How to Harvest Honey at Home

Reader Contribution by Jennifer Ford
article image
Adobe Stock/volff

Learn how to harvest honey at home, including removing honey supers from hives, how to extract honey using an extractor, and storing honey long-term.

I find that beekeeping is rewarding on so many levels — and one of the more tangible rewards is honey. Thanks to the warm weather and plentiful rain, the bees in our 18-hive apiary have been filling up our honey supers almost as fast as we can put them on! A few months ago, we started adding honey supers to our strongest hives. As the spring dandelions and maple trees bloom, the bees start to make their way out of the hive in search of nectar. Later in the summer, our bees primarily forage on alfalfa and wildflowers. Now, it’s time to see if the empty frames have been filled with honey.

Smoke Bees to Inspect the Hive

After smoking the bottom of the hive to calm the bees, we remove the outer and inner covers, and check each frame one by one. We are looking to see if most of the cells in the frames have been filled with honey and capped with a beeswax cover. Our rule of thumb is that at least 90% of the cells should be capped. If they aren’t, we put the covers back on, and give the girls some more time to finish making the honey. This ensures that the bees have had time to “ripen” the honey: removing enough water from the nectar that it will not ferment when stored. If it does look as though most of the cells in the frames are filled and capped, we are ready to move on to the next step.

Woman Kneeling Next To Beehive

  • Updated on Jun 30, 2022
  • Originally Published on Aug 13, 2013
Tagged with: honey, honey extraction, honeybees, Jennifer Ford, New York, Reader Contributions
Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368