Bees Make Honey....

This weekend I took the top box off my bee hive and retrieved 10 perfect full frames of honey.

The bees were amazingly calm. I was fully suited and I had the smoker ready but I didn’t really need any of that. The bees calmly accepted me removing frames one at a time and carefully brushing them off. This is such a far cry from my hive of a few years back – they were so aggressive I couldn’t even get close to the hive without getting stung. Now I can remove frames without any worries. The difference, apparently, is the Russian queen I purchased a couple of years ago. At least this Russian queen has calmer offspring.

So now the kitchen is overtaken by the honey extraction process. Since I don’t have an extractor (a centrifugal device) I just mash up the honey comb – wax and honey and all - and filter it through a mesh into a big bucket from where it is bottled.

At approximately 5 lbs per frame that will be 50 lbs of honey. What on earth am I going to do with all that? I don’t really like honey that much. So let me know if you want some!