Harvesting Honey

I’m still planning to post one more blog about my trip to California, and I’ll do that next time, but I have 17 people coming for July 4th. Most of them are staying for the whole weekend, so I’m kinda busy. I need a post that’s short and sweet. Luckily, Dale harvested honey last weekend. What could be sweeter? And we had the best harvest ever, 33 1/2 pounds of honey.

HoneyWhen he first started beekeeping, Dale harvested on the deck, but the bees wouldn’t leave him alone. Now we spread old towels, and he does it in the house.

Harvesting honeyOnce the bees finish making honey, they cap it with a layer of wax. You must remove the wax before harvesting the honey. This year Dale bought an electric, hot knife that made the task as easy as slicing warm butter.

Harvesting honey, decapping honey

This next frame was completely full of honey, and Dale was proud.

Honey

Once he cut the wax off the first 8 frames, he put them in the honey extractor and started spinning. He’s learned that you have to go slow and steady. If you’re too much of an eager beaver with the spinning, the frames blow apart.

Extracting honeyAfter Dale’s done spinning, he filters the honey through a strainer.

Extracting honey

You may have noticed the tennis shoes in the previous picture. I doubt if this is standard beekeeping procedure. Dale was trying to stop the extractor from walking around while he turned the crank. – I think it’s funny that he tried to stop the walking by adding tennis shoes.

Then he filled the jars.

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When he was done, Dale said, “I want the bees to lick the pan. That honey was theirs, and they’d like the leftovers.” So he set the pan on the deck.

Honey harvest

A few hours later, all the honey was back in the hive.

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Our bees make two different kinds of honey.

fresh honey harvest

Hahahaha. They only make one kind of honey. We just put different labels on it.

I probably should have concluded my series of posts about my trip to Spring Plant Trials in California instead of writing about the honey harvest, but I’ll do that next time. This has been a delicious distraction.

 

 

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