Honey Spring 2017

   Our bees made it through the winter.  Happy Dance!!!  Our winter wasn't as harsh as it has been in past years so that was a help. However, my dad has done more research on beekeeping and decided that we needed to make bee candy and feed them through the winter.  I am guessing that it was a huge help as all the hives thrived this time. 

   Dad and Ryder went up to check on the hives two weeks ago and Dad decided that one hive in particular was just too full! Yep! Too full!  They filled a tote with frames and brought them down.  Madi and I scrapped them and then I started to filter the liquid gold! It is so sweet and a beautiful color.  We haven't ever had the opportunity to harvest honey in the spring so this was a real treat! 

   In the picture above you can see my little pint jar on the left.  I put honey in my tea every morning.  Actually, whenever I make hot tea I put honey and vanilla creamer in it.  I am addicted to it.  I am all about the honey and vanilla!  I have made my own vanilla creamer in the past but it is a bit more work than I really want to do right now.  I just use Coffee-Mate's Natural Bliss creamer.  It's made without GMO's.  It sounds so good that I think I need to tear myself away from the computer and make a cup of happiness!  Have a blessed day! 

Honey!

   I finally finished the honey!  I ended up with 13 quarts.  :-)   I am pretty happy with the end results!  My dad is the beekeeper.  I only help with the harvest.  ****Now before I continue I will tell you that we are novice beekeepers.  We do not do everything correctly. I can not endorse the way we harvest the honey.  It works for us but I can't state that this is the safest or correct way.****   

 

This year my dad and I decided to try a different approach to harvesting. We have tried several different methods in the past couple years but we struggled with those ways- me more than my dad. Since we thought we should think outside the box my dad decided that we should try to scrape the honey combs off of each section. 

 

 

This was a great idea!  It made much easier work for us- me especially with the filtering process.

 

The only drawback to this method is I was keeping the combs away from me so the honey would only drip onto the table and not make a mess on the floor.  Some of those combs were really heavy and stretched my abdomen muscles...hence I was pretty sore for a couple days! Ack!

 

I filled two nice sized bowls with honey and the wax. 

 

 

If you notice the plate and fork in the upper right hand corner- Ryder was making a quick snack of the honey and wax.  He said that this batch was one of the best harvests ever! :-)

 

I filter the honey through cheesecloth and a stainless steel strainer into a glass bowl.

 

This is some of the filtered honey.  All that is left is wax.  My dad took the wax back up to the bees.  We are experimenting to see if they will reuse the wax and take the leftover honey.

 

I put the filtered honey into clean Mason jars. I used a couple little jars that I recycled in case we need to give some away.  I don't worry about those jars being returned.

 

You can see the difference in colors if you look closely. The darker honey is clover and the more bright yellow honey is goldenrod.

 

Sorry about all the clutter in the pictures.  Ryder was helping me take photos and I just didn't want to take the time to make everything look all tidy!  LOL

 

 

Bees

   Yesterday my dad, Pappy B, Ryder and I went to a local apiary and picked up two packages of bees that we ordered.  Our hives didn't make the winter and it was so upsetting.  The bees are wonderful and do such a great job at pollinating! We value them for our blueberry bushes. We are planning on expanding our patch this year so we will definitely be needing their help.
   Honey is so good and I like it equally as much as maple syrup.  It tastes so good in tea and is good for a bout of sore throat along with other uses.  I regularly substitute honey for brown sugar when I make bread.  I can eat it straight off a spoon or slather it on a piece of warm, buttered bread.
   Do you like honey? If so, how do you enjoy it?

~SunnyKaye