One option that many beekeepers prefer is a manual or electric extractor. These machines work by spinning honey frames in a basket quickly in a circle (after they have been uncapped). Centrifugal force flings the honey out of the cells and against the extractor wall, where it can then be filtered to remove any pollen or bee bits and then bottled. Not all beekeepers filter their honey, but keep in mind that unfiltered “raw” honey does crystallize much quicker!  

If you only have a couple of hives, an extractor isn’t necessary, but it can help make things easier. For those with less frames to extract, a simple uncapping knife or fork and uncapping bucket will do the trick just fine.  

Without an extractor, though, the best method to remove honey from wax combs is to crush and strain it. This, unfortunately, means that all the wax comb bees have worked so very hard to build is not usable again, as it would be with an extractor. Frames can be held upside down to drain honey over something like an uncapping tank, but this method is very time-consuming and only works in a hot room or space.

* One very important thing to keep in mind is having a very clean space to uncap/extract/filter/bottle honey. Do all you can to ensure honey is not contaminated, especially with water. Water that finds its way into honey can cause fermentation, so clean all extracting equipment with soap and water, and then make sure it’s totally dry before you start. *

Check out our products in the “Learn More” section below for more details on the items available to help you harvest and extract honey.

No matter how you choose to extract your honey frames, doing it in a very warm room will help speed the process along. I’m sure many of you have heard the term “slower than molasses”, but a beekeeper extracting honey will tell you that it goes just as slowly!  

Quick Cleanup of Extracted “Wet” Frames 

Super frames that have had honey extracted from them may still have some honey inside cells. To get every bit of honey out and prepare frames for storage (read on to learn more about that), simply return the frames back to the hive and bees will clean up all the leftover honey.  

Place frames inside the super and put it back on top of the hive, over the top of the inner cover. This will give bees the chance to find the source of food and clean up all the remaining honey without attempting to store more honey inside. Leave them for a few days, or until frames are completely dry and ready for storage.  

Storing Honey Frames

If you’ve removed frames or supers from your hive to give bees more room but can’t extract them right away, storing them will ensure pests like wax moths or small hive beetles don’t make a home in the honeycomb.  

To store Langstroth-sized frames filled with honey, they can be sealed in bags like our Freeze Frame Bags and frozen to kill larvae of any pests. To store full supers, make sure to keep them in a cool, dry space and are in a container that is sealed to prevent entry of any pests. Frames from full supers should be frozen for 24 hours (or more) before storage whenever possible.  

Bottling & Selling Honey

Though most of us don’t start beekeeping so that we can make money from our honey harvests, it can be possible if your hives are healthy and strong and plenty of resources are available.  

Whether you hope to sell honey to a commercial supplier or at your local farmers’ market, keep in mind that each state (and even some counties) has strict regulations on how honey should be bottled, labeled, and sold.  

If you hope to sell honey commercially in any regard, do your own research and work with your state/local agricultural agencies, or work with your local beekeeping club, to find out what restrictions may be in place.  

Varietal Honey

Some beekeepers will plant acres of a certain flower, fruit, tree, or plant to ensure bees have a LOT of one nectar source available. This is how some honey can be marketed as things like “blueberry honey” or “buckwheat honey”.  

Because bees will do their best to store the same type of nectar all in one frame (or even in one whole box if there’s a lot of it), it may be possible for you to collect varietal honey from your hives, too!  

If you have a good idea of what’s blooming in your area and when you may be able to time your harvests right when a certain flower is blooming and get some “varietal” honey for yourself. If you think you have a frame or box of varietal honey, do your best to extract it separately from other kinds of honey. 

Learn More

Harvesting honey is a very exciting topic for many beekeepers to learn about. We’ve put together some of our free resources on Harvesting & Extracting honey below if you’d like to explore even more about it.  

Colony Members, read below to find member-only lessons and Colony Forum discussions about these topics.  

