This is what happens after a bee removal. Gabriel and Carl get busy processing the honey and wax. They double check the comb and make sure there’s no brood in the cells.
They’ve been using a tortilla press to press out the honey. We’re exploring other ideas as we’ve already broken one tortilla press.
While I love the few days after a removal, having all my colanders, most of my large bowls, along with my large spoons and spatulas being used makes cooking a bit of a challenge.
When it’s all said and done, the brood comb will go out near the bee yard for the bees to clean. After they’ve had whatever they want we dump the old brood out for the chickens. Then Gabriel melts the wax down and cleans it. He also sells the honey to friends locally.
Beekeeping is definitely a learning experience and even though we’ve had some heartache, we’ve learned so much. And we get really great honey.
How are the bees doing in your area?
This post is shared at Barn Hop, Mostly Homemade Monday, Natural Living Monday, Monday Menagerie, Backyard Farming Connections, Home and Garden Thursday, Self Sufficient HomeAcre, Small Footprint Friday, Farm Girl Friday, Little House in the Suburbs, From the Farm, Mountain Woman Rendezvous, Tuesday Garden Party
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Here’s to hoping next year will be better! I have been to a couple of lectures lately on honeybees and find it interesting that each lecturer believes in a different cause for colony collapse disorder! Some believe it is because of GMO crops and neonicitinoids. Others blame the varroa mite. Some say it is due to monoculture. I think it may be a combination of all three! Unfortunately, I never knew carpenter ants can destroy a hive – so this is a new worry for me as we have lots of carpenter ants around our future homestead! I enjoy your informative posts – thanks!
oh, I wish there were some kind of active beekeepers organization here. I agree with you that it’s probably a combination of many things. Have you read, The Beekeepers Dilema? Its a really good book about a commercial beekeeper. It was very thought provoking for me. I really think that the survival of bees really lies with the small scale beekeeper. We’re in the process of planting more flowers on our property for the bees. So hopefully that will help in future years. We put put the legs of our hives in buckets that have oil in them. And that is now keeping the ants out. You might try that.
Found you thru’ home acre hop. Now following you on GFC
All the best with the bees
Keren (fabulous-farmliving)
Thanks, Karen. Glad to have you join us. By the way, I love your horse painting!
Glad I found this post. We are going to beekeeping school in October for bees in the upcoming season. I am looking forward to it, but know from my reading it is challenging right now to keep bees alive and healthy. We are hoping for good things of course. We joined an association about an hour from us. We are new members so have not attended yet. I think it will be alot of help to have folks near us though that do this too. Good luck and keep on posting about your status!
I think it will be a lot of help also. My son does have a beekeeping friend that he can call for advice but that’s about it. It would be nice to have a beekeeping school. We’re just kind of taking it one step at a time and doing the best we can. We’re working really hard on getting more bee friendly flowers planted on our property. We’ll be sowing some wildflowers in November so hopefully next spring and summer we’ll have lots of flowers. I can’t wait to hear about your bee adventures.
Our bees did not survive last winter and the new queen did not do a good job. So no honey here :(.
Anna, I’m so sorry. I’m not sure we’ll get much from our hives this year. But Carl and Gabriel have had quite few bee removals so we’ll have honey for the year. I’m hoping your’s do better next year.
This is quite fascinating – I have some friends who raise bees for honey – they meet monthly – I am sure they could empathize – would LOVE to do this, maybe some day – so glad you were able to get some honey and wax – I LOVE beeswax!
I am delighted that you shared with Home and Garden Thursday,
Kathy
Bees are so facinating. This is one area of our homestead that I really don’t contribute much too. My son, Gabriel, is the official beekeeper. I love beeswax, too. I’ve found several fun uses for it.
Interesting to rea your experience with bees, we kept bees for years in the mountains of Vermont and it was quite challenge! Thank you so much for sharing on the HomeAcre Hop! Hope to see you again tomorrow! Nancy The Home Acre Hop
Thanks for hosting each week, Nancy. Bees are a challenge, but they’re so much fun.
I had bazillions of happy bees in my yard all summer on the Rose of Sharon bushes and various flowers. I only wish that I COULD keep a hive or something to help them all out!
I wonder if Rose of Sharon would do well here. Also, you having all those beautiful flowers are just what the bees in your area need. You’re helping out alot.