We extracted our first appreciable amount of honey from hive #1. Steve recently got more bees to start #2 and will possibly split #1 to start #3. There were 6 full frames ready which was about 1.5 gallons of honey. We’re hoping to have quite a bit more next time (end of summer?) and will likely sell some to friends.
Slicing off wax caps.
Uncapped frames in extractor. We rented this from the bee club in Holland, but are going to just buy our own for next time. It has a hand crank and uses centrifugal force to extract the honey without destroying the comb. You spin the frames with one side facing out, then flip them over and spin again.
Honey flowing from extractor into the filter over a 5 gallon bucket that has a gate valve on the bottom for filling jars. We only did a coarse filter to remove wax particles. (photo by Cale)
Empty comb ready to go back in the hive. There were a few cells that did not get uncapped which you can see near the edge. We tried to do the least amount of damage to the comb to save the bees some work. (photo by Cale)
Most of the finished jars.
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