Honey

I prefer to get fat on honey

Our local beekeeping club maintains a couple extractors for members to borrow. It is a nice service the club provides, and on July 16 I managed to spin my first batch of honey. I appreciated the opportunity to gain some experience using an extractor without actually buying one. The club has a motorized extractor available as well, but I requested the manual one as I thought it might work better for me.

Honey Pot

A glass honey pot filled with my honey, decorated with bee salt and pepper shakers. ©Erik Brown

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I’ve got my mind on my honey

 

160806a Strainer

My two bucking crush & strain system

I stole a frame from our hive Mars recently. While I wasn’t exactly sure how much honey one medium Lang frame would produce, I was ready to find out. Also, I really wanted to try the two-bucket straining system I bought from Brushy Mountain earlier this year.

You may recall that I bottled a single jar of honey in the spring. That was a very clear spring honey, tasty and not too sweet. It was good, though I was hoping the summer honey would be a little sweeter. I’d read that honey tends to get darker as the season goes on. Continue reading →

A New York Frame of Mind

160520 Brushy FrontI was in Ithaca, New York last weekend for my father’s birthday. He’s a rather active 80-year-old as of the weekend, and you may recall his help in building a new top bar hive this past winter. My siblings and I were there for a couple days to celebrate the milestone and enjoy each other’s company. Of course, a couple beekeeping activities found their way into my travels as well. Continue reading →