The joys and guilt of harvesting my first honey

An important day in the honeybee calendar just happened without much of a plan and definitely without a fanfare of trumpets.  One minute I was unpacking boxes due to the house move, then I got distracted and thought I would check the bees (which are now 30m round the corner).  I decided to remove a couple of frames of honey from the supers as a small reward but as I got them in the house without too many bees following me I thought, “what the heck”, and went back for the whole super.  I just shook the bees off into the hive.  No smoke was used.  No clearer boards.  No stings were received.  It was easier than I had expected.  Too easy …

My spontaneous reasoning for harvesting the honey went something along the lines that due to the high varroa count in my hives I needed to treat with Apiguard as soon as possible and I did not want to taint the honey in the one super I had with the thymol in the Apiguard.  Both hives now have an Apiguard treatment and I’ll update you on the impact in a future post.

Having placed a super on the kitchen table I then had to be deal with it there and then.  The only part that was remotely planned was that I had a borrowed extractor to hand.

Method

There were four frames that looked extractable.  They contained 20% capped honey, and 50% unripe/uncapped honey (i.e. it was very liquid with a high water content and the bees had not yet flapped their wings enough to completely turn it into ripe honey).

Uncapping honey

I uncapped the capped cells with a serrated knife and placed the four frames in the extractor and turned the wheel.  This extracted the unripe honey.  As I got increasingly desperate to extract the ripe honey I first tried a hairdryer to soften it up (this had no effect) and then I used a knife and scraped it into a jar.

I must admit this this lustful frenzy of “harvesting” felt more like robbing.  Was I really stealing the bees winter lifeline for the sake of some sweet porridge in the morning and my beekeeper ego?

I reminded myself that though humans are the reason for the decline in honeybees (destruction of habitat, importing the varroa) if it was not for novice beekeepers, like myself, there would be no chance for the blighters at all.

And so I kept scraping …

Warming honey for extraction with no success

Results

Two jars of unripe honey (liquid) and one jar of honey scraped from the comb (this honey seems to be a mix of wax, pollen and honey and is quite granulated).  They all taste delicious and are sitting in the fridge to preserve them the best I can (unripe honey ferments).

My wife has so far not participated in the honey tasting sessions as (A) she does not like honey and (B) she prefers to buy food from supermarkets.  I am working on both of these elements.  We picked some blackberries and made a pie last year!  And now that we are living in the countryside, she is getting more exposure to allotment food, bees, spiders and nature.

Unfortunately, the honey I have is definitely not of the quality (or quantity) to demonstrate my thanks to the friends who had lent the extractor or to the various neighbours who had experienced at close quarters the swarm in May.  Hopefully, next year will be more productive.

Conclusion

When I started beekeeping my “business plan” was modelled on having hives with an average of three supers producing 120 jars of honey.  I have since learnt that honey production is highly correlated to the weather and that to produce honey I am going to have to be a better beekeeper: manage swarming better and aim to have hives bursting with bees for the two nectar flows of April and July.  I am also keen to get my other colony into a large 14×12 brood box as soon as possible as this will allow them to store enough honey to last them the winter without me being tempted to take their supers.

Read More

• It’s A Sticky Business – I make 25 jars in my 2013 harvest
• Harvesting & Extracting Honey – A how-to guide