Happy 4th of July to all our friends and family! We are celebrating Independence day with a sweet, sweet, activity! We're extracting honey!
Mike went out on some hive inspections yesterday to find that the bees have been super busy! Here in the Chicago area, we've had a lot of rain, which means the flowers and plants are growing like gangbusters. The girls have been so busy that many of the hives were literally bursting at the seams! (Joanne's note: Unfortunately, I was home sick yesterday with a migraine and didn't get any pictures of the hives so you'll just have to take Mike's word on it!)
Mike brought home 10 boxes full of honey ready to be extracted, and he still hadn't been able to get to all of our apiary locations yet!
Mike went out on some hive inspections yesterday to find that the bees have been super busy! Here in the Chicago area, we've had a lot of rain, which means the flowers and plants are growing like gangbusters. The girls have been so busy that many of the hives were literally bursting at the seams! (Joanne's note: Unfortunately, I was home sick yesterday with a migraine and didn't get any pictures of the hives so you'll just have to take Mike's word on it!)
Mike brought home 10 boxes full of honey ready to be extracted, and he still hadn't been able to get to all of our apiary locations yet!
We've heard it said that people get into beekeeping because of the honey. They then get out of beekeeping because of the honey! Extracting honey is hot, sticky, physical work! Each frame can weigh between 5 and 7 pounds. Each box has 8 frames in it. That's about 40 pounds per box. Once the cappings are cut off, the frames go into an extracting tank, where we use centripetal force to spin the honey out of the combs.
We're still a "new" beekeeping company, so we haven't been able to invest in a motor yet, so our honey extractor is run on man-power. We take turns cranking the handle for upwards of 10 minutes per batch in order to get all of the sunshiney goodness out of each frame.
We're still a "new" beekeeping company, so we haven't been able to invest in a motor yet, so our honey extractor is run on man-power. We take turns cranking the handle for upwards of 10 minutes per batch in order to get all of the sunshiney goodness out of each frame.
At the bottom of the extractor, we have 5 gallon buckets to catch the honey. It's completely unfiltered, so the honey comes out full of bits of wax, and other beehive debris. We will be filtering and bottling this batch of honey later next week.
We aren't done with the harvest yet. We'll be going out to the rest of our locations again in the next few weeks to pull more boxes of honey, and extract more. We are hoping for a bumper crop. If you haven't done so, click on I Want Honey and get yourself on our waiting list. You'll be the first to receive notification when we have honey ready for sale.
Here's a final gratuitous picture of a bumble-bee who has also been busy collecting pollen and nectar!
Here's a final gratuitous picture of a bumble-bee who has also been busy collecting pollen and nectar!