Honey Harvest and Home Improvement (or not)

The Bees have been busier than we have is what you are going to think while reading this post.  This may indeed be true.  Just after the last post, Bob was inundated with offers of work.  He has attended a conference in Tunisia, then worked for 10 days in Burkina Faso.  He has submitted proposals for other jobs coming up in the next few months.  So....work on the deck and on the basement came to a screeching halt!

Two hives with "supers" added for extra honey.  Hive to the right has been very slow to progress.

The bees have been attended to in what has been described as a "bad honey year" with "poor nectar flow".  Since this is our first year, we just nod knowingly when a more experienced bee keeper says this and wonder what a good honey year looks like?

Last week, we induced the bees to leave their honey stores (called "supers") then transported them to a garage of a fellow bee-club member who owns an "extractor"...a very expensive piece of equipment that uses centrifugal force to get the honey out of the combs.  You can see the action below!

Here we are tending the bees

The extractor holds four honey frames at a time, spins them for 10 min or so and honey comes out the spigot at the bottom.

Before the frames are spun out, the end "caps" of the honeycomb must be opened.  Here, Bob uses an electric hot knife to uncap the honey.

And here it comes!  It filters through two stainless sieves to fill up our bucket just below.  We ended up with almost three gallons of honey.  The process took about 4-5 hours.

We took the bucket home (I hesitate to call it a honey bucket, ha ha) and then the real fun began!

So.  Now we have 36 1-pound jars of honey, plus 2.5 quarts (we ran out of small honey jars).  Once we label them, they'll be ready to hand out and be enjoyed.  We have already begun enjoying it on toast and straight from the jar.  It is wildflower honey, with a mild taste...quite sweet, and it won't take much to sweeten your tea!

Bob's professional work has come to a lull, so we returned to basement work yesterday.  We got the room and the stairwell to the basement painted a lovely shade of silvery/grey.  Next we'll put down the cork flooring, then Bob has to stain / cut / install doors, trim and windowsills.  Go Bob.  The next post will show his progress on the Work Room as we finish 1/3 of the basement space.