The Honey House
Well that’s what my husband Craig has decided to call our garage today. Â We had our first Honey Harvest, so be warned, there are LOTS of photo’s, hopefully you’ll find them interesting. Â Beekeeping has become our other hobby.
For Christmas this year, we got the boys bee suits. Â I found a lady on ebay who was making overalls for kids to look like dads overalls in the shed. Â She was wonderful, swapped the colour for me, removed the pockets, added velcro and tight wrist and ankle bands. Â She thought of everything for us. Â Here they are ready to go get the frames from the hive.
There are a few ways to get the Bees off the frames, but today we decided to just brush them off with a very soft brush, Karl is helping by controlling the bees with smoke.
After we had all 9 frames from the hive, we headed to our garage where The Honey House had been set up. Â Craig, the ever handy man has made most of the tools. Â This is the Uncapping Station.
The honey extractor was borrowed, Craig has this next on his list of things to make.
This is the water tank used to create steam to heat up the knife, hand made by Craig.
This is the Steam Knife used to cut the cappings off the frames, also made by Craig. Â The red hose you can see in the above photo attaches to the tubes on the knife. Â The steam runs through the tubes and heats the blades.
Here’s the entire set up.
Inside the sink Craig has made a filter that will allow the honey from the cappings to flow through into a bucket below the sink. Â Can’t waste any!
And now the fun begins. Â Here Craig is cutting and melting the wax cappings off the frames. Â The honey is ready for harvest only when the bees have capped the cells. Â If the cells are still open, the water content in the honey is still too high.
It was very hard not to stick your fingers into this for a taste!
So the wax cappings drop into the sink, this is all the cappings from 9 frames. Â I’m going to have to take up candle making too I think.
Honey from the cappings runs down the sink and into a bucket (food grade). Â Here it is going through a sieve first (made by Craig), we were all a little excited now!
Sorry for the blurry photo here, but check out that golden colour!
After the frames have been uncapped, they are placed into the honey extractor.
Then the boys all took turns spinning the honey out, I won’t show you all the photo’s of that tho.
The spun frames are now called Stickies and go back into the hive for the bees to fix up the comb and start producing honey again.
Can you see the honey in the bottom of the extractor?
Oopsie, she didn’t want to leave her frame.
After all the frames are spun, we (mostly Craig) lifted the extractor onto something higher so we could really get to the good part!
Are you ready for it?
Oh My
Yumminess!
So from these 9 frames we harvested 23 kg of liquid gold.
We then went and collected another 15 frames from our other hives (poor little Flynn got stung for the 3rd time). Â Not sure what we’ve got from these frames, the buckets are still filling up 🙂
If you made it this far – Thank You for reading. Â I hope you’ve learnt a little from our fun day.
That should be ” love” your card… etc etc
Well now it is 2020 and I am just reading this post for the first time, having come here from your post about your “bee” card.
How all that so many bee lives (and other animals) have been lost during this terrible fire season.
Live your card and your bee/honey story.
Very interesting post you shared in this blog about the first honey harvest. Love to read about the procedure and enjoyed undoubtedly
Thank you for sharing this adventure with us! I’ve never seen the process before. Kudos to Craig for making so many of the tools needed 🙂
What great photos. Really enjoyed reading about the first honey harvest. Bet it tasted wonderful!!
Wow what lovely photos i will never take a pot of honey for granted again!
i bet yours tastes yummy!!
Suzie qx
Alisa, what an awesome experience for your boys! They look so cool in their bee-keeping rig, and it’s so nice to do something as a family. What a wonderful hobby. Thanks for taking the time to blog that.
awesome! this is quite a procedure! I never knew what was involved! thanks for sharing! My hubby has a provincially inspected abattoir for poultry… he raises free-range chicken and turkeys…(I will definitley NOT be showing pics of that procedure!) LOL! And he made most of the equipment himself! aren’t these guys just the best???
Love your blog!
Your boys look so professional! Your hubby is very clever to make all his own tools. Thanks for sharing a fascinating process. I love honey and have it on toast every morning for brekky! When I don’t feel like cooking I have it for dinner too!!!!It’s so nice when the whole family gets involved in things like this. My hubby and kids make wine every year with my father in law they love the whole process too. TFS Cheers Donna Zammit
Did you know there is a world wide bee shortage?………….
OMG………OMG……..so cool…can you please e-mail me the photos Alisa…..they will go well in my Apiary presentation for Year 7!!!!!!!!!
Lovin’ the boys……hehehehe
The honey looks divine!!…and how cute are your boys in their outfits! Thank you for sharing – it is very interesting.
Ohhhh its looks soooo yummy!! That was a fantastic read, What a great family activity, everyone must be loving the rewards!!!
Thanks for sharing.
So interesting and rewarding for your family by the looks of things. The honey looks so clear and delicious. It must also be an fun and rewarding process for the boys.
The bees did a great job that honey looked so scrumptious, well done on your first harvest! The equipment that Craig made was fabulous and the boys looked good in their suits.
Tracy 🙂
Wow that was an interesting read!! Well Done!! I was telling hubby and son when I finished and my son said – “Haven’t they seen Bee Movie? you are not supposed to take the Bee’s honey!” haha.
Thanks for sharing
Caroline 🙂
Really amazing – loved seeing it. The boys suits are very cute also! The honey looks superb! Well done!
Gawd that’s alot of honey.
You should make candles & then you can do Worshop Wows with Stamping on Candles!
Oh wow … so did we have honey on toast today?? that sure is alot of honey and well done – never knew you’d get that much honey from one hive! Are you planning to sell it off? I’d love some of your Stampin Honey 🙂
Wow – that looks beautiful. Thanks for sharing the process. 23kg from 9 frames that’s a lot of honey! Looking forward to seeing your candle making progress!
Thanks that was really fun to read and love the pic’s! Your poor wee man being stung 3 times much braver than me!
yeah!!!! Tilsners bees
Now you can give the West Coast commercial beekeepers a run for their money at the local markets.
Well done boys – great photos Alisa
Craig thats not a honey knife !! Its a weapon !! seriously looks like a great uncapping knife – good clean intact cappings.
King of Stainless steel – great job.
A rewarding hobby for all the family.
Awesome Alisa!! Well done Craig, Flynn & Karl!!! How exciting to harvest your first honey!! oooh I love fresh honey!!!
Oh wow that’s so exciting!! I soooo want to taste it, let us know what it’s like please. Enjoy!! Off to make some toast and honey now hehe.
Wow! Found it very interesting. Thankyou for sharing with us. May need to buy some off you sometime! Have never tried fresh honey 🙂