Harvesting Honey

It seems odd to be thinking of harvesting when the temperature is lingering in the teens.  Well, it is because of these low temps that we are harvesting...honey.  Unfortunately, a friend lost a couple of hives of bees due to the extremely brutal winter we've experienced this year.  His bees died.  So the honey that was meant to feed his colony through the cold months has become our harvest, and a blessed gift.

Of course, Mike and I did what we usually do when trying something new...we You-tubed it!  We learned how to slice the wax caps off the honey filled combs, and strain pints of liquid gold from the beeswax.  We are also planning on purifying the wax to be used in future Pysanky classes.

I must confess, when Mike called last night to tell me his friend had given us two honey frames, I was not excited about the prospect of getting the sticky stuff out of the frame and figuring out how to separate the wax from the honey.  After watching the You tube video, I became fascinated and eager to try.

In fact, we've been discussing the possibility of some small scale bee keeping ourselves.  Stay tuned...

Slicing the wax caps.

Straining the honey.

The empty frames.