Labor Day weekend is our "Honey harvest weekend." All summer the bees have been growing, multiplying, collecting pollen and nectar. And it is this weekend when we interrupt them and remove the supers (a rectangular box with ten frames that the bees make honeycomb on). The bees are usually not too pleased to have someone take their honey. But this year we did the honey harvest at around 3:00 pm and most of the worker bees were out and about so the supers were relatively easy to get off. The weather was gloriously hot and sunny, and thankfully there was a slight breeze.
It all starts with getting dressed and getting the smoker lit for a couple hours of anticipated work. My husband grabbed some coals from the outside wood furnace and added some wood chips. It makes great fuel and super smoke.
The photo below is of a hive that was started this spring from a 3 pound package of Buckfast bees. They started a little slow but we were hopeful that they would make some surplus honey. So with anticipation I approach the hive with my smoker, fume board and a little Bee Quick (a smell that encourages the bees to leave the super).
But alas, no surplus honey on this hive. That is not unexpected. First year hives that have to draw out their own comb often do not have enough numbers and time to make extra honey for the bee keeper. But there's always next year!So instead of getting honey I checked the brood boxes (the larger rectangular boxes below the super) and see if they have enough stores of honey to make it through the winter. The frame I have lifted is full of capped honey on the top, brood in the middle and some pollen near the bottom. The bees are healthy and happy. That makes a happy bee keeper.
After about an hour we have gone through all the seven hives (five of them new packages this year) and have about four supers with honey in them. A scant harvest of honey. But we are excited... the aroma of the honey is irresistable and I am eager to extract. My husband gets our massive 20 frame radial extractor ready below. But then as we are about to uncap the honey and put them in we discover that some of the frames of honey have too much moisture and we need to dehydrate them a bit. So my wonderful and resourceful "honey" rigs up a shower dehydrator and they are presently getting thicker. The rest of the honey harvest will have to wait until the honey is at 17% moisture content.
For now I will be satisfied with the anticipation of yummy, sweet and delightfully sticky honey.
Today's journey joy: Golden sweet honey
