October 10, 2005
How to Extract Honey and Other Random Stuff
Well, howdy friends!
It's been quite a while, quite a few too many days, and way too many promises, but the first of two bee entries is finally here!
Some of you don't know this, but I own a bee hive. It's a lot of work, surprisingly enough. Most of the work happens during the summertime as the bees get a lot warmer and more energetic. I think all of us do, actually. In the winter, the bees are of course more lethargic due to the colder weather. In fact, they don't even go outside when it's raining.
Here's an unfortunate fact: Bees refuse to soil their hives with their own waste. They ALWAYS "go" outside. In those winter weeks when it's raining and they refuse to go inside, their need to use the outdoors for their toilet increases. Any time that there is a small break in the weather, they then shoot outside and use the facilites. If you know anyone that has bee hives, I suggest avoiding those areas at all times. If you think bees are scary during every day events, a swarm of constipated bees is something you definately want to avoid.
Trust me.
As it gets warmer, and more flowers appear, the bees go into hyper production mode. They begin to collect pollen in mass amounts and start to fill up the frames in their hives. Their queen turns into a super-whore, and mates with several drones at a time, as soon as they hatch from the combs. [Bees tend to kill the male drones during the winter, as they serve no purpose (their only responsiblity is to mate with the queen) and don't do any work. Since they don't usually produce brood (babies) during the winter, the best solution for the bees is to kill off whomever doesn't serve a purpose at the moment. Hence the drone genocide.]
During this super production time, my Daddy and I add extra bee boxes in order to give them plenty of room to store and produce honey. Each box holds nine frames of honeycomb.
Towards the end of the summer, my hive had seven total boxes. In April, I had started out with two. Here's a picture of the bee condo that grew in my back yard:
In order to extract the honey, you have to get right next to the condo, and start removing the boxes.
There's no way in heck I would do that without a bee suit. Forget winning any Guiness Book of World Records for Most Bees on a Bare Naked Body. I mean, fuck that! Seriously.
My Dad & I get all nice and outfitted for the occasion. Please save all cat calls and wolf whistles at the sexiness I'm displaying while modeling the suit:
Pretty damn hot, eh?
The best way to get next to the bees is to use a smoker. It looks very similar to the Tin Man's oil can, but it's stuffed with straw that's of course lit. The bellows on one side keeps the smoke puffing out in short bursts. It tends to calm down the bees quite a bit. In fact, to this date I have never been stung (knock on wood!)
Who doesn't calm down when they're smoked out?
Once the bees have been smoked, and have cleared away from the edges of each box, it's safe to lift the lids and check inside. It's key not to remove any boxes that have frames of brood. If there's baby bees in the box, it's best to leave it alone. The honey within those boxes is to feed them when they hatch.
Here's a closer look at the inside of the box:
As we get through each frame to make sure that it only has honey in it, I find that it's a really good idea to remain calm. I swear to you that bees can pick up on tension and stress levels. During this time, I just try to relax and think about happy things. I wish I could put a recording of the hive's hum on here. When they're relaxed, it's an absolutely beautiful sound. Imagine the hum of a mother soothing her baby to sleep, and multiply it by several thousand hums all in hushed unison. You can tell if they're feeling stress because the level of their hum rises in volume and pitch a couple notches.
A full frame of honey looks like this:
If you're wondering what the white coating is, the bees cap all of the honey with a layer of wax to prevent it from dripping out of the combs. The way my Dad is holding the frame is the angle that it sits in the box.
In order to remove the caps so you can extract the honey, we take a hot knife. It's electrical, and heats up when you plug it in. You pass the knife over the top of each frame on both sides to release the honey:
It's then placed into the extractor which looks a lot like a ginormous Thanksgiving turkey deep fryer.
Underneath the lid, there are two baskets that hold one frame each. You turn the handle (which you can barely see on the left hand side there, towards the front) and the honey extracts itself from the honeycomb using centrifugal force.
After doing that for what feels like years, but usually takes a few hours, the honey fills to the point where it's near impossible to turn the handle and rotate the baskets. At that point, you drain the honey through the front of the extractor:
Between my one beehive and my Dad's 4 hives, we managed to extract 130 pounds of honey this year. Not bad for a couple of amateurs! I do need to mention that the only time that you can successfully extract honey is when it's awfully hot-at least in the upper 90's and above. Combine that with the sexy 5 pound bee suit, (which is worn over a layer of jeans and a heavy, long sleeved shirt) and it is a quite exhausting and sweaty process.
Cleanup isn't so hot, either. We use a high pressure hose, and the cold water is welcome, but cleaning excess honey is a very sticky ordeal. I also have to watch out for my Dad, as he can sometimes be quite dangerous with the hose-one time, when he was done cleaning out the extractor, he just casually turned the hose away, which was still on full blast, and shot me on in UP my cornhole! Wasn't expecting a honey extraction and a hardcore enema that day, but sometimes you just get more than you bargain for!
Next time, I'll show you what we've been up to for the past five weeks. As winter draws near, it is necessary to medicate the bees for mites. If you don't, the mites attach themselves to the bees, suck out their blood, and kill them. This past winter, over 75% of the native bee population in California was wiped out by a super aggressive mite population.
On another note, we had some visitors the other night in our backyard:
Don't know if you can see them all, but there's 5 little guys hanging out in my tree. They were just cold kicking it, and didn't seem to be bothered by my presence at all. Pretty nifty!
My cats have been playing a bunch of hide and seek games lately. Here's a shot of Sylvia relaxing in the new Kitty Crinkle Bag we got for her.
Not to be outdone, Buddy chose a spot too, although I don't think he did quite as good of a job:
For the record, I did not place either kitty in those positions-they've just come up with this new game on their own. So, if you're thinking about reporting me to the Authorities of Ethical Treatment of Kitties, don't waste your time, ok?
Hope you enjoyed today's entry. Sorry that it took me so long to post it.
Hey, JJ I'll get our fabulous day out documented soon as well. No fooling around anymore, my friend!
That's it for now-I apologize for any typos you may come across, as I was pressed for time....
Have a great day!
~Toodles!~
clipchick at 5:57 p.m.
All thoughts, ideas, and musings are � Clipchick. Please don't snipe my stuff!
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