So last week I went out to the bee yard to check the progress of my hive not intending to harvest any honey yet. But once I got there the bees had nearly filled the 5th super on the hive (bottom two are for brood/pollen the middle one is a mix of honey/brood/pollen and the top 2 are honey). So I took the opportunity to shift some full frames up to the top super and then take the top super home for harvest. With 2 months before the first frost of the season the bees should have enough time to refill the 5th frame with honey for winter.
After getting the frames home from the bee yard I ran a room fan over them for a few days to drop the moisture content of the honey. I don’t own a refractometer to check the percentage and nor was I going to spend $65 on one, so I just guessed at what I needed. I figured a couple days couldn’t hurt and would only help. In theory the bees wont cap honey that isn’t ready for harvest, but bees don’t follow a manual.
After anxiously waiting for a few days I used a cold knife (as opposed to a hot knife) to remove the capping. Now I have to comment on the cold vs hot knife dilemma. Most beekeepers I know and have read swear that it’s worth the extra $80 to get the electric heated knife. It makes removing the capping easier and damages less of the comb (so they say). I don’t know if I’m special or not, but using the cold knife was just fine. After each side of the frame I dipped it into hot water and moved on to the next side. Couldn’t have been easier.
I’m guessing folks figure you will need to uncap more than 9 frames…so I guess at that point it might be better. But for now I’m perfectly happy with the cold knife.
Since I don’t own a honey extraction/spinner and didn’t want to spend $300 to get one, I decided to just let the honey drip out using gravity. BOY was that a mistake. After nearly 4 days of probably 1% of drip per day I couldn’t take it any longer. I had tried the frames upside down, tilted, hanging, heated in front of the oven to get the honey to flow better, you name it..I tried it. But it just doesn’t work.
I called my neighbor who I knew had an extractor and asked to borrow his. He graciously allowed me to use his and off we went. About 10 minutes after setting up the extractor I was done extracting. Wow..that was easy! As you can tell I had plenty of help from the girls. They honey went into a food grade tub for bulk straining. Then I put the honey into a food grade bucket with a 200 and 400 micron strainer on top. Then it went into bottles. Can’t get more direct from the bee then that.
The 9 frames extracted out to about 26 pounds of honey. I actually didn’t have enough bottles and had to make an emergency purchase from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm. Even then I didn’t have enough bottles and ended up putting the remaining honey into some large canning jars. When I originally extracted the honey, it had a very obvious mint/eucalyptus flavor to it..I don’t know why…but it was very intriguing. After mixing and sitting for a few days waiting for the extra bottles, the flavor has mellowed into a typical wild flower honey.
Another few minutes north, or was it an hour?, and you are at the 
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