Liquid Gold

 

 

The field next door but one has  oil seed rape in it this year.  These vibrant yellow fields are cultivated for their oil rich seeds and we use this golden, nutty flavoured oil both for cooking and in salads.    The G Bees’ hive entrance faces this field and we noticed that they are making a beeline straight to and from this forage, notwithstanding that the wisteria and pheasant eye narcissi are flowering prolifically closer by in the garden.   The problem with honey made from oil seed rape is that it sets very hard, very quickly.   It can set so hard in the hive that even the bees can’t make use of it.  The Authorities, therefore, recommend extracting oil seed rape honey before the flowers turn from yellow to green, in fact even before the bees seal their stores with wax cappings. 

Noticing that the fields around us are just losing their vibrancy and have a greenish tinge, we organised the hive after this week’s inspection so that the heaviest super containing honey was on the top with a clearer board underneath.  This board allows bees to go down in to the other supers and brood chamber via a kind of no return valve called a Porter Bee Escape but not return to the top super.  (At least that’s the theory; last year, the G Bees glued the Porter Bee Escape open with propolis so they could move both up and down freely!)  

Equipment list for extracting honey

• Wheelbarrow
• sheet
• Extractor
• Oilcloth tablecloths
• Large enamel tray
• Uncapping knife
• STUTBABC (Super that used to be a brood chamber)
• Stool
• 2 x glass jugs
• fine mesh sieve
• honey jars 

 

 

In the morning, there were only 2 or 3 bees in the top super so I whipped it off before the G Bees noticed and put it straight in to the Annex for the honey extraction operation.   This involved spreading 2 large oilcloth tablecloths on the floor to catch spills.   We borrowed a food grade nylon extractor.  First you slice off any wax cappings (using the uncapping knife and large enamel tray). The frames sit in a cage inside the extractor and with minimal effort turning the handle on top, centrifugal force flings honey onto the walls of the extractor from where it dribbles down to the sloping floor via a mesh to catch bits of wax or other debris.  

 

Once the honey is extracted, the wet frames go into STUTBABC until all are empty and then back into the cleaned super to go back on the hive.

I replaced the “wet” frames on the G Bees’ hive immediately after the extraction so they have plenty of space to make more honey – they are bursting at the seams…

After a couple of hours’ settling time, I lifted the extractor onto a small stool, stood a 2 pint glass measuring jug under the tap with a fine stainless steel sieve on top and opened the tap.   Honey glugged out slowly.  I had a moment of concern when the sieve started to fill but nothing passed through but eventually, a thick column of honey oozed through in to the jug.   I had prepared 10 honey jars expecting to get maybe  3 or 4 jars as it's so early in the season but wanting to have some spares ready.  After filling 9, I got two more out of the cupboard but that wasn’t enough and eventually, I filled 14!  

We haven’t heat treated the honey to make it stay runny;   we haven’t “seeded” it by heating it and mixing in honey with crystals of a particular size which is done by some to achieve a creamy set texture:    this is natural honey, as made by the G Bees, just run through a filter.