Bees, Food and Honey Harvest!

It was dusk on Wednesday evening when we arrived at the house in Abbott to look at the bee situation there. The lady is a friend of Dean's - or her husband was. She is a widow now and is worried about the bees and the fact that she can't get a plumber out to look at her water leak because of the bees swarming right around that area.

Sherry did, indeed, find the bees and they were gentle ones.

This bee retrieval should not be too difficult.

Dean and Sherry will follow up with her on when to come get the bees.

It was after 10:00 by the time we were back at the ranch and Louis Dean had a nice campfire waiting on me. We did some 'Front Porch Sitting' before going to bed that night.

Gazing into a campfire can certainly relax you and make you sleepy!

I woke up Thursday morning and Louis Dean was shelling purple hulled peas with the same diligence he uses when he shells pecans.

He's been staying busy with mowing and gardening, organizing and doing one small poject after the other. Keeps him out of trouble! He takes plenty of water breaks so he doesn't get too hot!

Thursday night Dean and Sherry came down for dinner. This starts off our weekend since Sherry is off on Fridays.

I cooked a pot of the peas that were as fresh from the garden as it's possible to be.

Baked potatoes in the big crockpot and the peas in a smaller one. I also made up a tray of pepper poppers using cream cheese and shredded cheddar as the filling seasoned with a sprinkle of Slap Ya Moma Cajun seasoning.

We love this stuff!

It was a late dinner and then we were all off to bed as Friday was an early morning for us.

I was asleep by midnight but awake from 3:00 AM and finally got up at 6:00!

Once you suit up, you can't get to your face!

That didn't stop Dean from getting one last sip of coffee before we headed for the apiary.

I was so excited I even put on some make up for the occasion! 

Early morning before the bees are awake or right before dark when they are all in from the day's foraging - these are two of the best times to do bee work.

You can see the red roof of the camper cabin back in the distance.

Love all the wildflowers!

We worked our way around the bee yard, starting with Hive #6 first.

This was our most productive hive this year and the only one with a super full of honey.

We had put 'Ross Rounds' on this hive but the bees totally ignored them.

**Source**

This is what they are SUPPOSED to look like!

**Source**

It's a good idea and we will try again next year.

Sherry keeps a notebook with a section for each hive making notes after inspecting and working it.

We only have 6 hives - we lost one hive to wax moths recently - so we take a personal interest in each one.

Beekeepers with a large number of hives are more impersonal as they have too many to take copious notes on like we are doing. This is one way we are documenting our bee adventures.

We may need to add another notebook for our hive removal adventures!

We ended up with 10 frames heavy with golden honey to harvest this year.

All the equipment is set up in Sherry's kitchen.

Last year it was a much bigger operation!

We used plastic on the floor and this year opted for cardboard. MUCH better!

This is like a perfect frame of honey!

The first step is to decap it......rake off the top layer of wax.

And this is how you do it!

Next you spin the frames - three at a time - in the extractor.

We have a hand cranked one. 

Spin. Stop. Turn the frames around and spin them again

This slings the honey off of both sides of the frames.

Then open the honey gate and pour it our in a busket with a strainer on top.

The strainer filters out all the wax particles as well as bee wings, legs and such.

At last you pour the filtered honey up in the jars!

Pure honey gold!!

We ended up with around 40 pounds of honey - that's a little over 4 gallons.

Last year we produced 15 gallons so this was not a normal year for honey harvests.

Still, any harvest is better than no harvest.

Sherry served a cold cut tray with deli meats and cheeses, olives, onions, sliced tomatoes and crackers for our lunch. Plus we sampled the honey. Delicious!

We taste tested it compared to a bottle of last year's honey - and proclaimed 2021 even better!

The coloring of the honey is about the same which stands to reason since they eat pretty much the same kind of flowers each year. We are planting more wildflowers and roses, clover, trumpet vines and honeysuckle all with the bees in mind.

We took the frames out to the shade trees not far from the apiary for the bees to clean then up.

There's still a good little bit of honey in them so the bees will take that back to the hive and they will build up another supply of honey which we will leave in the hives for them to winter on.

This is my portion and Sherry got the same amount.

We just divide it right down the middle.

To make it simpler, we poured it all up in quart jars and we can rebottle into smaller ones later for selling or gift giving.

We were completely finished by noon - and since I had been awake since 3:00 AM,

I came in and took a nice 4-hour long nap in the girl bunk!

Tomorrow we will finish up our bee work with putting the frames back in the supers and treating all of them for hive beetles.

Honey Harvest 2021 is DONE!

Now plans are afoot for buying more supers and brood boxes to enlarge our apiary!