Saturday, July 17, 2010

Checking Supers

I was out checking supers yesterday. I had to come up with some more supers. Most of my hives have 4 supers on them, a few have 5 and six. Of course I have a couple bad performers that have one super with nothing in it. There is really nothing else going on other than dealing with cut comb.
I have pulled my cut comb as it gets capped. If the cut comb is left on to long the capped wax will get a yellowish color called pollen stain that is from the bees traveling over it. While there is nothing wrong with this, a nice white capped comb section does sell better. Remember when pulling off comb honey it is important to stuff green grass in the spout of the smoker. This acts as a filter to prevent little pieces of black charcoal from landing on the comb honey. The small amounts of charcoal are easy to spot on the white comb and difficult to remove.