This past week Carl and Gabriel did another bee removal job. This one was really big and they brought home lots of honeycomb.
When I got home from The Nutcracker costume fittings they had begun to process the comb to extract the honey. For wild honey, this is pretty time consuming. There’s all kinds of mashing and straining that goes on.
Gabriel checked on one of the hives that has had a lot of activity lately. He found some pretty full frames in the super box. We really didn’t think we would harvest any of our own honey this year. But since this is extra for the bees we went ahead and harvested it.
Most of these cells have honey in them. The ones that are capped with wax are completely full. We removed the capped wax and put the frames into our honey extractor. And turned the handle to spin the frames.
When all the frames were done. We made a homemade stainer using my canning funnel with a mesh tea strainer inside and a wire strainer on top. Sometimes you just gotta use what you have.
We got 3 quarts and 1 pint from our first honey harvest from our bees. What an amazing treat.
The honey was so light and golden. Gabriel had some comb that the bees were building in the “wrong” place on a frame and he cut it off to add to some of the jars of honey.
Phoebe and Esther made us a snack of watermelon while we worked on the honey. I say we but Gabriel, Carl, Benjamin and and older couple from church really did the work. I just socialized and took pictures. oh, and turned the handle a couple of times.
Now, I’m off to finish cleaning the kitchen, since my sock just stuck to the floor I think mopping is in order this morning…
Have a great week and don’t forget about Handmade Christmas 2012 all the links will remain open until the end of November so feel free to go link up all kinds of gift giving goodness.
This post is shared at: Backyard Farming Connection
Angelwolfstorm
Thursday 9th of January 2014
I am getting a hive in the Spring and am looking forward to eating the honey but wondered if you have any good beauty recipes using honey? [email protected]
Kathy Shea Mormino
Saturday 27th of October 2012
Fascinating! Thanks for linking up with the Clever Chicks this week! Hope to see you on the next hop!
Cheers,Kathy Shea MorminoThe Chicken Chickhttp://www.The-Chicken-Chick.com
Anita
Thursday 25th of October 2012
The honey makes it all worth it in the end. It really is liquid gold. Your honey looks so beautiful in the jars! This would be a great post to share with my readers on my beekeeping blog hop. Check it out! http://www.beverlybees.com/beeline-buzz-hop-1/
Jessi @ Practically Functional
Wednesday 24th of October 2012
Wow, how cool! My father used to keep bees when he was in college, but I never got to experience any of it. It looks like a ton of fun! Thanks for sharing at The Fun In Functional!
Our Neck of the Woods
Tuesday 23rd of October 2012
So cool! My husband really wants to keep bees someday. We do eat a lot of honey right now from a local beekeeper, so it would be worth it to have our own hives!
SchneiderPeeps
Wednesday 24th of October 2012
Bees are definitely the lease expensive of "farm animals". Most of our equipment has been purchased used or given to us. Start asking around at the feed store or county extention office to find out if there's any retired beekeepers in your area.
I will say, that my husband and son have gotten a little obsessed...always talking and reading about bees.