The Extraction

Sunday really did have an early start.

The honey supers needed to be removed from the two hives before the bees started flying. This meant that I was up there just after seven o'clock; loading the supers on to my wheel barrow.  They were quite a weight, which boded well for a good first harvest. There were also very few bees present. This indicated that my new clearer boards had worked too. I wheeled the supers down to the store room and stacked them, ready to be extracted.

It was then time for breakfast and a short walk down the lane with 30% and the dogs.

I was now at the point when I could put off the extraction no further. A bowl of hot soapy water and a towel were collected* and TP and I made start.

For the next few hours we worked our way through six honey filled supers. Each super contains ten frames of honey, each frame is double sided. That is sixty frames that needed to be uncapped before being loaded in to the centrifugal extractor.

I think I have already mentioned that the bees cap off each cell with wax once the stored nectar has been converted to honey.  These wax caps need to be removed. This is done with a knife that has a long serrated blade; very similar to a bread knife. 

This may sound straightforward, but the face of the combs can be quite uneven, and the frames can be heavy; making it a the most arduous, and tedious, part of the process.

Loading the frames in to the extractor, pressing the start button and operating the speed control are a piece of cake by comparison.

By the end of the day we had about 120 lbs of honey; filtered and stored in plastic honey buckets.

I was pleased, but every piece of extraction equipment is covered with wax and honey. I now have a monumental clean up to "look forward to" in the coming days!

Now that should have been all of the new today, but I also noticed that my carrots have made an appearance in the raised bed.  These were planted on two weeks ago, and I was concerned about the viability of the seed, but it seems that there was no need to be worried ... they are coming up like weeds! 

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* This is the most vital piece of equipment. Honey extraction is very messy, and I cannot overstate how much of a pleasure it is to, briefly, have clean hands.