Super Wonky

July Harvest: 9 3/4 lbs. (4 for us and the rest for the girls)

Some say that managing a Top Bar Hive is more intensive than a Langstroth. Instead of pulling off a 30+lb. super all at once, harvesting honey from a TBH is done in increments. As the hive gets full, you pull out a comb or two of honey and replace them with empty top bars. Repeat as necessary. In my opinion, the management of a TBH is easier because there's way fewer bees to deal with on a couple of combs versus 10 frames.

Our hive is definitely full. These are the combs from the very back of the box. Unfortunately, the girls joined them together and attached them to the false back to boot. Not realizing this, I made a mess trying to pull out just one. But they were really nice about it and let us take both combs without incident. We'll cut off the wonky parts, and give them back the straight parts.

We'll store them in the freezer until sometime in August, when we start prepping for Winter. Yes, Winter. It was 97°F on Saturday, but we beekeepers are always concerned about having enough stores to survive the next Winter. There's probably 15 lbs of honey still in the hive, but we want them to have at least 30lbs by Labor Day.

So what of the super? BB lifted it up, and here's what's up...

I'm very relieved that the queen did not go up and lay eggs, but Wow! is this comb a mess.

The honey is not harvestable, yet. We're going to give 'em a couple of weeks to continue feasting on Lindens. When the flow is over and the cells are capped over, we'll pull the super off.