This instructable features honey harvest and extraction. While it is less likely that anyone would do this on their own if they are not a beekeeper, this might be useful for those who aspire to become one.
Bees are really great and easy to keep, even in the urban environment! As Novella Carpenter calls them, bees are "gateway animal for urban farmers". All you need is some space in the backyard/deck.
The process of honey harvesting and extraction most likely happens on a separate days. These are the tools required:
Honey Harvest
1) beekeepers suite - mesh helmet and folding veil would do it, with some layers of clothes
2) smoker with fuel (dry branches, leaves, etc.) and a lighter
3) frame super - where frames with honey combs will be put for transportation
4) sting resistant gloves
5) hive tool - to move the frames, scrape wax, etc.
Honey Extraction
1) heated knife - to unseal honey cells
2) uncapping fork - to unseal honey cells missed by the heated knife
3) tub for wax/honey
4) extractor! - fancy cylindrical piece of equipment, used to extract honey
5) food-grade bucket - to catch honey out of the extractor
6) double sieve - catches wax and impurities as honey is poured from extractor
7) containers - final destination of honey before consumption
Bees are really great and easy to keep, even in the urban environment! As Novella Carpenter calls them, bees are "gateway animal for urban farmers". All you need is some space in the backyard/deck.
The process of honey harvesting and extraction most likely happens on a separate days. These are the tools required:
Honey Harvest
1) beekeepers suite - mesh helmet and folding veil would do it, with some layers of clothes
2) smoker with fuel (dry branches, leaves, etc.) and a lighter
3) frame super - where frames with honey combs will be put for transportation
4) sting resistant gloves
5) hive tool - to move the frames, scrape wax, etc.
Honey Extraction
1) heated knife - to unseal honey cells
2) uncapping fork - to unseal honey cells missed by the heated knife
3) tub for wax/honey
4) extractor! - fancy cylindrical piece of equipment, used to extract honey
5) food-grade bucket - to catch honey out of the extractor
6) double sieve - catches wax and impurities as honey is poured from extractor
7) containers - final destination of honey before consumption
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Signing UpStep 1: Introductions
Before we begin, let me first introduce Her Majesty: Apis mellifica (honey bee in Latin)! Also, here are some hard working worker bees, bees with pollen on their legs and one cutie stuck in the nectar with pollen! They collectively make a honey harvest possible!
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What the colony is doing when it creates drones is spreading its genetics far and wide in an attempt to find a better place to have its genes live on. It's abandoning ship. Clearly something wrong has happened and its time to give up this hive.
In the true fashion of bees, it's not the individual bee that matters, and in this case, not even the individual colony that matters, it's the DNA.
I use my hair dryer to quickly melt the wax cappings
Fast, clean and efficient!
I have a question about what's produced during extraction. Our friend gave us some beeswax that her relative made, and also passed along a small jar of brown-colored liquid that has little bits of wax and some other solids in it. It smells like honey. It's also fermenting like heck--I have to let the pressure out of the jar a few times a day. Any idea what this is, and what it can be used for? Thanks!
Also, as the author says, only extract capped cells. Uncapped cells have too much water content and will ferment - and not in a good way. Voice of experience talking....
Great ible!
My own small honey extracting plant (set up..) here could handle between 120 and 200+ hives, depending on the annual production levels (which can vary widely, from one region to another, and from year-to-year - from less than 50lbs to over 400lbs per hive, over twelve months..).
AND this is only a part-time/sideline operation ~ keep in mind that full-time commercial apiarists are operating from a few hundred to several thousand hives ~ and use extractors that hold anywhere between (maybe) 36 frames up to 196 frames !!!
These pesticides kill bug by reducing there immune system. Causing some bees to fall victim to there natural killers wax moths and mites.
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Pesticide sprays are especially a bad and exacerbated problem when time and/or cash-strapped farmers ignore the laws (where they're not supposed to spray flowering plants; nor in windy conditions..)) and spray at the wrong times..
Besides pesticides, also consider the extra stresses placed on the hives from land clearing, other pollutants, climate change ~ even if the pesticides don't finish them, then their stressed and weakened condition then increasingly "pre-disposes" them to certain diseases ~ which they may have withstood in better (read: healthier..) conditions.
