It is important to know when to harvest your honey. If you leave the honey in the hives for a long time, you may have problems.  If you harvest it too soon, you will also have problems.

If you leave the honey in the hive too long it will not spoil, but:

1. It will be difficult to get the honey out of the frames.
2. The colour of the honey may get darker. This does not hurt the honey but some people like light honey. If left in the hive for a long time, honey may become as dark as engine oil!
3. Your bees will not have any room to store any more honey. Your honey production will go down. If you are keeping bees to harvest the honey to sell, then you want your bees to make as much honey as possible. Make sure the workers always have enough room for new honey. You do this by harvesting the honey when it is ready and giving the empty frames back to the bees to fill again.
4. If your hive is full of honey, the bees will not have enough room. They may get too crowded and run away to find a new home (swarm). This problem, and how to prevent it, will be discussed in topic 12.

If you harvest your honey before it is ready, you will also have problems.  It may spoil or ferment. Honey that is harvested too soon has too much water in it.  This may cause it to spoil.  Sometimes you will see honey containers in shops that are swollen.  This honey may have been harvested too soon, and the honey inside the container has started to spoil.

Remember the bees let you know when the honey is ready.  They will put a wax cap over the honey cells.  Harvest the honey from your hive when the bees have capped most of the frame of honey (about 75% or ¾ of the frame).