This month our apiary training session looked at what we need to do to prepare a hive ready for extract honey.

We need to look for super frames that are fully capped, this ensures the honey is ready for putting into jars as the water content will be below 18-20%

If you extract honey from supers that are not fully capped it is best to test it using a refractometer to check the water content.

We need to clear the bees from the supers and to do this we use a clearer board

In our apiary we tend to use boards with a rhombus style clearer fitted. They seem to work well and pretty quickly.