Well I have to fess up and admit that I have not used the smoker the last two times in the hive. It is a pain for me to get going and I have read that it may cause the honey to taste smoky. But, of course, this could be the reason I have become a human dart board.
For the records I got 4 more quarts of honey from the last pull. This means from Hive #1 I have gotten a total of 6 quarts of honey and from Hives #2 and #3 about a quart a piece. This is actually pretty amazing to me as folks had lowered my expectations to the point that I thought I might not be geting any this year.
Fortunately, I have a near infinite supply of quart jars. I have ordered some plastic bears to put the honey in - it will be our gift of choice this year if we get enough to go around :)
Back to the hives - In hive #1 I had put in two medium frames were I took out the deeps to extract the honey. On the bottom of one of the medium frames they had pulled the most beautiful comb in just four days! They had it partially filled with honey. This is were I got in trouble with the bees. I was afraid to shake the bees off too aggressively for fear that this comb would break off and fall into the hive. So I decided to just brush them off. They didn't like this one but. Three of them got me on the back of the hand again simultaneously. I yelped and jumped a few feet all the time brushing the rest of the bees off of the comb - it would have made a good video :). If I had been smarter, I probably should have just cut the comb off the bottom of the frame and shook the remaining bees in the box.
I got into similar trouble in Hive #3 when replacing the emply comb and got stung two more times on the same hand.
OK, so smoke next time and minimal brushing.
Again, fortunately, the ill effects from these stings have been nonexistent after the first 30 second - ouch. But the honey is goooood.
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