Collected my honey

[Dog Dancer]

So I collected 200 lbs of honey over the last week and a half. Big job, and very sticky! Ran out of bottles and have to go buy some more. Thought I'd stick a couple of pics up here of the extraction process for you guys.

When you pull the frames from the hives you have to scratch the wax cappings off the honey so that the centrifuge (extractor) can spin it out. My extractor holds about 12 frames very nicely and when it spins for about 10 minutes the honey just comes pouring out into a pot. After the pot (which also gets lots of wax bits and bee bits) we filter it and bottle it.

Enjoy!

[breeze]

WOW!!!!!!!

I don't think I could do that considering I don't like Bee's but sure do love honey

[hazelrunpack]

Wow, 200 lbs is a lot of honey! The bees are probably cussin' at ya! Am I remembering right that you have 5 hives? So about 40 pounds of honey per hive?

[Goldfields]

Very professional looking set-up you have. It'd probably be mind boggling to know how much you've extracted all up.

[growler~GateKeeper]

Holy moly that's a lot

I think I might've asked this already but do you take the wax cap off just one side of the frame or both before spinning?

[TeriM]

Wow, that's a lot of honey .

Cool pics .

[Dog Dancer]

You have to uncap both sides of the frames to spin the honey out. We actually had a very bad bee year this year, so I probably could have gotten double that if the weather had been better earlier this year. All my hives were new this year as well, so that means smaller populations and hence less honey. On average you should be able to get about 70 - 80 lbs of honey per hive, but I've never managed that. I'm just not dedicated enough to manipulating the hives constantly to maximize production. This is plenty for us. The setup has a way to go. This year I need to purchase a bottling bucket. But my extractor rocks and I'm so glad we found one at a decent price.

Breeze, you probably don't like wasps much more than you don't like bee's. Wasps are much more aggressive with people, bee's really don't bother us at all unless we invade their immediate space (like when you're taking their honey ).

[Luvmypitgirls]

DD, oh how I envy you! I absolutely love honey, but I don't purchase it very often because it's just so expensive. I would love to be a beekeeper, but since I'm allergic to wasps, bees, and hornets, it's probably better I stay away from such a hobby.
You honey looks sooo yummy!

[Dee-O-Gee]

So cool DD. What a great set up you have and 200 lbs-Holy Smokes!

Do you have pictures of the hives DD?

I think bee hives are so neat but to be honest with you-I'm such a scaredy cat around bees. I start flapping like a ragging lunatic and I know I'm not suppose to do that but, I do.

[Dog Dancer]

klm, these are two of the hive boxes. You can see on the right the empty honey super that I removed. I left it sitting on top so the bee's would leave it and go back to the bottom box. The bottom (brood chamber) would be full of bee's as would the upper honey super, so when you remove the upper super the bee's won't all naturally fit back into the single box - hence the abundance of bee's sitting on the front of the brood boxes. The female worker bee's will chase the male bee's away now, and the older females will leave to die and eventually the younger females will all fit into the single box for the winter.

[14+kitties]

How neat!!! You have a very interesting hobby my friend! Maybe a good income booster for retirement. But then that would keep you busy too. The amount of veggies and things you grow I bet you could have your own little vegetable/honey stand.

[BrownEyedGirl]

Wow that's really interesting.

[luckypenny]

That is just fascinating, DD!

Um, where do the male bees go for the Winter ?

[Dee-O-Gee]

Too cool DD and thank you for explaining how the busy bees work from the honey super and brood boxes.

It's cute how the older females chase the males away. I guess we now know who rules the roost!

[Frenchy]

Wow , cool pictures DD , fascinating how nature works

Originally Posted by luckypenny

Um, where do the male bees go for the Winter ?

In Florida LP

[Dog Dancer]

Frenchy is right, the males all move to Florida. Actually, they all die. Bee's have a very short six week life span as it is, so once the males are driven from the hive they simply fly away and die. Once all the younger females have taken up in the hive and they settle down for the winter the queen wills top laying eggs during the cold weather (they stop when the food supply diminishes). The bee's that are in the hive are not dormant, but they don't fly in the bad/cold weather and so they will live past the six weeks and make it through the winter. In the early part of the new year (here anyhow) about February the queen will start laying eggs again and they will create more male bee's for the hive. The males don't make honey or collect pollen, they just mate with the queens (then die), so during the winter when food is scarce they are not part of the hive equation. It's a brutal system really, but it works for the bee's.

[joeysmama]

VERY cool pics and really fascinating details !

In Florida LP

I have an image of bees in plaid shorts, little sandals and white socks !!

[14+kitties]

Originally Posted by joeysmama

VERY cool pics and really fascinating details !

I have an image of bees in plaid shorts, little sandals and white socks !!

Great visual!