It took four attempts to get the top super off of the hive. Perhaps the Porter bee escapes we put on were not adjusted properly allowing bees to move up into the super as well as down out of it. However, we have learnt that the G Bees are much cleverer than we are, so we are inclined to believe that they wedged open the porter bee escapes with wax and propolis. Whatever, it wasn't until we switched the porter bee escapes for carefully adjusted ones that the number of bees in the super reached a level where we could brush off the few remaining bees, load the super into our wheelbarrow and fold the sheet around it quickly to prevent any bees (or wasps) coming with us. The rest of the operation went smoothly and we got the super into the kitchen with no problems.
An oilcloth tablecloth spread over the floor was essential
P took on the uncapping. When the bees have filled the frames with honey they seal each cell with a wax cap. These caps have to be removed before the honey can be extracted. The traditional technique is to slice the caps off with an uncapping knife. We don't have one so P used a ham knife. An alternative technique gaining currency is to use a paint stripper to melt the wax caps but P found slicing the wax caps off with the ham knife easier.
Then the frames were loaded into the honey extractor borrowed from the local beekeepers club. What a fantastic resource. I loaded and held it down while P wound the handle to spin the frames . The clear plastic lid allowed us to observe the honey spinning out of the frames and hitting the walls of the extractor before oozing down to settle in the bottom. Plenty of weight on the top of the extractor helped stop it "walking" across the floor.
Once all the frames had been through he extractor, we lifted it onto a stool and opened the tap at the bottom to let the honey pour through a sieve into a settling bucket. My kitchen sieve wasn't really up to the job. Ideally, the sieve catches bee legs, wings, bits of wax, pollen, dead bees and goodness knows what else but we ended up with slightly speckled honey.
I managed to borrow a much finer sieve when I delivered Liz's birthday present. I put the wax cappings that P had sliced off into the oven to melt the wax and separate it from the honey that had been cut off with the cappings and poured the whole lot through a sieve. This yielded three pounds of honey from the wax cappings. The honey in the settling tank strained through the finer sieve yielded a further 9 and a bit jars making a whopping 12lb 10 oz of honey and we didn't expect to get any honey in our first season!
By the time we had finished, the kitchen floor was spattered with honey, wax and propolis. All of these stick to the soles of your shoes and are further spread around. Thankfully, the whole operation had taken place on an oilcloth table cloth. I wouldn't fancy scraping wax lumps sticky with honey off the floor itself!
Honey for lunch
P and I had bread and honey for lunch - what a treat!
The honey extracted from the wax cappings is slightly darker and I will keep that for cooking. The rest of the honey is runny, medium honey coloured in the jar, pale on a spoon and a nice delicate flavour. The viscosity of honey depends on the where the bees have been foraging, the weather and the age of the honey. We haven't heated ours to delay the crystallisation process that eventually makes honey creamy but we don't expect it to last long! At short notice, the only labels we could source were for "English Honey" . And that is what it is.
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