Yesterday I kept the day free to extract the last honey of the season, before preparing the bees for winter. I think I have about 120 jars of honey sitting in a honey tank, which I will let settle now for 48 hours. Plus I have 3 supers with comb honey which I will cut out tomorrow. I also left a few supers in place which had some honey, but not enough to extract.

I was a bit disappointed how much was in the supers, but was expecting this, as I know honey had been disappearing. July here in Norfolk was cold, grey and wet and I think that as the bees have not been able to get out as much as they would like, they have eaten some of their honey stores. I know one super which was perfectly capped in the hive nearest the house, was now virtually empty when it came to extraction. I am not trying to make a living from this as its only a hobby, so not overly concerned. If the bees need it to survive, then so be it, it was their hard work in the first place.

I placed wet supers back on last night, which I will leave on for 3 days to allow them to clean and take the residue honey down into the brood box. Once I take cleaned supers off, I will get the Apiguard on, to treat each hive for varroa mite.

Once honey has settled I will start filling jars, some as liquid honey and others as chunk honey cut from the comb and overfilled with liquid honey. I need to get these done, then labelled up in time for the Downham Water festival on Sunday, where I have a stand to sell my honey.