Our First Honey Harvest

We harvested our first honey last week from our beehives. We had lots of help from friends. It was a lot of fun having a friend around to share in all the excitement.

 A beekeepers must have tool. The smoker.

 We started out by adding fume board on top. The fume board has felt inside which you add a liquid(Honey Robber) to the felt that removes the bees from the super underneath it. The smell reminds me of throw-up. I would high tail it out of the box if it was on top of my house. It smells that bad. Next time I am buying one that doesn't smell so bad.

 Some the girls hanging out on the inner-board.

 I am waiting patiently for the bees to go down to the super below. It took around 5 minutes for the bees to leave the honey super underneath it. I had to use the brush to get a few stragglers. Most of them were the drones hanging out in the stinky honey super.

 Bug showing off a frame of capped off honey. The honey tasted so amazing. Nothing better than fresh honey right out of the hive.

Bug is pulling the frames from the box.

 Into the extractor.

 Bug got the honors of doing the first spin.

 The kids enjoyed watching the extractor.

 The excitement begins when the first honey starts to flow.
 The kids enjoyed chewing on the capping covered in honey.

 We bottled it all up. I understand why they call it liquid gold. You don't really appreciate the value and cost of honey until you have been a beekeeper and you see how hard the girls work and all the time invested into working the hive.

 Some of the empty frames

 We left some of the cappings for the bees to clean up.

Bug's brochure for her micro buisness

We can't wait until next spring. I have plenty of time to clean up our stickly tablecloth and floor. Actually it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We used a tarp and cardboard on the kitchen floor.