10/16/10: Honey Removal and First Extraction

Conditions: Sunny, 58F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 11:30 am. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:

New Hive: Took about 5 more frames of capped honey. All dark honey.

Old Hive: Took an entire super of capped honey. Some of this is fall honey that was light in color, which is surprising. Vast majority was dark honey.

I did not observe any varroa in either hive, though we didn't go down lower than the supers. This is still surprising given the time of year and the fact I have not done any treatment this year (did powdered sugar last year).

A combination of 10 shallow frames were removed from a the hives on 9/30/10 and stored in a large rubbermaid tote. An additional 19 frames were removed the morning of 10/16/10 (frames that were full on 9/30/10, but drying and largely uncapped). All 29 frames were extracted in about 3.5 hours with two people working (though who did the work traded off a bit)

We set up the extractor on a raised platform of cinder blocks and a wood pallet. The extractor was placed on (and later anchored to) the pallet. We allowed the honey to freely drain from the extractor into an intermediate pail from which we dumped the honey into a nylon strainer (course filter). The filtered honey was stored in 8 gallon pails with lids, one each of light and dark honey.

We used a combination of electric uncapping knife and serrated bread knife stored in hot water to uncap on a baking tray, with capping wax/honey stored in a separate bucket for later separation.

It was a blast! The boys (3 and half) even took their turns spinning honey in the extractor.

Lessons Learned (and tips for next year):

1) There are lots of sticky jobs during extraction. A tip I read to keep a bucket of warm water around to rinse your hands or tools was VERY useful. Next year I think I'll do two, one for the majority of the honey and a "second" that just gets the sticky honey water from the first off.
2) The honey will spill and drip. Cover with newspaper all high traffic areas BEFORE starting. This includes around the extractor, uncapping area and work surfaces, and the pathways from uncapping to extractor and from extractor to filter bucket.
3) The extractor sometimes gets off balance and shakes or tips. Screw it down BEFORE you spin anything.
4) Lots of bees tried to get in. We placed a fan in the window on the edge of the building to blow the honey smell in one direction. The bees gathered outside of that window instead of all over the outside of the honey house, including the door where we occasionally needed to exit and enter through. This worked really well.
5) We killed any bees we found in the shed. Sorry ladies, but this was surplus honey and we weren't going to give it back. I was not concerned about a few bees in the honey house so much as a few scouts telling the whole hive the secret to how to slip in and out of the honey house where "the motherload" was hidden.
6) We extracted on a day that is not hot, but warm enough for bees to fly. This meant any bucket, tray, knife, frames, etc that we were no longer needing could just be placed outside for the bees to clean up, which they did eagerly.

Our yield was approximately 65 pounds of honey, 20 light "spring" honey (very fragrant) and 45 dark "fall" honey (mellow and rich). We let it rest 24 hours for bubbles to settle out. I began bottling last night with a ladel and funnel. Next year a bottling bucket with a honey gate valve would be a nice addition, especially if we do lots of little bottles for sale. This harvest will be enough to split with Bud and hopefully get us to the next harvest. I think we'll be increasing the number of hives and might try our hand at marketing some honey. There are a number of neighbors, co-workers, and farmers who have expressed interest in buying our honey.