Tips for Extracting Honey by Spinning: Suitable for Honey Harvesting in All Four Seasons

The main economic benefit of beekeeping comes from extracting honey by spinning. As the seasons change throughout the year, the methods of honey extraction also differ. In the Yangtze River basin, the basic principles for honey extraction are: early in spring, frequent in summer, steady in autumn, and stop in winter.

1. Early in spring

After the beginning of spring, the queen bee begins to lay eggs, worker bees go out to forage, and their enthusiasm for nurturing young bees rises day by day; especially for Chinese bees (Apis cerana), when the temperature is just turning warm but still cold, they fly around searching and collecting scattered nectar. They generally produce their first batch of mature honey around the end of March. Apart from feeding young bees and their own consumption, there is still surplus stored, plus the remaining overwintering feed, which lays the foundation for early spring honey extraction. As flowering plants gradually increase in spring, extracting honey early allows the honey storage cells to be vacated in time, so that when @#@255@#@ brings in nectar there are cells available for storage, thereby stimulating worker bees to actively leave the hive to collect nectar and promoting the colony's early reproduction and development. However, extracting honey early does not mean scraping it all away; you must always leave enough food for the colony.

2. Frequent in summer

The frequency of honey extraction should be appropriately increased in summer. Especially in early summer, the main nectar source plants bloom and secrete nectar one after another, field bees bring in nectar quickly and in large quantities, and house bees process it day and night; therefore, on the premise of ensuring sufficient feed honey, extract frequently. For example, during the flowering period of citrus, rapeseed, and jujube trees, honey can generally be extracted once every 3 to 5 days. Frequent extraction can encourage worker bees to actively collect nectar. After the main nectar flow period ends, scattered nectar sources follow. At this time, the interval between extractions should be appropriately increased, generally extracting once every 15 to 20 days. Entering the midsummer heat, there are very few flower sources, and honey extraction can be paused for a period.

3. Steady in autumn, stop in winter

First, autumn flowers are noticeably fewer than summer flowers, and worker bees collect less nectar, so honey extraction must be done in moderation. The main nectar sources in autumn are wild flowers such as buckwheat flowers and wild chrysanthemum flowers, and generally extracting 1 to 2 times is sufficient. Second, after autumn comes winter, when nectar sources are even fewer, the climate is cold, and worker bees leave the hive less, so autumn honey extraction must also take into account leaving enough feed for the colony. For storing overwintering feed, it is better to leave more surplus than to have too little and run short; otherwise it will add no small amount of trouble to overwintering management and may even cause losses to the colony. Taking the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River as an example, for Chinese bees (Apis cerana), overwintering feed of 400 to 500 g of stored honey per comb is sufficient, while Western bees (Apis mellifera) need much more. Taking 5 combs as an example, each colony needs 12 to 15 kg, meaning 5 to 6 honey combs must be prepared to meet its overwintering needs.