On Wed, 2006-09-13 at 10:49 +1000, Steven Goldate wrote:Hi Folks,
> I am a newbie', in fact I haven't statrted beekeeping yet, but am seriously considering it. I have a rather 'dumb' question. When harvesting honey, are there eggs, larvae and adolescent bees in the honeycomb that have to be filtered out?

In general, no, eggs and brood don't have to be filtered out from
harvested honey.  With a tiny bit of encouragement, honeybees store ripe
honey *above* the brood nest.  That is why supers are added to the top
of a hive.    There is an organized structure within the hive.  Brood,
ripening honey, capped honey, pollen, etc. all have their place within
the hive.  Most introductory beekeeping books will have diagrams of the
'typical' hive layout.  I wish I could be as organized as a hive of
bees!

In practice, honey should be filtered.  Having only a few hives, I use a
simple double sieve as most hobbyists do.  The first one filters out
large chunks of wax and possibly a bee part or two.  The second filters
out the finer pieces of wax.  Commercial producers use higher quality
filters but for a hobby a double sieve is just fine.

-Jeff

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