Beeswax + Honey + Pine = The Passing of Winter

I am coming to realize that there are few smells that have a searing indication of the return of life. A beehive is one of them. We had a day up in the 70's this week so we were able to open our hives (it has to be over 60 degrees). One whiff inside washed away every thought of winter and brought a complete renewal of life. It was amazing. Due to the warm weather the bees were extremely active. It has been interesting for me to learn to predict outside temperature by the activity level of the bees. When I want to know what the weather is like outside I find myself looking to the hives. Or I will find myself surprised to see the bees emerging and realize it is warmer than I had anticipated it was outside. They have been fascinating to have sitting right outside my sliding glass door. Close enough to watch on a regular basis. We had one hive that did not survive the winter which is not a-typical. Usually only 50% of hives overwinter successfully. The hive that died we brought inside to extract honey from. Below is a bit of a low down on the extraction process for any that may be interested.

Our first glimpse of the hives. The little dears were just clamoring all over those hives. Oh sweet succulence.

This hive made some crazy combs on a screen in their hive. They were running out of space to make new comb so they got a little creative. We have since added another box for them to grow into.

This frame was extremely interesting for me to look at. It shows our transplant of the bees to a new area. The light honey is nectar collected in Iowa. The dark honey is Oregon honey. Isn't that just crazy!! Depending upon what they eat the color of their honey is effected. The taste is drastically different as well. The darker honey has an "earthier" taste. The Iowa honey is SUPER sweet. Fascinating huh?

This is the decapping knife. You can see the wax caps that Jonathan had not quite cut off yet. We try to preserve as much of the comb as possible. Wax is 5 times more costly for a bee to make than honey. In other words if they don't have to remake the comb we get more honey.

This is our bowl of cappings. It has a lot of honey in it as well because we dropped one frame and the comb was crushed. Usually there are more cappings than honey in this bowl. We strain this and eat the honey and keep the wax for fun stuff like candles and chapstick.

Adam is turning the extractor while Jonathan held it steady. The frames were not equally filled on the hive that had died so the extractor was a little off balance. When the frames are all filled up it doesn't have the wobbling problem.

We spin out the honey and it collects inside the extractor. When the frames are empty we open the valve on the extractor and pour the honey out into a double strainer. One gets big chunks of wax and the other is a very, very, fine strainer.

After the honey has been strained we pour it into pint and quart jars and eat it like wild and crazy bandits. It is so delicious!! We have had several people ask if we will sell them some of our honey, but I don't know if I am willing to part with any of it yet.

This is a frame after is has been extracted. Every cute little hexagon cell is empty.

My sticky kitchen line-up. Anybody want to help scrub the place when we are done?

After the cappings have been dripping and the majority of the honey has been removed, we put the sticky wax outside and let the bees lick it clean. And they literally do. When they are done with it, we bring back in a nice pile of fluffy dry wax. It is REMARKABLE!!

And here is the line up. I want to thank Mr. Jenson for his incredible stacking skills. Can you guess which honey came from where? There is still 4-5 pints of honey in the bucket that needs to be put in jars. If you come visit me I'll give ya a lick :)