This past Sunday Tim & I went to Roland and Heather's to see a honey extraction process. Roland is a bee keeper and he was kind enough to let us watch/help/get in the way all afternoon. Mary, a fiend of Rebecca's was there too. Mary was really paying attention as she wants to have her own bees soon.
Honey extraction/harvesting is a very interesting process. It is one of those very inspiring times when nature and humans work together. The process starts with the people being dressed properly. This means long sleeves, pants, mosquito nets, or beekeeper nets. Roland of course had the right stuff. Then you prepare the smoker, a little device used to calm the honeybees. In fact, Roland told us it does not really cal the bees, but makes them think there's a fire nearby. Hence they start gorging themselves with honey thinking they'll have to leave the hive. The end result is that they're less likely to get upset at you and attack. Roland's bees were very well behaved, maybe they were just too busy going after nectar, or maybe it was just too hot for them to bother.
Then Roland starts opening the boxes in which these little wooden frames li
e, the frames filled with honeycombs. The bees store honey inside and leave it there for a while until the right viscosity is achieved, and then they cap each cell with wax. This is how a full capped frame ready for harvesting looks like:
We selected 12 frames and took them to the garage where the actual honey extraction process happens. First, the wax cap has to be removed, and we d
id this with a hot knife . Then the frames are put in a centrifuge that collects the honey at the bottom. The honey is then filtered through a nylon fine mesh/cloth and put in jars. It's a very manual, labor intensive beautiful process.
The reward we had (besides honey) was a cream tea the Heather served for us (she is from England, her parents are still there . Cream tea is a lighter version of the afternoon tea, when you skip the cucumber sandwiches, but you have scones and tea and cream (
Devonshire if you're in England) and currant jam and strawberries, all in a beautiful setting. I always feel very spoiled when Heather cooks for us. All in all, we had a wonderful honey harvesting day. I'm starting to think Tim and I could keep bees in our back yard.
This past Sunday Tim & I went to Roland and Heather's to see a honey extraction process. Roland is a bee keeper and he was kind enough to let us watch/help/get in the way all afternoon. Mary, a fiend of Rebecca's was there too. Mary was really paying attention as she wants to have her own bees soon.
Honey extraction/harvesting is a very interesting process. It is one of those very inspiring times when nature and humans work together. The process starts with the people being dressed properly. This means long sleeves, pants, mosquito nets, or beekeeper nets. Roland of course had the right stuff. Then you prepare the smoker, a little device used to calm the honeybees. In fact, Roland told us it does not really cal the bees, but makes them think there's a fire nearby. Hence they start gorging themselves with honey thinking they'll have to leave the hive. The end result is that they're less likely to get upset at you and attack. Roland's bees were very well behaved, maybe they were just too busy going after nectar, or maybe it was just too hot for them to bother.
Then Roland starts opening the boxes in which these little wooden frames li
e, the frames filled with honeycombs. The bees store honey inside and leave it there for a while until the right viscosity is achieved, and then they cap each cell with wax. This is how a full capped frame ready for harvesting looks like:
We selected 12 frames and took them to the garage where the actual honey extraction process happens. First, the wax cap has to be removed, and we d
id this with a hot knife . Then the frames are put in a centrifuge that collects the honey at the bottom. The honey is then filtered through a nylon fine mesh/cloth and put in jars. It's a very manual, labor intensive beautiful process.
The reward we had (besides honey) was a cream tea the Heather served for us (she is from England, her parents are still there . Cream tea is a lighter version of the afternoon tea, when you skip the cucumber sandwiches, but you have scones and tea and cream (Devonshire if you're in England) and currant jam and strawberries, all in a beautiful setting. I always feel very spoiled when Heather cooks for us. All in all, we had a wonderful honey harvesting day. I'm starting to think Tim and I could keep bees in our back yard.
No comments:
Post a Comment