Liquid Gold

Last night I took a frame of honey out of the Belle hive. I wanted to send some honey home with my friend Ron, who is off to a holiday at his family's cabin on a lake. A bee got caught in my hair and stung me on the scalp! Yow-ee, it really hurts!

So, then we had to get the honey out of the honey comb. It's quite a challenge! I heated up a knife and started to cut the cappings off, and the honey spilled out, so Ron scooped it out with a spoon. It was quite tedious, and lots of bits of beeswax ended up in the honey. Then I thought that we could scoop the wax and honey into cheesecloth, and squish the honey into the jar. It worked well, but honey oozed all over. I got Ron to pull out a plastic bag, cut the corner off, and I thought I'd put the cheesecloth in the bag, then put in the honey comb, and squeeze that into the jar. Its a brilliant idea, and would have worked, except I lost control of the cheesecloth, and the mixture poured out of the bottom, all over the counter, then into the jar, without being filtered, so we were back at square one!

Hours later, there was honey all over us, the counter, the sink, inside the jar, outside the jar, and dripping onto the floor. I sent Ron off with a jar that looked like 60% beewax and 40% honey. I told him he could deal with it at the cabin. He thought it would be a good story to tell his family!

They honey is amber colored, fragrant and floral. It's the best tasting honey ever!

This wasn't the first frame of honey to come out of the Belle hive. The first honey came out last weekend and I gave it to my host family. They too, struggled with getting the honey out of the comb. Today, she came over with a little dish of spiced almonds that she made with the honey! They were really good, so I ate them all for lunch.

I purchased a commerical honey extractor - used - from another beekeeper. I need to figure out how to repair and clean it, but it will be so much easier to use. It works on centrifugal force to extract the honey, and doesn't damage the comb, so the frames can go back into the hive.