Honey Harvest 2012

Honey Harvest 2012A story in pictures.

The honey harvest begins in the apiary.

Opening each hive and removing frames full of capped honey – always being careful not to harm any bees.

Bees are protective of their honey and must be gently coaxed away from the frames.

My very accommodating bees – hanging outside the hive.

Honey filled, uncapped frames are placed in a big stainless steel extractor. As the honey is spun out in begins to flow from the spout into a filter to remove any wax or debris.

As more and more honey is spun out of the frames the flow increases – it’s a beautiful thing to see.

First taste of 2012 honey – one of many.

After the honey filters through two strainers it’s final filtration is through this fine mesh cloth. Just look at that honey!

The honey sits for 24 hours to allow any air bubbles to rise. It is then bottled. Pure and perfect.

After the harvest was over I bottled 22 gallons of pure, local, raw honey. I love this hobby of mine!

This should give you an idea of how much honey my bees gave me this year. They did a wonderful job. Incentive to continue caring for them.

Honey Harvest requires a good deal of work, and in Texas it is HOT.  My man Dan and I enjoyed executing the entire adventure.  Who wouldn’t delight in the outcome?  All that glorious, fresh, pure honey the bees work so hard to make.  I have complete respect for the honey bee, especially my honey bees.

Remember this; it takes 10,000 worker bees to make a pound of honey, 48 bees to make 2 teaspoons of honey, 1 bee makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime, a hive of bees fly over 55,000 miles to bring one pound of honey to the hive and visit over 2 million flowers for that same pound of honey.  Amazing little insects and the only insect that makes food humans consume.  I look forward to next years harvest.

A side note:  after we bottled 22 gallons of my honey we turned around and spent the next few days doing honey harvest for Mr. F.   Open heart surgery, followed by a head injury and still in recovery mode can set a guy back a little.  We couldn’t bear to see him “miss” the honey harvest so we did it for him.  His bounty this year – 28 gallons!  All totaled Dan and I harvested and bottled 50 gallons of honey in the course of 5 days and a few extra hours.

Now I plan on sitting back and enjoying the fruits of our labors.  I’ve got some yummy recipes coming up too so come back soon.

Enjoy!