The Honey Harvest (Part 6)

After a week we got the honey dehumidified and now it is time for the bottling process.  In order to get the honey marketable, we put it in pint sized jars (22 ounces).  Last year we did this simply pouring it from plastic food grade buckets with a honey gate on the bottom into glass jars.  This year a friend let us borrow his old stainless steel bottler.

You can't see it, but on the back there is a thermostat and a place where you pour about 2 1/2 gallons of water into the back.  This creates a "water jacket" where, once plugged in and turned on, the water in the water jacket is heated to 110 degrees Fahrenheit using a thermostat controller.  You want the honey warm so that it will flow easily through the spigot, but not too warm, where the honey is heated over 105 degrees as you'd cook away the beneficial properties of raw honey.

The buckets of honey are placed in a cradle that allows the honey to slowly drip out while you're bottling.  Here you can see Russ operating the bottler.  As he slides the full jars over, I have the easy job of capping the jar with a lid.

Here is a close-up of the honey flowing as he holds the handle down which opens the valve and allows the honey to flow into the jars.

I'm holding the honey up to the light that shows its rich, golden orange color.  You can't control where the bees got their nectar, but I would guess it is primarily foraged from the flowers of the Chinese Tallow Tree, privet tree, willow tree and white Dutch clover.  One thing's for sure though: it's sweet! 

It didn't take us long with our assembly line process of bottling.  We got all the honey bottled and stacked in boxes.  The buckets are mostly empty, but we put the lids back on.  We'll add a little water to each bucket, cleaning the honey off and pour into remaining buckets.  Then we will feed this "honey water" back to the bees this fall or winter.  They'll take it back to the hive and not let it go to waste.  

Now that all the honey is bottled, we'll put our labels on the top of each jar.  This allows the customer to see the purity and beauty of our girls' honey.

Last years' honey production (2024 harvest) off of 5 medium honey supers yielded 13.5 gallons of honey or 119 jars.

This years' honey production (2025 harvest) off of 7 medium honey supers yielded 20.39 gallons of honey or 178 jars.  We thank the Good Lord for His blessings on our second honey crop and also thank our honeybees for their hard work.

This week we'll put the sign out in the front yard.  Fresh, local, raw honey!  $10 per jar with a $1 rebate if you bring your empty jar back on your next purchase.  That's a sweet deal!