Honey Harvest 2020

I was so excited about our honey harves day that I woke up at 4:48 Saturday morning!

The sliver of moon was still up in the sky and the stars were out as Louis Dean and I sat on the front deck with our coffee admiring them.

 I even saw the sun rise!

We needed to be up and plenty awake before we went to the hives.

Sherry was down here about 7:00 and Rosey arrived shortly after that carrying a bag full of breakfast burritos and biscuits and sausage from McDonald's. Our new friends Ernie and Amanda arrived next.

Dean was teaching a weapons class for Karate in Waco so he didn't get to participate in the harvest this year.

By 7:30 we were all suiting up and driving over to the hives to start the harvest.

Louis Dean was such a good sport!

Six of us worked the hives from 7:45 to 8:30!

That's Rosey on the far left, Louis Dean, Sherry, Amanda and Ernie.

We pulled two supers (boxes) of frames from all 3 hives.

There is one hive - one of the two new ones we got this spring - that has overachievers working it!

Three weeks ago, Sherry and I inspected the hives and saw that one was full to the brim with busy bees and completely full of pulled comb!

We immediately put a third super on top of, not only that hive, but all three hives.

Sherry and I were shocked when we took the lid off and saw that every frame was full of honey and many of them were also capped....meaning the bees had sealed the cells closed with wax.

We took the top super off and set it aside, still swarming with worker bees ( who are all females!) going on about their business. After we had harvested the frames in the other two supers, we return the top super to each hive for the bees to continue working. They will keep the honey they are making now for their winter survival.

To harvest the honey, Sherry lifts a now heavy frame and gives it a strong shake up and down. 

She is a tough lady but it was hard work even for her!

If you shake hard enough, most of the bees fall off and then I use a soft brush to remove the remaining ones. The frame is then put into a plastic tub and the lid quickly goes on to keep the bees out.

Once we finished, we loaded all the tubs up and headed up to Sherry's kitchen.

We started early and it wasn't too awful hot wearing the bee suits but I was SO happy to get out of mine!! By the way, Louis Dean did great! He had one tiny little sting through his suit.

It's best to buy a suit that doesn't fit too tight or the stingers can still get through.

I don't think his is really too tight but he may have been pulling his arm in such a way that it happened to stretch across his shoulder.

Rosey, on the other hand, received a sting right in the middle of her chin.

She soldiered on - and wasn't able to take the stinger out until she got to Sherry's.

Her chin had swollen up by that time but she was a champ about it!

No other stings from thousands of bees swarming all around six people.

Now we began the extraction process - which takes a lot longer than pulling the frames from the hives!

Rosey had brought her extractor so we had two going for the next few hours - non stop!

We all made a really good team!

Sherry is demonstrating how to decap the honey.....taking off the top layer of wax sealing the comb.

Rosey was a saint in that she kept her suit on - albeit she took the top part and wrapped it around her waist - so she could go out and bring in the next set of frames. She had to brush the bees off since many of them were still caught in the tubs.

Sweet honey!!!

This is the raw honey going into the bucket that is lined with a honey strainer.

Now the honey must drain through the strainer and into another container before it is ready to jar.

The handle on Rosey's extractor broke.....through no fault of the one who was turning it.

Although I immediately nick named her 'Bam Bam!'

Rosey and Louis Dean came up with a makeshift fix for it.

Vise grips are good for lots of things!

The straining cloth holds all the wax caps from the cells and extra bee parts that may be in there.

We then put all that honey into jar after jar after jar!

And thanks to having six people working together......the last jar was filled at 12:39!

Whew!!

Ernie and Amanda had to leave a few minutes earlier and we so appreciated them coming to help.

They are brand new beekeepers and will not be harvesting any honey of their own this year - but next year we will be helping them as they helped us. The same with Rosey. We see three great big bountiful honey harvesting parties for the summer of 2021!

We gave Rosey and Ernie jars of honey to remember the day and in appreciation for all their hard work!

It would have taken us all weekend to complete the harvest without their help.

Sherry, Rosey and I came back to the cool of the camper to sip mead from last year's harvest and talk about our plans for the next season.

Once you take the honey from the hives - it's time to prepare for winter.

But before we can return the wet frames back to the supers, they must be clean from all honey sticking to the comb. What better way to do that than to put it out in the shade (you don't want to MELT the wax in this Texas sun and heat!) and let the bees clean it up for you!

Honey harvest was done and we were all exhausted!

I felt like the energizer bunny Saturday night.

I was feverishly trying to get my shower and in bed before I completely ran our of battery juice!

Amazing how much better you feel after a good night of sleep!

This Sunday afternoon Sherry and I wiped down all the jars and counted up the gallon, half gallon, quarts, pints and half pints......

We harvested 15+ gallons of pure sweet organic honey!!!

The + is what is still dripping from the honey strainer bag.

We will deal with that another day.

What an amazing harvest for 2020!!

Sherry and I suited up last night to retrieve what we thought would be clean frames - but the bees were still swarming all over them. So Sherry got up at sunrise this morning to get them and - once again - the bees were all over them. 

At 7:00 this evening we again suited up and found the frames super clean.

NO sticky honey anywhere on them!

We returned a super fullof fresh frames to Hive #1.....

This pic is of Hives # 2 and #3.

#3 is the most thriving hive and we put a second super on it as well.

Our bee harvest is now complete and Sherry has already put out bucket feeding.

We will add pollen patties and treat for mites next week.

It was with a thankful heart for our good harvest that we sat out tonight in the golden hour - which looked more pink than gold - and sipped our wine.

"The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul."

Proverbs 13:19