Bottle-to-Bottle Honey Production | Contactless Beekeeping
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About the Author: NC Scout
NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .
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GUNS N GEAR
That’s a really cool idea. I’ve been doing feral honeybee removal for a few years now, and I’m continually astonished by the myriad of weird locations they decide to set up shop in. My favorite one was inside an outdoor couch. We’ve also got a couple stump hives and a wine barrel full of bees that we just picked up and drove home with instead of doing a cutout. They seem to be doing fine. We only run feral survivor stock, they’re not as fragile as pure domestics in our experience. Back on topic, bottles are definitely an interesting idea with some very intriguing advantages: Theynlook a lot easier to DIY and are cheaper than Langstroth hives, although lacking some of their advantages. It’s almost like a re-evolution of the skep. But if you like eating comb honey like a pharaoh as much as I do, it’s not much of a problem. I’m in a fairly dry climate, so we haven’t had much trouble with the mild he’s so concerned about. Not an expert, so dunno how big of a deal it’d actually be, but I’d be worried about microplastics. Also (and it might be my crappy screen) some of that honey he was crushing at the beginning didn’t look capped, hope he knows that and was just doing a process demonstration.
remind me what it means if the comb is uncapped?
Capped honey essentially means that the bees completed the entire process; after the nectar has the enzymes added they put a wax cap over it to kind of seal it in. Once honey has been capped, it will last literally indefinitely. It’s the reason that people could eat honey out of the periods. If you harvest it before the bees capped most of it it might spoil. Generally we’ll only harvest a frame if it’s at least 75% capped, that’s good enough that it won’t spoil. Ever.
*pyramids, damn phone
Intriguing idea, and I like the robustness of feral bees too.
But in Ohio and other states, the beekeeper is forbidden by law to maintain hives
like that in bottles where the combs cannot be removed for inspection.
YMMV
When I started beekeeping 8 years ago it was with top bar hives. Currently have langstroth hives. I always had Carniolian bees and now have feral bees that were caught from swarming. Its great because everyone freaks out about them, and happy you take them, but they are extremely docile to handle. Easy treasure. Best part is they are free and as others said, more hardy. This looks totally cool and gonna try it out.