• Before You Harvest Honey – This recent Snippet contains the questions you should ask yourself before you complete a honey harvest to ensure the health and success of your bees.
• Intro to Harvesting Honey: Part 1 – All you need to know to get started with a honey harvest if your bees have enough and can spare the honey. Colony Members, find Part 2 of this in the member-only lesson section under “Learn More” below! 
• The Tangible Rewards of Beekeeping – Beekeeping rewards us in many ways, from relieving stress to the topic of the hour, honey! Learn more about the rewards it can offer in our article.  
• Why to Store Frames – Find out more about the reasons you should take care when storing beehive frames, especially when drawn comb or honey are present.  
• How Do Bees Make Honey? –  Check out our article to find out the answer to this thought-provoking question! 
• The Composition of Honey –  Most of us think of it as tasty, but honey is a complex substance. Find out more about what honey’s made of in our article. 
• Honey for Health – Honey’s not just delicious, it has some awesome health benefits, too! Find out about how it might improve your health and happiness with our article. 
• Pollen and Nectar Stores in the Brood Nest – Our Snippet will help you understand what pollen and nectar stores in the brood nest should look like and how to manage it if they are causing a space issue. 
• Nectar Storage and the Honey Ceiling – Bees are sometimes prevented from storing nectar in certain areas above due to a nectar ceiling, find out how to avoid (and fix) it with our Snippet.  
• The Beekeeper’s Role in Avoiding Colony Starvation –  Read our article to learn more about preventing your colony from perishing due to lack of food stores (and how to avoid taking too many of them).  
• The Secrets of Honeycomb – Ahhh, honeycomb… a beautiful and delicate, structurally sound piece of honeybee engineering. But did you know there are some secrets hiding within? Learn more with this fascinating article.  
• A Closer Look at How Bees Make Honey – Our “Outside the Swarm” post examines the way bees go about the process of making honey. 
• Feeding Honeybees – What is Ash Content?  – Thinking of feeding honey back to your bees later, or to another colony? Consider the potential for a high ash content. Learn more in our Snippet. 
• How to Make Honey Sticks –  Honey sticks are the perfect way to transport honey without making a mess. Our article helps explain how you make them, if your bees have enough honey to share with you.

Honey Harvesting & Extraction Equipment in the PerfectBee Store

When harvesting honey, having the right tools can make it a much easier and fun process. We’ve got all that you need in the PerfectBee Store, check out some of our favorite harvesting & extraction equipment below!  

• Escape Board – An escape board is a stress-free option for removing bees from supers. Simply place the board between supers and the brood chamber. Bees will be able to exit the super through the escape screen, but cannot get back in. After a day or so (not more than 48 hours, though), you’ll be able to remove your super but not the bees that would normally be within.  
• Fume Board – Another great way to remove bees from supers, but beware, it is a slightly smelly one! Simply apply a bee repellent to the felt underside of the fume board and place it above the honey supers. Bees move down quickly, leaving supers free of bees & ready to harvest. Using the fume board works best on warm, sunny days, as the sun will help to release the scent. For cooler days, consider using the escape screen above instead.  
• Bee Go – A repellent to apply to your fume board, a small amount of bee go can be extremely repellent. Please note, Bee Go is quite smelly, and not exactly a pleasant scent, to beekeepers and bees. 
• Bee Quick – Bee Quick is considered just as effective as Bee Go when used on warm days with the fume board, but has a much more pleasant scent to beekeepers, at least.   
• Bee Brush – If you’ve used your fume board or escape screen & some bees remain in the supers, keep your bee brush nearby so that you can brush them off frames (or try using a goose feather for a gentler approach).  
• Sure Grip Uncapping Fork – Use this handy fork to scrape cappings from comb before extraction. It’s perfect to keep in your beekeeping toolbox, too, as it can help remove comb quickly when a “honey ceiling” is present.  
• Ultimate Comb Uncapper – A quick and effective way to uncap frames and transfer honey into a food-grade plastic bucket.  
• 10 Frame Lifting Wedge – This wedge will help to lift full honey frames above the box to easily remove them for extraction.  
• Cold Uncapping Knife – Easily remove many cappings at once from frames with this cold uncapping knife.  
• Heated Uncapping Knife – Works like the cold uncapping knife, but with the added heat element, uncapping frames and releasing honey can be much quicker & easier!  
• Heated Uncapping Plane – This heated uncapping plane will really speed up the uncapping process. 
• Uncapping Tank – A great way to uncap frames & separate wax cappings from your honey. The included honey gate allows you to transfer honey to a filtering bucket or straight into a bottle. Don’t forget about the cover! 
• Lyson Hobby Uncapping Tank – For those who need a little bit more room to uncap more frames, the Lyson Hobby Uncapping tank can be a huge help.  
• Stainless Sieve and 6 Gallon Tank – Once frames are uncapped, honey can be filtered and bottled using this tank and sieve.  
• Plastic Double Sieve – Have a bucket and plastic or nylon honey gate already? Simply add this plastic double sieve to help filter your honey, specially designed to ensure honey flows quickly through its large area and double sieves.  
• Pail Holder – A simple tool, but one that can be very helpful! As we know, honey can flow slowly, especially if it’s not warm. The pail holder lets you transfer honey effortlessly from one bucket to another, simply rest the pail holder to allow honey to drain out while you work on other things. 
• Hogg Halfcomb Honey Kit – Comb honey is a great way to showcase the beauty of honeycomb and honey without the mess of extraction and bottling. Simply place the box and cassettes on your hive and bees will build comb and fill it with honey inside the cassettes, forming perfect comb honey sections!  
• Learn more about producing comb honey with these books: Honey in the Comb and Comb Honey Production 
• Lyson Honey Melter – If you have a lot of honey that’s crystallized or starting to, you may need an easy way to melt it, fast! This honey melter may be just what you need.  
• Lyson Sump with Vertical Sieve – Speed up your extraction process with this sump, perfect for removing large wax particles from your extractor’s honey and keeping them away from the honey outlet.  
• 2 Frame Plastic Honey Extractor – An inexpensive way to extract honey for those with just a couple of hives. Includes a plastic honey gate to transfer honey to a bucket for filtering or straight into containers. 
• Lyson Extracting Kit – From uncapping frames to extracting and filtering/bottling, the Lyson extracting kit comes with all you need to extract honey frames!  
• Lyson 4 Frame Extractor – The Lyson 4 frame extractors are the perfect extractors for beekeepers with just a few hives. Available with legs here, or without legs here.  
• Lyson Motor Conversion Kit – Even with the manual hand crank, the Lyson extractors make much easier work of extracting honey. But if you have lots of hives and lots of frames to extract, it may make sense to add a motor to your manual extractor.  
• Honey Super Warmer – Want to warm your supers so that it’s easier and faster to get it to flowing through your filtering and bottling setup? Look no further, this super warmer has you covered!  
• Lyson Steam Uncapper – For those with many hives, a steam uncapper can make much faster and easier work of uncapping frames and saving your wax as it falls into the tank below. 
• Honey Super Kit – You’ve removed honey supers from hives to harvest but bees are still bringing in nectar and need space to fill, now what? Pick up a honey super kit to easily add space to your hive.

