Honey Harvest

After losing all four hives of bees last winter, the Murrays and ourselves bought three new hives this spring and one of the hives has produced enough honey for us to share in the bounty!  Kyle was thrilled to finally get a reward for his hard work with caring for the bees and he so enjoyed getting to extract the honey and bottle it up.  We borrowed equipment from our friends the Shanklins and I was surprised by how less complicated the whole process was than I had imagined.  I had prepared myself for a sticky mess on every surface of the kitchen and yes, there were a few globs of honey here and there but it really was quite painless.  Kyle did 99% of the work but I so enjoyed photographing the event! We are hoping this is only the beginning of the honey harvests to come!

This is one super that had ten frames full of honey

A frame of capped over honey 

Kyle is using a heated uncapping knife to uncap the honey

Then you put two frames in the extractor.  Look at that beautiful honey!

Then crank the handle and the honey will fling from the frames to the side of the extractor 

(Kyle is smiling at Adah)

Put the capping from the frames into this two layered strainer to be sure to get all the honey possible

Drain the honey from the extractor into the strainer to get out any wax or other non-honey things

Then let the honey drain into bottles!

Marvel at what the bees made

We are looking forward to using this stuff on toast, in tea, yogurt, bread and other baked goods!