Makin' That Honey

A couple of days ago I pulled off a shallow super full of a honey (shallow is the size). Almost all of the comb was capped, which is a sign of readiness.

Remember,
a super is a box that sits on top of the hive and on top of the queen excluder, it's sole purpose is to store honey.

the comb is what the bees build to store honey, pollen, eggs, brood, etc... its their home, made out of beeswax. Beeswax is fat.

the frames hold the comb so they are easily mobile for us humans. In other words its a wooden frame filled with comb. (Picture)

So now we have a super, full of frames, full of comb, filled with honey, that is capped. (below is one frame from that super)










What next? Now we need to get the honey out of the comb! We first start by opening our capped frames. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but it's a pretty simple process. You take your frame and you use a tool called a scratcher ( pic ), and literally scratch the openings of the comb. You don't have to dig deep or press hard, all you have to do is make sure that the comb is "uncapped" or open. Once they are uncapped, you place them into an extractor.



<---After loading the frames in, it does the rest!



Result: I got about 30lbs of honey off of this super.

**Note the honey that isn't capped in the first picture is OK because it was tested. (The bees don't cap honey unless its perfect, so putting uncapped honey into an extractor is risky, because it could ruin all of the good honey!) To test the honey, you simply hold both ends of the frame and give it a good jerk. If the honey goes flying out, it wasn't ready because it was still to moist. If it sticks, its good enough!