The rain didnt stop all this morning and heavy showers were forecasted for the afternoon
Do we do it or dont we?
Yes of course we did, we couldnt help ourselves it was so exciting!!
Mel and Gary went to check the hives and see how many supers we had, whilst I prepared the utility room for the extraction process. I had been warned it could be messy job.
If you have never extracted honey before then be warned it creates a wholly sticky mess everywhere, despite how careful and prepared you are!
I had all the work surfaces scrubbed clean, all the utensils and buckets sterilised and the extractor thouroughly cleaned, the floor was covered in cardboard and newspapers, plenty of cloths and hot water at the ready.
All set to go!
The supers were brought in and stacked ready, the first frame was picked out ready to be uncapped to allow the honey to flow freely when placed in the extractor.
You need a steady hand and a jug of hot water to dip the knife in and a board over a container to place the frame on whilst you cut away the cappings. Tilt the fram forward so the cappings drop into the container as you cut them away. Normally this can be done in one sheet if the comb is evenly drawn out, if not it will take several goes to do it. Remove as much of the cappings as you can, but try not cut to far into the honeycomb. Have more than one container at the ready as we ended up needing three.
As the cappings are removed hand them to a helper to place them into the extractor, repaeat until the extractor is full.
Now slowly start it up and watch the honey start to spin out, hitting the sides and flowing down into a golden pool at the bottom.
Watch the bottom of the extractor as the honey slides down, dont let the honey pool in the bottom to much before opening the gate and filling your bucket.
Dont forget to place the strainers on first though!
Next close the gate on the extractor and carry on with the rest of the frames until all done, meanwhile the bucket of collected honey now needs to go through a very fine mesh strainer to catch any missed or remaining tiny bits of pollen before being left in a settling tank to let all the bubbles rise to the top.
The extracting process is quite long depending on how much honey there is to extract but dont try and rush it or cut corners, instead give yourself plenty of time and have few cups of tea in between as you stop and admire the golden nectar flowing into the buckets.
We filled to buckets then ran out of containers to store it in so had to improvise and put it in saucepans, thank god for stockpans and preserve pans dont underestimate how much honey you may get and get caught out like us.
Next there were the cappings to deal with lots of honey in the bottom of the basins there too!! and the wax is to valuable to waste but thats another story.
The biggest job was the clean up after, but we managed in the end. Now it's time for a well earned glass of wine whilst I admire our very own honey
How much honey did we extract??
Would you like a jar?
Guess the amount correctly and I will send the person who guesses the nearest,
wins a jar of Melys Honey.
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