Honey harvest!

First, some bad news.  One of my dad's 6 hives was totally robbed dry by some of the other hives, and we've seen evidence of some robbing in both my hives.  Also, while we got 10 or so lbs of honey from Jo, most of the honey I had been counting on there was consumed by the drones that have overwhelmed the hive.  With an unfertilized queen (or possibly a laying worker) the hive will probably starve before winter, and certainly hasn't got a chance of making it until spring as the queen isn't laying workers, and unfertilized eggs (drones) can't become queens.

That said, Megmight yield some small amount of honey, there are a couple other hives at the acreage that have between 100 and 200 lbs of honey that is currently being capped and cured, and last weekend, we were able to harvest 100 lbs from one of the better-producing hives along with whatever we could salvage from Meg!

The Harvest

Unfortunately it always fails to occur to me to take pictures of the apiary -- really a clearing with 7 or so hives placed on the Westish edge -- but this picture from the back shows many of the hives.  Jo is in the front -- the hive with the bad queen -- and in the picture I'm selecting the fullest frames for harvest.  Second is Meg, and while we saw maybe 10-15 frames of capped honey in Meg, it was only 60% capped so we left it for the bees to finish processing.  On Sunday we noticed some robbing from Meg, so depending on how bad it was, all her honey might now be in one of the other hives, but we'll find out in late August when we harvest again.

The rest of the hives are "my dad's" although that distinction may become arbitrary as it makes more sense to divide up hives by apiary than person (remember "my" hives started at a different location).  They're named by color, but some colors are similar or being repeated so even my parents can't seem to keep them straight!

We took three and a half supers with about 8 frames each (normally they hold 9 or 10 but I like a little extra space when I'm dealing with heavy, sticky frames full of honey) back to the garage and got to work cutting the wax capping off the cells of honey and extracting the honey with my dad's new toy, a Maxant 6-frame radial extractor!

 

Above, my dad (left) and I are cutting the wax off the frames.  When the bees evaporate enough water so the honey is less than about 18.6% water and will last forever (or more practically, at least until the next summer) without fermenting, the bees seal each cell containing honey with a thin wax cap.  We cut off the caps and any comb that extends beyond the edge of the wooden frame (releasing a lot of tasty honey in the process) so that the honey will flow out when turned in the centrifuge!

Above, left, is a frame of capped honey with all the wax cappings and honey caught in a maple syrup pan, and an uncapped frame of gooey honey on the right.  We looked everywhere for the uncapping tank we had last year, but it was nowhere to be found!

Then my mum took over and spun the frames until all the honey came out (about 1 or 2 minutes of consistent turning for 6 frames).  Note that in this picture, we had tried tangential extraction with only three frames.  It worked, but it took a lot more time and didn't seem to be more effective.  Normally the 6 wooden frames would be arranged like spokes instead of around the edge of the centrifuge.

My dad and I took turns on the extractor, but being male, we were a bit overzealous and the next picture shows how too much force will "blow out" all the wax in a frame so the wax has to be replaced -- a huge inconvenience for both us and the bees!

The honey and some wax that fell off in the centrifuge is poured out the bottom of the extractor into a couple of metal sieves to strain out wax and any other debris.  Some people filter their honey even further to remove even some barely-visible clumps of pollen (usually still leaving lots of pollen, just not in clumps), but our honey turns out quite clear (when it isn't full of bubbles from pouring the dregs of a pail anyway) and while I'm skeptical of claims for amazing health benefits from strained but unfiltered honey, I don't see any reason to add another complex step.  I might change my mind if all the honey starts crystallizing right away one year, but for now, I just strain my honey.

Altogether we filled two 5-gallon pails about 80% full (one for Rachel and I, and one for my parents) for a total of 88 pounds.  Here's most of the 46 pounds I bottled last night in my kitchen!

The jar in the front, left, was the last jar I bottled -- you can tell it is absolutely FULL of bubbles while the rest of the honey is darker and more translucent.

So... anybody want some honey?  I think I'm limited to about 25 lbs for sale right now until our next harvest (but my parents have more, so feel to poke them too!)