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Honey Jar Trial Update 2022

My simple honey jar trials… I set up two hives with three honey jars on each. The idea was to check the ratio of pollen vs honey from front to back jars. I’ve seen people say the jars get too much pollen in them so I thought I better try it out.

“Hive 1” was a full strength colony when the jars were added. After six months, all jars were full with honey pots and looks like more honey in the front jar, no pollen at all anywhere. This gave me some very clean honey.

“Hive 2” was a recent split when the jars were added. The bees largely ignored the jars and then started filling them with propolis. So don’t give bees access to the jars or your normal honey super until the colony is full and strong.

Honey jars aren’t designed for full on honey harvesting, they are a simple way to get a honey sample. It’s not a bad way to give your visitors or kids a sample of honey straight from the hive without disturbing the colony too much.

Hive 1. Image below: These jars were added to a full strong colony. The right one is the jar that was at the front of the box and appears to have the most amount of honey. None have any pollen.

Hive 2. Jars added to recently split colony are ignored for a while or a fair bit of propolis is added.

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Native bee boxes available at www.hivecraft.com.au

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