HONEY HARVEST 2012

Eric was home from Texas this past weekend so we decided that it was time to harvest the honey. Paige and Brent's family came over for the weekend. It was a fun weekend! Here are some photos of the process. 

 

 

Getting prepared

Leslie was interested in the smoker. She wanted to put her hands in the smoke. 

 Opening the hives. We started in Daisy (yes, we named the hives). Daisy looked to be the busier hive this summer. She was deceptive...not as much honey as we had hoped for.  

 Eric put a queen excluder in front of the hive so the bees could easily crawl back in after he knocked them off of the frames.

 Isaac and Eric holding a frame before the bees were cleaned off.

Brent holding a frame with capped honey. 

 

Eric shakes the frame to get a majority of the bees off of the frame, Isaac gently uses a soft brush to get the remainder of the bees off and Brent takes the bee-free frame of capped honey to a box that the bees can't get to. 

Once all of the frames are gathered they are brought into the house and the sticky part begins.  

Eric using a heated uncapping knife to open the honey cells. The tubs below are called uncapping tanks. (I think...I do not claim to be the expert)  



Sometimes the heated knife doesn't get all of the cell so then the frames have to be scraped with a pokey tool that opens the comb.  

The uncapped frames then go into the extracter. Isaac is hugging it because he loves it so much! Not really, it just gets wiggling around too much while the frames are being spun. 

This is unfiltered honey coming out of the extracter. As it comes out, it is being filtered for the first time.  Isaac is the silly one pretending to put his hands in it. 

Eric and Abby are working together to filter the honey the second time. The honey dripped through the first filter and into a bag that is filters more of the imperfections (bee parts) out. 

Filtered honey! We store it in 5 gallon buckets until we put it into the containers that we sell it in. The final total was just under 9 gallons. We were hoping for more, but someone must have forgotten to tell the bees. 

 

Here it is! Willowcreek Honey made special by Eric and Marie's bees. 

 

Then the clean up begins. This is the uncapping tank. It is out on the patio and the wasps and bees are having a hayday eating the leftover honey. 

This is the extracter...Eric set it outside so the bees could clean it up. They have been busy. I took this picture a day later in the morning and found that there are a lot of dead bees in there.

 Those of us that were not interested in getting up close and personal with the hives while the frames were being taken hung out in the shed and watched out the window. Leslie had fun making hollyhock earings and a beard. Isn't she lovely?

Grandma and Brooke! My job was to play with the grandkids and take pictures. And of course...clean up..I will be mopping up sticky spots for days and days.

 

Now after all of that... I am happy to report no person was stung, however Remi, Paige's dog got a sting in her ear. and we have honey for sell. We are selling it in 1 lb. containers. The cost is $6.00. Give me a call if you want some.