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Low Tech Honey Harvesting [1]

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Date: 2024-11-16  

I left it rather late to harvest any honey this year, what with the campaign and all, but I was gifted a mild day on Nov. 14, and decided to see what I could get.

The bees were very quiet until I started messing with the hive. They had not drawn out the second super I put on late in the summer, so I only took two frames out of the first super. I wanted to be sure they had enough to winter over. I took the opportunity to dust them with powdered sugar (encourages them to groom off mites) and put some of their probiotic powder on the top of the frames. The frames were so tightly cemented in that I had to set the super diagonally on the body of the hive and push up from underneath to break them free, after all the prying I could do from the top. I filled the gaps with empty, slightly drawn out frames from the empty super.

They were not at all happy about my claim to any of their honey. They were still riled up half an hour later.

Now to get the honey out of the comb. I simply carve the whole mess off into a colander in a large turkey-roasting pan that almost holds a frame.

Then put the whole shebang into a warm place, in this case my oven. The pilot light keeps it about 100 degrees in there. I will have to think of something else once I switch to induction stove with convection oven this winter.

After several hours of draining, the wax bits are mostly dry (ish) and the honey is in the roasting pan.

The frames do not drain as completely as one would wish, so they will go back next to the hive entrance in hopes that the bees will reclaim the honey.

I sterilize some pint canning jars and lids. I won’t be actually canning, but I want a good tight lid. A second, much finer strainer goes into the canning funnel. This is also a long process. Be prepared to multitask.

The wax bits go in some filtered water to boil. Once they have melted, the wax will rise to the top as it cools, and form a cake for storage. It goes through another filtering, and the sieve I use for this is dedicated for this purpose, since it will never be fully free of wax again.

The water under the wax cake is pretty sweet, and will get used in my tea for a few days.

Needs even more filtering, though. A coffee filter is the only thing that catches the finest bits of floating wax.

And there we go. More than 4 pints of honey for me, from just two frames.

I will check in the spring and if they still have surplus after blossoms are out, I will take a bit more for me.

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