You may see certain "mass media" releases trying to blame exotic diseases for this increased "die back" ~ but check the sources (back-track, and "follow the money trail"), and you will find it is the very same pesticide/pharmaceutical companies that cause the initial problems that are now producing these smoke-screens, and mislead the public. Shades of the tobacco and oil companies before them (no real surprise there, though - as those companies often share the same owners/directors/PR_people..).
Until the pesticide/pollution/land-clearing problems finally went past their "critical threshold" over this past decade ~ and now everything is falling apart..
But true, I think the poor little guys defenses are way down.
Love the pictures - they're sweet!
IF the hives are healthy and strong, with good nutritional status, they can withstand being moved up to 3, 4, even 5 times over a year..
IF already pre-stressed from other factors being mentioned in this discussion, than being moved too often will only knock them around further.
Also, bees come back to the hive in the afternoon, and by night, there should not be any healthy bees outside. So, beehives are sealed at night, to preserve the integrity of the colony.
Thanks for the comments - I had a blast taking pictures!
If you only have one or two hives, you could also consider "cut comb" honey harvesting (using a knife to cut the entire comb out of the frame, and then cutting into small "sections"..), until you can source a small second-hand 2 (or 3)-frame extractor from somewhere.
Strangely enough, this is part of why I've wanted to keep bees myself. Which I was a teen, I was diagnosed with premature rhumatoid arthritis. I hated taking the medicine, and my parents were looking for *anything* that could help. My grandfather (an old-school cowboy - 85 years old and still works the cattle on his ranch personally) swore that bee stings were the best "cure" for arthritis available. My parents got me interested in keeping bees, and I built my own super and even the flats from scrap wood and wire. I found a wild hive in an old abandoned house and was able to commandeer the queen and hive to put in my super. Needless to say, the structure of my comb wasn't anything any professional could use, but it was an awesome project, and to my surprise the be stings DID make the joint pain disappear completely for many years. (When we finally moved, the whole hive was given to a local bee keeper.) I also never had a single allergy growing up, but didn't think to attribute that to the honey.
Now I live in an apartment, and many years later, the joint pain has slowly returned, and for the first time in my life I'm finding out I'm allergic to the local plants. (A blood test, which I didn't know they could do for allergies, says I'm allergic to the local ragweed.) I've been seriously thinking about getting a house, and I figured if I did have a yard I'd like to get back into the bee keeping hobby. I find them fascinating, and even kinda "cute." (Weird for a 33 year old guy to say that, I know.) And there's absolutely nothing in the world like the smell of a beehive. I love it.
The supers and flats are easy enough to make, even moreso with my years of wordworking experience now (an instructable to come maybe?). Beyond that, there are certain things that I think it would just be easier to buy, such as the heating units, and the centrifuges. (Maybe it'd be possible to buy a non motorized one, and attach my own motor? Instructable #2!)
I've looked at the prices online (I actually found the company by looking up the name that was on the centrifuge in your picture) and definitely think it'd be a little on the steep end for a beginner. All that being said, it didn't even dawn on me that bee keepers would have a need to place hives on other people's property! All the perks with none of the hassle!
Thanks for the info! And I love the instructable. Especially the picture of the bee checking out the jar of honey. :)
A "centrifuge" is used for separating honey from the wax cappings before melting the cappings.
An extractor is the proper name for the machine that spins the frames to throw out the honey.
A "honey press" is an old-fashioned means of harvesting honey (which unfortunately also destroys the combs) ~ the advantage of an extracting plant is that the frames can then be re-used immediately (most of the time..).
Thanks for sharing!
What do you do with the wax?
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One thing I'm curious about though, is you mentioned differentiating between the brood cells and honey cells, was that just for interest or did you do that in the honey extracting process? We always had a queen excluder on top of the brood box to stop her laying eggs in the supers above it.
The guy I used to help had 12 hives (that made a LOT of honey) so he had all of this kit himself, but... curiously... NOT the heated knife. We always used to use a palate knife which went back under the grill on a tray after each cut. Your knife you borrow looks much easier!
I think it's great more and more people are starting to keep bees in their back gardens in inner city environments.
12 hives is a LOT of honey! It is possible your beekeeper didn't use heated knife since it may burn the honey. Some beekeepers claim it degrades the quality. Some wouldn't use electric extractor, since it is heated. So much to learn. Yes, urban beekeeping is absolutely great!