Saturday 5 July 2014

7, 9, 16

Can you guess?

What goes 7, 9, 16?

The clue here is that it makes me VERY ULTRA HAPPY

That's HAPPY with a capital H as in HONEY!!

You see first there were 7,  then there were 9, and today there were 16.....

In between the rain storms (can't pretend they were showers!) Nanny came for lunch and to see inside the bee hives.  And as there was a sudden burst of sunshine I decided to look inside the hive that swarmed last week -- twice as it happens but didn't get any photos of the second time.  :(

Anyway... there's a lot less bees and as they don't have a laying queen at the moment they seem to have nothing to do but bring in honey (shame) and have focussed all their energy on capping the honey in the super frames.  Capped honey has a water content less than 20% and that is PERFECT for harvesting.
So a sudden decision was made... time to harvest!

There were 16 frames of lovely capped honey...so I harvested them all!!!!


Its not about being greedy its about honey!!!

So with Nanny supervising  I set about demonstrating the art of honey extraction....


Take the frames from the super box and scrape off the wax capping on the cells....

 

Its a super sticky job (maybe that's why they call them honey supers?)


But when all the caps are gone....


Its time to spin them in the extractor....


Then with Nanny in the driving seat and starting slowly....


It all starts to spin out of the frames....like the best kind of candyfloss EVER!
This is absolutely the best bit about bee keeping  - my kitchen smells like heaven....


it takes less than an hour for there to be a lake of honey in the bottom of the extractor....


Then it needs to trickle out through the filter...slowly does it....

 

 

And then the tap opens wide and the flow really starts...


Just keep those bits of wax from blocking the filters....


Look it really Sparkles like diamonds as it flows......


and it just keeps flowing.....


What a busy afternoon I've had!


and in case you were wondering...that settling tank above the dishwasher, which I've almost begrudged getting a bit mucky with honey for the last two years is now three-quarters full!

Yum yum yum yum....

1 comment:

  1. all that honey would make Pooh Bear very happy. But oh no a hole (or two) in your bee suit - yikes!! Just after all those swarms... doesn't bear (yup bear) buzzing about.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...