How SWEET it is! Our First Honey Harvest.

Early this spring, my friend called asking for help!  A swarm of bees had landed in her yard and were collecting on the base of her lilac bush.  I called my niece, whose husband (Andrew) is a beekeeper and he was here in an hour or so.   He brought all of the equipment needed for capturing a swarm.  He was excited when he saw how large this swarm was!  A prime swarm!  HUGE!   I wish I'd videoed him scooping the bees up by handfuls and shaking them into their new beehive home.  Pretty cool from a distance!

We have several apple trees, pear, plum trees and a fairly large garden.  Alfalfa fields are nearby as well so our little hive of bees have plenty of blossoms to stay busy all summer.  Andrew told me bees gather nectar in a 5 mile radius of their hive.  

When the hive was fully capped off (the bees had filled all their little honey holes and sealed them), Andrew and his wife Cassie brought their honey separator to our home and we got to work.

This separator does 2 frames at a time and is hand cranked.   We scraped off the caps with a fork and then spun the frames. Honey flew off to the sides of the canister and slid to the bottom.  We filled a large pan and then poured into jars.  It was a sticky process, but our kitchen smelled SO sweet!  Mmmm!    

We harvested 26 pints of honey our first year.  Hopefully we can find a good location to winter them and they'll be ready to go once the blossoms begin in the spring!    We've had fun learning about honey bees and production but we have a LOT more to learn!  Andrew is an excellent source of information about the entire process.  I can't wait to learn more and watch our little bees do their thing again next year!