Honey Harvest

The first or second week of June is a great time to harvest honey in the Athens area. By this time, most of the early nectar sources for the bees have bloomed out. The bees have been working super hard all spring to fill their comb with delicious honey...which we will now steal:)

First, we (meaning 'I'...Steve is not quite sure about the whole bee thing yet) remove the honey supers from the hive. Bees are angry so I move fast.

This is a photo Steve took while waiting in the truck for me to finish the harvest. I get the stings and he gets the sweet treat.

We then take these beautifully capped honey frames into our kitchen and slice off the beeswax in order to access the liquid gold which is stored in the individual cells.

This beeswax, called cappings, is what is used to make candles, salves, and other natural products.

We then put it the frames in the extractor and spin spin spin.

This is what the frame looks like once the honey is removed....sparkly and clean.

After we minimally filter and bottle the honey, its ready for YOUR mouth! Come and get you some!!

It was a good harvest...15 plus gallons off of two hives.