Bee Wednesday Ep. 9: The Sweet Honey Haul Begins in Colorado!

Welcome back to another episode of Bee Wednesday!

It is that time of year again—the sweet honey haul has officially begun! In Episode 9 of Bee Wednesday, we check the hives and pull some incredible, fully capped frames. 🐝🍯

Beekeeping is a journey full of surprises, and seeing the hard work of thousands of bees come to fruition in golden, shimmering honeycombs is unmatched. In this episode, we inspect the frames, check out the gorgeous brood and drone patterns, manage empty spaces, and set up empty frames to let those busy bees keep right on working.

Whether you’re an experienced beekeeper or just love watching backyard homesteading adventures, you won’t want to miss this step of the harvest process. Watch the full video below to see how we collect our frames and get ready for extraction day!

1. Harvesting the Honey Frames

We kicked off the hive check by inspecting the top honey super. I was able to pull three beautiful frames overflowing with golden capped honey. When harvesting honey frames, I brush the remaining bees back into the hive carefully and swap in fresh, clean frames so the worker bees can get straight back to work building comb.

Pro Tip: Keep an eye out for capped comb vs. open comb. If a frame isn’t fully capped yet, give it another week so the honey reaches the ideal moisture content before extraction!

2. Hive Inspection & Brood Health

After securing the harvested frames, it was time to check on overall hive conditions:

Queen & Queen Cups: We regularly check for queen cups or swarm cells.
Drone Brood & Hatching Bees: We got a close-up look at capped drone brood—notice how the caps are larger and distinct from worker cells. We even spotted a few larger male drone bees actively hatching right on the comb!
Worker Brood & Pollen: Inspecting the lower box revealed strong, healthy patterns of capped worker brood and bee bread stored in the comb.

Check out Skinny Margaritas

What’s Next?

Although my phone cut off right at the end of the inspection, the harvest was a success! Make sure to tune in next week when we break out the extractor and process all the fresh, raw honey we pulled today.