Colony Member Resources

Member-Only Academy Lessons

Colony members, check out these member-only Academy lessons to learn more about pollen and nectar resources and how they may impact your bees. 

• Intro to Harvesting Honey: Part 2 – Expanding upon Part 1, this lesson covers many additional aspects of the honey harvesting process. 
• Understanding the Honey Flow – Knowing when resources are available for bees to make honey is crucial to helping them thrive. Learn more about understanding when and how honey flows with this lesson.  
• Tracking Hive Progress & Keeping Records – Tracking hive progress is always important, especially when it comes to how much honey you’ve harvested and when you did so during each season. Find out more about keeping records in this Academy lesson. 
• The Threat of Robbing – Robbing activity can increase while you are harvesting honey, but following the steps in this PerfectBee Snippet can help mitigate that risk.  
• A Detailed Look at the Flow Hive Beehive – The flow hive is an innovative way to harvest honey a little bit at a time, without any extra equipment. Learn more about it in our article.  
• Making Money with Beekeeping – Though not typically in your first year, making money from beekeeping by selling honeybee by-products, like honey, can be possible. Learn about ways to give it a try with our Academy lesson from Course 3 “Reaping the Rewards”.  

Related Colony Forum Posts

Many members on the Colony Forum have asked questions like “When should I harvest honey?” and “Is it safe to harvest honey from my colonies?”

Colony Members, check out just some of the honey harvesting-related discussion threads in the Colony Forum here:

• Really Runny Honey – Jay has honey that’s runnier than he’s ever seen, and it brings up questions like what could cause this? Is it safe to consume?  
• Queen laying mostly in the honey super –  Kelle finds out that her queen may be acting strange because of a dearth. 
• Newbie Honey Super Question –  Can leaving supers on a hive help during a dearth? Jocelyn finds out more with her question. 
• Combining hives –  Patricia asks about combining hives and where the new colony should be placed in relation to her honey supers.  
• New Honey Room in a new barn –  PerfectBee Ambassador Janice shares the story of how she got a brand new, beautiful honey harvesting room. To add to our envy, she shared pictures of the awesome setup, what a dream for any honey harvesting hobbyist beekeeper!  
• Feeding honey in winter –  Can you feed extracted honey to bees in winter? What are the concerns? Jay gets some excellent Ambassador insights in response to his questions.  
• Abandoned Super with capped Honey –  Jason asks about a super that had wax moths, what’s best to get it all cleaned up?  
• Really strange comb development! –  Jay’s bees have built some really wonky comb, making it difficult to figure out how he’ll pull them to harvest, but gets some great input from our Ambassadors.  
• What to do with wet frames –  Kelle gets some great feedback on how to handle wet frames. 
• Practices in Other Countries –  PerfectBee Ambassador Joe shares some interesting beekeeping tools he’s found from other countries to perform tasks like recycling wax cappings.  
• To use foundation frames or non foundation frames –  Brooke asks for thoughts on foundation or foundationless frames and gets some great insight on the pros and cons, especially when it comes to harvesting honey.  
• Adding supers, and a chock full box –  Jocelyn is thrilled to have 2 thriving colonies, but now has questions about storing them. Luckily, our Ambassador William had some great input for her. 

Are you not yet a Colony member but want access to awesome beekeeping resources like the member-only lessons and Forum discussion threads listed above? Head to our Colony page here to learn more about all that’s included with membership and to sign up today!