Extracting Honey

Having removed the honey the next step it to extract it. Initially I built a honey extractor using a design someone else posted on the internet based on a wire cage built around a paint mixer attached to a drill. It kind of worked but was seriously dangerous once loaded with frames so I stopped using it pretty sharpish. If you see the design on a Google search I'd suggest you ignore it completely, I don't think the person who posted it had even actually tested it ..but that's the internet for you.. So I went with the old fashioned method of extraction: Crush and Strain. It's simple. You cut the honeycomb from the frame, crush it up then strain it through a filter to remove the wax.

I set up a little production line on the kitchen floor. Take the frame from the super, cut out the wax, pop it in a bucket, place the sticky frame in another box. Squeeze and squash the honey comb in the first bucket, put the sticky wet mess into a steamer pan over the second bucket. Doddle.

Crush and Strain Honey Extracting

As I hadn't originally planned to use this method to extract the honey I'd gone and used wired foundation so whilst crushing the combs I was pulling out bits of wire. It's also a shame I had to mash up the wax foundation at all really as I'll need to replace that next year, luckily I wasn't going to use the deep sized stuff again anyway. Still it worked okay, next year I'll probably look into an extractor, long time away tho.

Straining honey and wax

I didn't have a sieve or strainer big enough for the job but I did have a steamer with a couple of layers that had fairly small holes -or in honey filtering terms: great big holes. Initially I lined the steamers with cheesecloth for extra filtering but that quickly got clogged so I soon dragged that out. I figure for a first batch this lot will be fine, it's not like I'll be flogging or showing the stuff -yep some people really do that.

Straining both crops

I noticed that the honey from the super of Hive2 was much lighter in colour than that of the deep super in Hive1. I don't really know why but figure this was because the deep frames in Hive1 had been used to raise brood and been walked all over by the bees for months whilst the shallow super on Hive2 wasn't in place for as long. Also because they were added at different times perhaps there's a colour difference related to the nectars that were available at different times in the season and maybe even the age of the honey. The darker honey has a much stronger flavour than the pale and was easier to pour too.

Settling in buckets

After extraction the honey needs to settle for a while so air bubbles and anything in there that floats can rise whilst anything else heavier than honey which got through the filter can sink to the bottom.

Buckets of Honey

There you have it. About 11 kilos of honey altogether. Looking at the darker one on the right you can see it has a lot of air bubbles at the top which will need skimming off before I put it into jars. I popped them into the airing cupboard to ripen for a few days whilst I dug out some jars.

Honey

The bucket of light coloured honey was about 2" full and filled half the jars I'd managed to save over the year so I decided not to jar up all the darker stuff yet as that bucket is about 2/3 full., instead I just did a couple then popped the bucket back in the airing cupboard whilst I figure out what to do with the stuff. You may not be able to tell from the photo but it looks a little cloudy with air bubbles and no doubt other random particles that made it through the steamer holes. Next time I'll have to use a mesh filter

I think it went quite well considering I wasn't really expecting to have any honey to extract this year and was completely unprepared :) I've still got most of the bucket of darker honey in the airing cupboard and have put the jars into there too so it can clear a little more. The next thing I've got to do is figure out what I'm actually going to do with 11 kilos of honey...