Robbing Honey

This is where the fun starts and also the work. It takes me a full day from start to finish. First I smoke the bees. I then pull the frames from the boxes and brush off the excess bees. I put the frames in an ice chest to keep the bees from getting back on. When I pull all the frames from one box, I go inside and begin to uncap the frames. After I uncap two frames, I put them in the spinner and let the spinning force extract the honey. This part doesn't take long to do. After I finish the first box, I go out and start over. In a good honey producing year, the two top boxes will produce over 5-7 gallons of pure golden honey.

After I finish extracting the honey I let it sit for the next few days in five gallon containers. Once or twice each day I scrape off the top to get any wax that floats to the surface. After several days of this procedure no more wax will be left in the honey. I then cook the honey for 20 minutes at 140 degrees F. This will not only pasteurize the honey, but also help keep the honey from crystallizing after you open the jars.

The best part is filling the jars with honey. You know your work is nearing the end and the reward is great. Here we are putting honey in jars and plastic angels. The angels are headed to my wife's school for the teachers. She put one in each of the teachers' mailboxes when school began in August.