Extracting honey is hard, hot, sweaty work! Especially when extracting honey in a garage in August! Thankfully, we had some excellent help. The Fowles family came over to help Mike pull some supers from hives in Willow Springs and then they helped with the rest of the process.
First there's the capping tank! Using a knife, we cut off the wax caps that the bees put on each cell.
First there's the capping tank! Using a knife, we cut off the wax caps that the bees put on each cell.
Then we put each of the frames into our extractor and spin, spin, spin! It is hard work, but so much fun watching the honey come flying out of the frames. The extracted honey then pours out of the bottom of the tank into buckets. Everyone had sticky fingers in both the literal and figurative sense! We couldn't help but sneak tastes of honey as we worked.
Why do all this work in a closed garage? It keeps the bees away! If we left the door open, the bees in our hives would quickly sniff out the honey and would then come try and steal it to add to their own hives.
Thank you Fowles family for helping us extract honey!
For those of you wondering when you will get an email saying the honey is available for purchase, we are in the process of bottling up the honey this week. Once we add labels and make sure that our Sponsors get their honey first, then we'll send out an announcement. Make sure you sign up on our "I Want Honey!" page to get notified as soon as we are ready!
Thank you Fowles family for helping us extract honey!
For those of you wondering when you will get an email saying the honey is available for purchase, we are in the process of bottling up the honey this week. Once we add labels and make sure that our Sponsors get their honey first, then we'll send out an announcement. Make sure you sign up on our "I Want Honey!" page to get notified as soon as we are ready!