Once the hive is opened up, there's the removal of the frames. A hive tool is essential for doing this as the bees like to glue those things down nice and tight.
Then of course you have to get the girls to stop working and drop off the frame.
This is easier said than done. They really like to work, and they're pretty possessive of these frames full of honey.
Of course, even after all of that we still had to brush a few off the frames we harvested and cover it all with a towel before they could come inside. I'm just not a fan of honeybees in the kitchen.
I remember when I was a kid you used to be able to get honey with the comb in it. It was sweet and sticky, and chewy. There was nothing better on a hot summer day than a chunk of comb honey and a tall glass of iced lemonade!
These days all you can find outside of the farmers market or state fair booth is extracted, processed, bland commercial honey. It's nothing like the real thing. For instance, our honey isn't that golden brown color. Nope, this stuff is clear as crystal. Some of the comb is dark, and there are plenty of pollen cells to add color to the mix.
We pulled three frames from the hive, from them we were able to get nearly 12 pounds of pure, sweet, tasty comb honey.
No processing, all we did was scrape the comb from the frame and drop it in the jars.
Once we were finished gathering the frames, we were able to set the hive on the new stand Roger and Charlie made for it.
It was an exciting experience and we learned a lot about how it's going to work here on our farm. We also managed to sell two jars of the stuff before it'd even been out of the hive three hours. Talk about fresh honey!
It seems our little farm has found a way to earn some money, and help us become more sustainable that we were before.
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