If, as I read recently, it takes one million visits to a flower to produce each pound of honey, you would think bees would put up more of a fight when you come to steal this golden treasure. But the actual removal of the frame of honey from the hive is the simple part, compared to the preparation, extraction and clean-up, which takes up most of the day.
We have just taken our third (smaller) harvest this year and I thought you might be interested in the process. This has been a strange year. The spring was terrible and the weather was so cold during blossom time that the bees couldn’t take the nectar. Apparently it needs to be at least 60 F (15 C) for the flowers to produce nectar. It was way colder than that, so our poor bees were starving. I actually had to go out and buy honey and mix it with powdered sugar and put it in on a plate on top of the frames inside the hive.
Then it rained a lot more than normal. This produced an explosion of wild flowers. The hills around here were covered with beautiful blue, purple and white flowers. There were also a lot of wild roses. So the bees multiplied amazingly and kept swarming to relieve the crowded conditions in their hives. We caught three swarms and lost another three. So now we have six hives (which is too many and we hope to sell three).
So our first harvest was on July 18th (when my sons and grandson were here so they could help). We only took 15 pounds that day. Two weeks later, the hives were loaded and we harvested 65 pounds. Then we took another 15 pounds on August 13th. Now they can keep the rest for their own use this winter. They’ve worked hard for it.
We have an old hand-made extractor probably made from an antique metal washing machine and car parts. There is a wire cage inside that holds four frames. Then there is a gear-pulley system with a handle that turns the basket. The honey flies out in little sparkling specks and slides down the walls to collect on the bottom. There is a bung hole near the bottom for the honey to come out.
To start we have to clean the extractor and make sure it’s working. We collect tools - a special knife for cutting off the wax caps on the filled honeycombs, a fork to scrape wax, a bowl for wax scraps, a hose with running water to constantly wash sticky hands, a bucket to collect honey, a sieve to fit on the bucket for straining out bits of wax, dead bees, etc, a hive tool for taking frames out of the hive, a special brush for brushing bees off the frames, a laundry basket for holding frames, a bee suit to protect the robber.
The thing about working with bees is that you have to be in a certain frame of mind – calm, slow and purposeful. Once I lose my concentration, I figure it’s time to leave the bees alone because they’ll get upset with me. So when I’m ready, I open the hive. I pry apart a frame and lift it out. If it has too many larvae or eggs, I put it back. I take the frames that are at least half full of capped honeycombs. Then I brush off about three hundred bees with the bee brush and let them fall back into the hive. Once they are (mostly) all off, I put the frames into my laundry basket and carry it to the extraction area (picnic table). There we cut and scrape off the wax caps and put the frames into the wire basket in the extractor. When we have four, we start turning. It takes a lot of strength and patience to empty out first one side and then turning them around to empty the second side. Meanwhile, of course, you have bees flying around wanting to get at the honey. However, they are really not aggressive and I believe I have only gotten stung an average of once for each harvest.
When all the frames are done, you open up the hole and let the honey pour out into the bucket. There is a lot of scraping and scooping from the inside, too, to try and get it done quickly so as not to have too many bees drowning in the honey. They smell the honey and dive in and get their legs stuck and can’t get free. That’s one reason for the sieve and it works well. Then the bucket goes inside and the extractor gets washed out. This involves arms sticky up to the shoulder, hair sticky, fingers licked as much as possible, bees and wasps trying to help and water everywhere.
Inside, I have to find as many jars as I can and wash them and scrape the labels off. I boil the lids and set a clean towel on the table. Then I start pouring beautiful honey into the jars. This involves more licking and washing and finally I have a whole table covered with different sized jars all shining and golden. Then the only thing left to do is melt down the wax scrapings and make little cakes of beeswax.
And that is the story of how to get honey from the bees. Don’t feel sorry for the bees because if I didn’t take the honey, they would run out of room in their hive and swarm off to a new home. That means they would have to set up in a hollow tree or something and probably wouldn’t survive the winter. So it’s a win-win situation. We get honey and they get a nice comfortable home to weather out the brutal winter. We also make sure they don’t starve when the food supplies are low. Everyone’s happy.
That’s our news. I hope you learned something useful (!). Bye for now.
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