Sunday, November 13, 2011

It's here!!!!

It's been a lovely weekend.
Almost frost on the pumpkin Friday morning....first fire in the fireplace and home-made Brunswick stew...and Then, today, mid-seventies, with the most gorgeous autummmmmn sky.  I close my eyes and breathe in the season...mmmmm

OK...back to reality.

 Harvested the honey this weekend...(my first ever!!)
did ya hear that?

Harvested the honey this weekend!!!

Thankful for the electric decapping knife...it removes the caps from the honey cells to allow the honey to flow fly out. The honey flies out, because we spin it around in an extractor at the speed of sound  a very fast rate, and by centrifugal force, the honey spins out into a huge "tub'...sort of....anyway, I should have taken a picture of the manual extractor at work...we had a 'slanging' good time.
After the honey exited the extractor, through a double veryfinesieve, it fell into a bucket with a "honey gate"...I especially like the honey-gate.
It's kinda too late to get into all that, since I have to be at work in a quick 7.5 hours!!



from the flower //to the bee //to the hive---from the frame..to the extractor...to the veryfinesieve...to this bucket
to the bottle to the tongue of grateful souls!! ;0)


DD gets in on the action. His help is invaluable!!


Very thankful for the harvest, albeit a small one.  More thankful for so many other blessings.
It's been a lovely weekend!!


bee kind to one another!!
kb


Saturday, November 12, 2011

Honey do ya' love me?

Today I harvested my FIRST 'crop' of honey...one super... nine frames.....and I am so excited! It is still in the 5-gallon bucket, but it is the sweetest honey I have ever tasted.  The 'oldies' all told me it would be that way...that there is no honey like your own.
We have had an incredibly dry, hot two summers in this neck of the woods.  I get such pleasure out of merely taking care of the bees, that I wasn't expecting to get honey at all this year. I  discovered laying workers a week and a half ago, so I combined that deep with the one next to it, (with the newspaper layer beteen the 2 deeps)hoping they will survive the winter, to be split in the Spring...just need a good queen...
I also have a nuc with 4.5 frames of bees that I am hoping will survive the winter--if all goes well, there will be 4 colonies in the Spring and I hope--with God's provision of enough rain and flowers--to have at least 4 supers of honey next September....
I am ALSO hoping to get "BLOGGER LESSONS" from one of my children, so I can post the really nice photos of my adventures.  Everytime I try to put a photo on the site, it 'jumps' to the beginning of the post....

Does anyone know where I can get honey labels custom made?  I am not your ordinary sort of person, so I don't want just an ordinary honey label!! (lol)

I've just discovered there is something sticky on my wrist ...  and forearm....and chin.....  Guess I'd better go clean up a bit!!
bee kind to one another!!
kb