First Honey Harvest of 2009

Good News Everyone!!!

We are over the moon on Sasserfrass Hill. Mr. Charlie and I extracted the first of my honey today. We put a bee escape screen on three hives yesterday. Mr. Charlie came over this morning at 10am. He picked up the three supers ( they are too heavy for me to pick up) and took them to his honey house. Mr. Charlie has a 9 frame power radial extractor and a air conditioned honey house. I have a four frame hand crank extractor and no air conditioning in my bee shed. So needless to say I was fortunate when he offered to let me use his well equipped facility.

I drove over to his house so he would not have to drive back across town. When I got to his honey house he had the supers unloaded and the hot knife plugged in. He asked if I would like him to do the honors or do it myself. Of course I was happy to watch a master work. He had all three supers uncapped and ready to return to the box they came from (The bees like to get there own frames back) in less than an hour. It would have taken me twice as long to get the job done.

I brought along three five gallon buckets or holding tanks as they are called in the catalogs to bring the honey from his extractor back to Sasserfrass Hill. I ended up with a little over 100 pounds of sweet golden honey. I had to replace eight queens this spring. I was afraid I may not have much honey to harvest this season. I was delighted with the quality and quantity of my honey.
I will let the honey sit in the holding tanks for a few days before putting it into jars. The bubbles will rise to the top. Mr. Charlie says.... You should skim it off and feed it back to the bees.

We are very grateful on Sasserfrass Hill tonight for all our many blessings and our bountiful harvest.

Thank you Mr. Charlie for making this harvest smooth and easy.

Bee Well and Stay Cool,

Deborah