It’s around a year now that I have been beekeeping, my colony was initially pretty small and some thought that it wouldn’t survive the Winter. But they did and have developed into a robust colony. The time has come to take my first honey harvest.
Checking the Hive
I knew the bees had been busy as I’d had to add another super (a box with wax frames in for them to use) around three weeks ago and they had already drawn the comb out and filled it with honey, most of which was capped. By the weekend all of it should be capped and ready to extract. This all makes me sound on-the-ball and knowledgeable, fact is I’d realised they were in need of space when I got stung twice cutting the grass, thinking they were gripey about something I had a look and the hive was chock full of honey and semi angry bees.
I consulted my on call guru, my experienced bee-keeping mate next door, and he said the time was right for extraction.
Extracting The Honey
Being a member of my county beekeeping association has the benefit of being able to borrow some equipment that would cost an arm and a leg to own. In this case it was extractor 83, my chum recognised it and scowled at it. No doubt it had done him a disservice in the past, I worried that we might have honey everywhere if it went wrong.
First the frame is ‘uncapped’ which entails slicing off the lid of wax over the whole comb. This was probably the fiddliest bit, if the capping was perfect a knife was good, if it was lumpy and all over the place we tried using a heat gun, both worked eventually.
The frames are wedged in the whirlygig as you can see in the picture and then with a lot of elbow grease turning the handle, centrifugal force sends the honey flying onto the sides of the big bucket it’s in. I have to say it went really well until we put a frame in that was a bit overloaded with honey, it unbalanced the whole thing and disintegrated with an impressive bang and squelch. Little did I think the hobby would be fraught with such high drama.
The random bits of wax comb were fished out and we carried on until there was a surprising amount of honey in there. The next step was to filter it, the extractor placed on a bench and another bucket below, the honey running through a sieve.
The result was 55lbs of possibly the best honey I’ve ever seen – oh alright, it looked and smelt just like any other honey, but it was like looking upon my firstborn for me – then the fiddly bit followed.
Bottling the Honey
We’d spent all day doing the extraction so the pub beckoned. The bottling could wait till tomorrow. Getting the honey in the jars just involved having the bucket on a table and opening and closing the tap to fill a jar. Yet inexperience and cack-handedness guaranteed sticky hands but I slowly got the hand of it.
And there they were, 55 jars of the stuff. I haven’t bothered with printed labels for this first batch as most will be given to friends and family. It’s a great feeling to get such a crop, and there’ll probably be another one yet.
The Bees Are The Priority
I don’t plan to take all of their honey and then have to feed them on sugar syrup in the winter. I’ll leave enough honey on the hive to get them through the cold months, it seems more natural to do it that way and anyway I didn’t start it as a money making exercise.
All images: Iain Hazlewood
