Harvesting Honey

Well, I waited long enough to do this. First of all, I've never done any of this before. Second, I was so in awe over the whole process I didn't want anyone to miss how beautiful the frames looked. And to harvest the first year! What joy! I showed the frames to everyone who visited, and there was much finger dipping. Typically, beekeepers who use the standard frames will harvest their honey with an extractor. Those are expensive and I didn't care to either buy one or rent one for just two half-sized frames. And God didn't give me one out of the blue along with a bunch of other equipment while I was reading a beekeeping book from an elderly woman on the ferry whose beekeeping husband just passed on, either (that happened to my friend's husband!).

Me, I just scraped.

The scraping itself was relatively easy, but the frame was SO heavy! I was afraid I'd drop the whole thing!

I damaged the first frame while getting a feel for how deep to scrape. But I knew the bees would just repair it themselves in the spring, so I didn't stress about it. This is what the frame looked like once I most of all the honey and beeswax off. They are currently in a large clean plastic container waiting for early spring. I'll be so happy to check on "my girls" and give them their own real, raw honey for eating instead of sugar water!

It didn't take long for my five year old to come "help". Did I mention how heavy these frames were? I only pulled two half frames this fall, but there are 20 full size frames still in the hives, full of honey. They should hold the bees nicely over winter, unless a black bear gets them. To help avoid that scenario, we've fenced around the hive and an electric wire is going up pronto.

I set up the entire batch into a large colander over a large pot to strain. Then I covered the whole top with plastic wrap and just let gravity do its thing. The next morning, most of the honey had strained through. I gave the beeswax/honey mixture a stir and let it strain some more. Then, I strained it once again with a smaller sieve. I saved the beeswax for chewing (the kids love it!) and I'm going to experiment with making honey-lip balm with the rest.

I was delighted to find I had two very full quarts! And the taste is incredible! I look at it like liquid gold, real raw food with real healing properties. And because it's from my own yard, I expect this wonderful sticky liquid to help combat against pollen allergies for our family as well.

You could do this, too. Or anything else you've been sorta-think'in-you'd-wanna-learn. The coming winter is a wonderful time to dream, buy a book, take a class, meet a mentor, jump in. The results can be very, very sweet indeed.

Blessings,