A little late, but I've been away, I decide to go and wish the girls a happy over-winter.Alas - for my ease and comfort, but happily for my honey supply - it turns out that they have had a good summer. All five supers are full. Or so I assume, I only went through the top three. I decide to compromise, and leave them the bottom three, and take the top two off. I'll return them in a few days, or next weekend, which will leave them stores for the winter and space for the spring. A closer view of the hive-after, with only the three supers on it.
And so the two full supers - in N's wheelbarrow, thankfully for the state of my back - go to the car, and back home, for processing.
There I discover that the frames are a little laden with rape residue, probably a hangover from the spring recolte, or even the year before. I compromise, and after spinning off both, melt down one of them. Or actually, half of one of them. How much can I actually be bothered to fix up?
Update: in the end I ony melted down about four frames. It is very messy and I didn't really have time for more. That left other frames outside, which neighbouring bees inevitably found. And so in the end I ended up with nines tolerable frames I could put back, so I ended up with four supers on the hive, one currently empty. And I discarded some frames I decided to call unsalvegeable. So I need to order some more frames, since breaking down the old ones is more trouble than its worth, when they get old enough; and they break.
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