Saturday, September 24, 2011

Extracting Honey

Last Sunday, Sept. 18, we extracted our first crop of honey from Danny's bees. We used the meat cooler room in our shop, which is about 5 feet by 12 feet. We warmed everything up to an uncomfortable 90+ degrees to allow the honey to flow.

The picture below is of the "supers" that hold ten frames each.


Danny is holding one of the frames that is full of capped honey.


We are using a capping scratcher to take the wax cappings off the honey.


We borrowed a two frame extractor to fling the honey out of the frames.


Oh! How exciting to see the honey begin to flow. We attribute the very light color to an overabundance of sweet clover this year.


A five gallon bucket filled almost to the brim! About 57 pounds.


Bottling time.


Below are a few pictures of the finished product.




Bobbie--pictures by DJ

2 comments:

  1. Great job. I am really happy for you. that is a lot of honey to eat but I am sure you will enjoy it. I hope the winter is kind to your bees. We can all hope for a repeat next year. I had not idea what an extractor looked like. the process seems easy and straight forward. Thanks for sharing the pics and the time to post them.

    Andy Meyer

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  2. I have never seen it uncapped like that before. I have always thought that you would use a long spatula and cut off the caps. I don't have bees yet, but I have read a lot about it, so I am not sure. Will you keep the wax, or give it back to the bees next year? That is very pale! I hope that God will bless you with another great harvest next year too!

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