Monday, August 6, 2018

twenty gallons of sweet

"I meant to fninsh the spring-cleaning today, but I'd only done three hives and then I had to stop. Now I shall swell," Lady Finch said fussily, peering at her chin in the looking-glass that hung over the fireplace.  
              The Native Heath
              Elizabeth Fair

Finally the day of honey harvest arrived.  Sunday afternoon was the only time Witt had available before leaving to go out town for his new job, so in the hot garage we stayed for several hours in order to extract the honey from the wooden frames. The bees were actively buzzing outside the garage door, therefore, all doors must be  tightly closed to prevent them swarming in to the honey. Yet a few strays still made it into the garage, but as long as you left them alone you were okay, there is that fine line equaling complete cooperation by man and insect.




My kitchen is presently a mess of sticky sweet...emphasis on the sweet since I do not allow the stickiness to stay around very long, all it takes is a wet washcloth after all. We lightly strain our honey(filter without pressing), then we bottle. This year our bee supers have yielded around twenty gallons of honey! We are well- pleased.


5 comments:

Hannah Foster said...

Twenty gallons of honey!?!?! Yum! 😊

GretchenJoanna said...

How wonderful - to me ;-) - that you posted this on the Feast of the Transfiguration, when we bless fruit, HONEY, beehives and vineyards and vegetables. I wonder if you ever saw this old post of mine https://gretchenjoanna.com/2013/08/08/honey-is-what-it-is-thank-god/ with photos of honey around the world...

My friends who are a father and daughter on separate occasions each gave me a quart of honey from their separate hives, and I still consider what remains of those jars to be a store of gold in my cupboard. What do you do with all those gallons? Do you sell your gold to buy other more plebeian (but low-carb) food?

melissa said...

I'm in awe. So much honey! How many hives do you have?

Cathy said...

We presently have four hives. The bees were especially busy this year and it was a "golden" year. In years past we have sold our honey at the local food coop, but sadly the coop closed in late May. We have one other local shop that will sell it, but word of mouth is the better plan this year.

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