Extracting Honey

We thought that a few quotes from 'Pooh's Little Instruction Book' might be appropriate:
"When you go after honey with a balloon, the great thing is not to let the bees know you're coming"
"When carrying a jar of honey to give to a friend, don't stop and eat it along the way."

We have been keeping bees now for about 5 years. It has been a very steep learning curve and indeed would not have been possible without the help of the Midland Beekeepers Association and Jim Donohoe in particular. Disease, weather conditions and man have all conspired to make it very difficult to keep bees. For the past number of years it has been a case of trying to keep colony numbers up, rather than trying to produce honey.
This year, however, we had about 2 'supers' of honey to extract. It is mostly clover honey, which would be our favourite!

A frame of honey ready for extraction. We uncap the frames using an electric paint stripper! sounds a bit vicious but it works and is much less messy than uncapping with a knife.

It works because our native bees leave an air space between the honey in the cell and the wax cap, so you can melt the cap off without damaging the honey!

We use National Supers which contain 10 frames. When the Super is on the hive there is a queen excluder underneath so that the queen cannot get in to lay, so that only honey is stored.

The extractor takes 3 frames which are spun around, in this case manually,

and centrifugal force flings the honey out of the cells.

The honey is then drawn off through the tap at the bottom.

It really should go though a strainer and be allowed to settle before being put into jars, but this is for our own consumption, and is delicious just as it is!

The colour and consistency of this honey would suggest to me that it is clover.

I'm sure Winnie-the-Pooh would approve. An essential part of anything to do with honey is regular sampling, just in case... and because...

"Always be aware of how many pots of honey you have in the cupboard; it's nice to be able to say, "I've got fourteen pots of honey left." Or fifteen as the case may be."