I realize that it has been quite a while since I have posted, but I have been a little busy lately. Over the Labor Day weekend I experienced the joy of my first honey harvest. By this time, I have gotten pretty used to visiting my hive. I ended pulling out four frames of fully capped honey on this visit (see picture of a fully capped frame below). Three weeks later I was able to pull out 8 more frames. The picture above is of me on my first harvest visit to the hive. As you can see form the picture, right behind me is a large tupperware bin. I decided to pull out each frame of fully capped honey, brush all the bees away, and place it in the bin. I replaced the frames of fully capped honey with fresh frames. Using the tupperware allowed me to avoid a robbing situation and at the same time give me the freedom to take as few frames as I pleased.
After getting the frames of capped honey away from the hive, I began cutting the comb out of the frames. As I decided to use the crush and strain method, I simply let the cut-out comb fall into a glass cake pan (see the picture below).
After cutting the comb into the glass cake pan, I simply used a potato masher to crush the comb up.
After crushing the comb up, I used a spatula to shovel it all into a five gallon food safe bucket. As a side note, it was not easy to find a food safe plastic bucket. I had to do quite a bit of shopping online. Luckily, Harmon's Grocery Store (a local grocery store) was doing a case lot sale on five gallon buckets for food storage purposes. I bought two buckets. I drilled about twenty 1/2 inch holes in the bottom of the first bucket. For the second bucket, I installed a honey gate (also not easy to find). Before pouring the crushed comb into the bucket straining system, I also placed a piece of cheese cloth in between both buckets (I know this sounds confusing so I will do a post on this straining system later).
This is what the crushed comb looks like in the first bucket. Below you can see the honey flowing through the holes I drilled in the bottom of this bucket.
This is what the crushed comb looks like in the first bucket. Below you can see the honey flowing through the holes I drilled in the bottom of this bucket.
I left the crushed honey comb in this strainer system for about a week. After a week, I discovered that about 8-10 lbs of honey had flowed through to the final bucket and I had quite a bit of beeswax.
Overall, the harvest was extremely enjoyable and rewarding. I am already looking forward to the spring when I can start all over again. Stay tuned for more posts.
