Waited till late on Saturday evening to put in the "chasse abeilles" one way exit between the top boxes and the hive, but didn't get my smoke thing going very well. Then both top boxes and the grill between the top boxes and the hive were all stuck pretty solid with a mix of wax and propolis, so had to try and prise them apart, and in so doing made the whole hive jolt a bit. That resulted in quite a few bees getting a bit upset and buzzing around me, and one managing to sting me through my bee suit on my arm. Hey ho...
The next morning I made sure the smoker was better lit, and took the wheelbarrow over to the hive, so that I could move off one of the top boxes, and check which frames were well filled, leaving the emptier ones in the remaining top box on the hive. The "chasse abeille" had done the trick, and there were far fewer bees in the top boxes, so only had to brush a few off the full frames I was collecting. I covered the harvested frames and top box with a damp towel once the bees had been brushed off, before wheeling the treasure over to the house.
We set up the extractor in the kitchen, and collected 9.9kg this time, so total harvest to date is 16.3kg! - which is pretty good considering the bees had to build all the wax honeycomb this year, as the frames were all new.
For now the latest honey is in our large bucket thing, but I've put out a message among friends and at work to recycle glass jam-jars, as I haven't got many left after the last lot of bottling.
The empty frames are propped around the hive, for the bees to lick out every last trace of honey - nothing goes to waste !