An easy swarm

I spoke about our heroic attempt to capture a swarm last year.

This year, we thought we will be ready. I have been lusting after a top-bar hive. Rather than the hole-in-a-wall system that we have, the top-bar makes it easy to separate brood and honey cells and to access them with minimum disturbance. At present, to access the honey, we need to remove all the new combs, which is distressing and wasteful.

Life got in the way though, and we still have not gotten around to building one. The bees got tired of waiting and took matters into their own hands. Remember that  old Langstroth hive I had 'borrowed' from A and cleaned last year? They all moved into that.

Mian and I were having coffee, and I noticed a lot of activity. The bees were swarming! It was a short move- just 10 feet away. And they were settled down in just a half hour.

And now for the top bar hive, which Mian still wants to build. As I now have on record.

Honey!

It started when G came and told us his hive had yielded 4kg of honey. So far, our total yield over the last few years has been 200 gms. We would check our bees, we decided.

I spent the morning sewing a veil onto my sun hat. The next day, G came over with some clay to seal up the hive again, we cut up a cotton towel to burn for smoke, and gathered our bee-broom and knife.

G opened the hive as Mian and I hovered anxiously by. The first feeling was disappointment, the comb in front of us was empty.

 The second was concern. The back of the door was covered in what we thought was water but turned out to be some sort of transparent slime. Does anyone know what it is? I tasted it (not a good idea with an unknown substance, please don't do as I do) and it was tasteless. Will it harm the bees? Is it a mould?

and then of course, it was decision time. To take the honey or not? G sliced off the first two empty combs as I held the smoker, a plate, and a torch. The remaining combs did have honey.

We took two, and had a debate whether to take another one or not. Not, we decided and left the bees with three combs to tide them over the winter (I also feed them jaggery once all the flowers are gone).

Once that was done, G sealed up the hive again while I trundled back and forth carrying the bees that were trapped in the window to the porch.

Once that was done, I went to begin straining the honey and was startled by a rhythmic movement in the bowl. Part of the combs were brood combs. Now that was awkward. And very upsetting.

Too late to undo that.

Here is our harvest-
The honey combs

 And the unfortunate 'waste'

I will render the empty combs we removed down to beeswax and make some Christmas gifts, but the brood comb is too difficult (and yucky) to clarify properly. I will just throw those away, I am afraid.
After I separated the brood comb from the honey comb, I began to clarify the honey. And that is another story.