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Harvesting a Little Honey

September 14, 2014

Bishop Beekeeping, Healthy Lifestyle , , , 1 Comment

While inspecting my hive this past week I was pleased to see that the medium super above the brood box was chock full of capped honey…..all 10 frames. The medium super above it was not showing any signs of activity so I decided to move some things around and in the process, harvest some honey.

I removed the top super and set it off to the side. I then pried loose the bottom super. It was heavy and loaded with honey. I removed two of the full frames and took two untouched frames from the top super and inserted them in the bottom one. I shooed the bees off of the full frames, took them inside and began the extraction process. I used the scrape and squeeze method. I used a fork to uncap and scrape the honey and beeswax into a big pan. I then used a spatula to scrape as much as I could from the frame without disturbing the base layer. I poured the honey and beeswax through a sieve. I then gently squeezed the beeswax sitting in the sieve to get as much honey as I could. My reward, about 4.5 lbs. of tasty and dark  honey.

A quart jar for me and a pint jar for Lisa.

A quart jar for me and a pint jar for Lisa. The extracted frames in the background.

Once the frames were mostly cleaned up and barely dripping I placed the wet frames into the top super as a lure to begin filling the top. I had four and half pounds, that  is ~ 1.5 quarts of honey. My beekeeper daughter gets the pint jar and I have the quart jar. Retail – at about $ 5.00 per pound,  that is $ 22.50 toward paying out my investment…The CFO is curious when that threshold will be met. Hmmmmm, 1.76 year payout Hun!

Clean-up easy and minimizes or eliminates waste. The honey coated beeswax after the extraction process is placed out near the hive and in less than an hour the message gets sent and the clean up begins. I was tempted to chew all of the beeswax to get most of the honey out, but, I had licked the bowl and spatula enough! Let the bees take it back into the hive!

Bees working on the honey coated beeswax. They were making great progress.

Bees working on the honey coated beeswax. They were making great progress.

I hope I don't gross you out but this is a wad of beeswax that I had chewed on for a bit. Less than two seconds after I set it down the work had begun.

I hope I don’t gross you out but this is a wad of beeswax that I had chewed on for a bit. Less than two seconds after I set it down the work had begun.

iPhone photos….batteries had died on my other cameras and I had not been diligent! They turned out well enough, I think!

TTFN

Bishop

Bees – Lessons Learned

August 6, 2014

Bishop Beekeeping, Gardening, Healthy Lifestyle , , , 1 Comment

If you are going to be a bee keeper you are going to get stung! I am still using a Boardman feeder holding a quart sized jar of sugar water. The hive is healthy and growing. They will consume a quart in about 10 hours!

Therefore, I, or my daughter Lisa, have to refill it daily. We don’t put our gear on or use the smoker. We just calmly approach the hive, remove the jar, shoo away the few that hang on and refill the jar. Once topped off calmly replace the jar.

A few days ago I was apparently too abrupt on my approach. As I removed the empty jar, four or five bees came at me. Most were just bumping me, trying to discourage my presence. Apparently one Lone Ranger bee saw me as a bigger threat and popped a stinger through my shirt on my left pec. Fortunately I don’t react to stings, just itched a bit for a day or two. Lesson learned, be gentle and the bees will respond in kind!

Lisa and I added a super and the queen excluder over the past weekend. We were appropriately attired in our beekeeping gear. The bees are busy making honey and more workers! I hope to have my first harvest/extraction by the end of summer.

I will leave them alone for the next three weeks or so before doing a more thorough inspection of the hive and the queen. Who knows, I may get lucky and be able to split a hive! I do have an empty NUC hive box. Maybe I should try and capture a swarm. I do have some extra full sized frames! Waste not, want not.

TTFN
Bishop

20140805-195711-71831341.jpg
Boardman feeder similar to the one I use.

Bee Keeping Class

February 16, 2014

Bishop Gardening, Healthy Lifestyle , , , , 3 Comments

I made use of the Christmas gift my daughter Lisa purchased for me. She gave me a three hour bee keeping class for two! Yesterday we took the short drive out of Kingwood to East Knox Drive about 10 minutes from my house. We were with a group of 12 or so other souls looking to learn a little bit about bees and bee keeping. The young man teaching the class under the umbrella of Round Rock Honey was top notch. He is a petroleum engineer cum bee keeper for a little over 2 years….being an engineer he has learned a lot by reading but it is backed up by his practical experience.

The best part….He lives in the Kingwood development where I live on probably a little smaller residential lot than I have…..along with more than a dozen hives in his backyard. We may be kindred spirits – he got permission from his wife for one hive….but as luck would have it his hive spun off some new queens and at the end of season “one” he had 4 more hives….My buddy John L will certainly see the connection!

The class was pretty interesting but there was a gentleman in attendance that must have been a “Geek” type engineer…. he had some close to on topic questions as well as TOO many off topic questions. We got into sugar molecule discussions, solar and electromagnetic disruptions to bee navigation and several other inane deeply trivial blather! He became fascinated with the frame base material, a thin plastic sheet imprinted with hexagonal patterns. The bees will build upon these sheets in the frames with beeswax and put to use as they see fit, pollen storage, honey storage, brood chambers of the various types. He spent a good chunk of time holding a sheet of the material up in front of sunlight and wondering out loud how he could add some LED lights for some cool light patterns! Hmmmmmm reminds me a little of my college days and altered states of consciousness…. I don’t think he emerged from those days fully intact. Our instructor is an engineer by education but seems to have his feet on the ground as a good ole Missouri boy graduating out of the University of Missouri Science and Technology in Rolla, MO! Very practical young man.

Daughter Lisa geared up and ready to play with the bees.

Daughter Lisa geared up and ready to play with the bees.

Honey....being added to a frame.

Honey….being added to a frame.

The Queen....her life is not as wonderful as we may have thought!

The Queen….her life is not as wonderful as we may have thought!

Standing in the way of the landing pattern. The returning bees were blocked on landed early on some class mates

Standing in the way of the landing pattern. The returning bees were blocked and landed early on some class mates

Drone Bee - the one with the big eyes!

Drone Bee – the one with the big eyes!

Pygmay goats in the feed store yard along with peacocks, pot belly pigs, miniature horses and burros....fun place to visit.

Pygmy goats in the feed store yard along with peacocks, pot belly pigs, miniature horses and burros….fun place to visit.

 

Wish me well folks as I go to the CFO for expenditure approval and the subsequent site request!

 

TTFN

Bishop

 

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