Summer, Fall and Honey

It's been awhile since I've written anything here. Summer went by very fast, with a lot going on. I had a major construction project on my house. The big snow last December caused my roof to break, so the repairs started in March and they finished in late August. So now, I have a new roof, repaired roof trusses, new gutter, and inside - new ceilings, new kitchen cabinets, and new floors. Kinda like having a new house, without having to move.

So throughout all of this, we were checking the bees, making sure that they were doing what they should be doing. After the robbing incident, the hives settled right back down and worked right along through the summer. It seemed like there sure were a lot of bees flying around!

This fall, we removed the honey frames and supers. And we had a lot of full frames of honey. Here is a picture of a full frame:

After we removed the frames, the next step was to extract the frames. We made arrangements to rent an extractor. Once we got the extractor home, we had to figure out how to set it all up and then we started extracting. I wasn't sure what to expect, but didn't think we would end up with very much honey, especially since this was our first year for having bees. But were were pleasantly surprised. When we were all done, we had over 4 gallons of honey from two first year hives. Here is a picture of the honey coming out of the extractor:

The honey tastes great - the best we have ever tasted (of course!). It was a lot of fun extracting it and it will be even better eating it all the next year. We are already making plans for bees for next year and will eagerly be watching the bees we have througout the winter, to see what they are doing.