There has always been a bit of an overlap between the science and the art of beekeeping.
As long as the hive is secure and bees have the appropriate space to work, breed and raise their young, there’s nothing wrong with letting your creativity go wild.
For the hobby beekeeper or anyone who lacks a lot of space for hives, something to consider is adding glass Mason jars to the hive. It’s an easy way to not only add a unique feature to your bees’ home, it also simplifies the honey collection process.
The common beehive uses square boxes, known as “supers,” that hold hanging frames. The bees build wax comb on these frames and store their honey in the combs.
As the bees fill up all the frames in one box, additional boxes with frames can be stacked on top of each other until it’s time to harvest the honey. Extracting the liquid honey or cutting the frames to save it in the combs can be a time consuming and sticky process.
Using Mason jars in place of frames can reduce that time and is less messy.
All you need to do is replace the stacked hive boxes and frame with a single flat board over the bottom super. This board needs to have holes in which the open end of Mason jars fit.
The bees will do the rest.
“The bees’ instinct is to store honey upward,” said Phil Gavin of The Honey Exchange in Portland. “If the only space you give them is a mason jar, they will use it.”
Because the jars are clear, you can watch the bees build their honeycomb and fill it with honey.
Construction of a Mason jar honey harvesting setup is fairly simple. All you need is a piece of plywood or other board with dimensions that match the outer edges of the bottom hive super.
The only tool required is a drill to form the holes through which the bees will access the mason jars.
To secure the jars to the board, you can glue or screw its lid over the drilled holes. Just punch a hole into the lid that matches the hole in the board. Finally, caulk around the lids’ outer edge to prevent any pests from entering the bottom of the hive.
After that, screw the empty jars onto the lids, sit back and watch the bees go to work.
“Some people will place a bit of beeswax into the jars to attract the bees,” Gavin said. “You can even ‘paint’ the beeswax onto the inside of the jar in a decorative way.”
Once the bees have filled the jars with comb and honey, you will need to carefully remove the jars, cap them with a solid lid and replace the full container with a new jar.
As much fun as it would be to leave the jars exposed for optimum viewing, Gavin cautions against that. He recommends placing an empty super box with a lid over the jars to prevent predators from getting a whiff of the honey.
Enclosing the jars will also offer some shade, but Gavin said that is really not a consideration, even in the middle of a hot Maine summer. Bees are really efficient at cooling themselves and their space down, he said.
Gavin has never tried the Mason jar method and said it really is not for everyone.
“From a honey consumer perspective, I am not sure I would want to deal with it because it would be too difficult to do on a large-scale basis,” he said. “But I think it would be fun for the hobbyist or to create holiday gifts.”
