Honey Harvesting

Our honey harvest this year was quite successful with our pleasant non-aggressive honey bees producing 80 kilograms of honey, that's a whopping 40 litres. We made an early start on an ideal hot dry day to gather, extract, filter and jar the honey. The process took us around 5 hours in total.

We began by preparing our replacement frames and foundation. Preparation and having everything in order is key to a successful honey harvest. Next, we prepared the extraction area, fired up the smoker and kitted ourselves up in our protective clothing.

The Smoker using dry Heshen

When approaching the hive, we checked for activity at the front door of the hive. Since it was the morning, most of the worker bees had left or were leaving the hive.

Worker Bees at the entrance of the hive

Inside the hive

From the side, we then removed the weather proofed lid and carefully removed the internal cover to expose the hive. Gently, smoke was blown across the tops of the honey filled frames whilst we made sure not to directly blow smoke into the hive.

Blowing smoke across the honey filled frames

Carefully, we removed frame by frame using the hook end of the hive tool. Next, we gently brushed the bees off with a feather and placed the frames into a covered storage box.

Honey filled frames and the hive tool

Brushing the bees off

Storing the loot

Once all of the frames had been removed from the hive and replaced with new frames, it was time to extract the honey. In a pot of very hot water we immersed the de-capping knife. This is the tool which removes the caps of the cells that have been filled with honey. Running the blade horizontally we de-capped the cells to release the honey.

Capped honey cells

De-capping

Two de-capped frames were then placed into the extractor and spun gently at one handle revolution per second. Honey began to splatter on to the walls of the extractor and gather at the base of the drum. Next, the frames were rotated and spun on the other side to release as much honey as possible from the frames.

Extracting the honey

After all of the honey was extracted, we sieved the wax from the honey and ladled the honey into sterilised jars.

Passing the honey through the sieve

Jarring

The final result, golden honey on hot freshly baked bread. Heavenly and definitely worth all of the effort.

The final product