Pulling Fall Honey

We pulled honey in the summer in early July and got 20.5 gallons of honey off of our four hives.  We've never pulled fall honey before, but this year we decided to see what we could get. Join us while we show you our extracting process.  First, we got the smoker going and went out to the hives, opening the boxes and going through each frame, pulling out only the frames that were completely capped.  

We used an organic compound on a fume board to push the bees off of the honey.  Then about 20 yards away I had a leaf blower ready and we blew the remaining bees off of the frames and then carried the boxes of honey in the garage.  We ended up getting 22 frames of honey.  Full boxes of honey are heavy!

We don't have our own extractor or uncapping trays, so we borrowed from a friend and set up in the garage, blocking off any way for the bees to follow us inside.  The previous day we had cleaned all of the extracting equipment.  Now, it is time to get the show on the road.

As mentioned the honey is all capped.  That means the moisture percent is correct and the bees have put a protective layer of beeswax on top to seal it off.  In order to extract it, you've got to take the cap off first.  Tricia accomplished this with a sharp knife.  The was falls into the tray along with some of the honey that drips out.

The uncapped frames are placed in the extractor.  It holds 8 frames at a time.  This extractor is manual.  That means you turn the crank by hand and the frames in the rack spin. Centrifugal force causes the honey to be slung out of the frame and on the walls of the drum and it drips down to the bottom.  When the frames went in, they were heavy, but once you're done, the frames now empty of honey are light.

Once we've spun 8 frames, we opened the honey gate at the bottom and a rich, sweet flow of fall honey comes out where it goes through a double screen before ending up in a food grade 5 gallon bucket.

These are the cappings in the uncapping tray.  Honey drips out of the wax into a reservoir in the tray below from which we drain the honey.  The beeswax will be rendered and we'll make candles and lip balm with it.

Once we emptied everything, we had roughly 5 gallons of honey for our fall honey project!  We are pleased with our first fall honey project.

I took a picture of our spring honey and our fall honey side by side.  What is easily seen is the difference in the honey.  The boxes are in the same place.  What's the difference, you may ask?  It's what the bees are foraging on in spring versus fall.  In the spring, the bees are largely getting nectar from Chinese tallow trees, privet and white dutch clover.  In the fall, however, the honey is mainly derived from wildflowers and Goldenrod.  This generates a darker, stronger honey.

Spring honey on left, Fall honey on right

Our fall honey pull yielded a little more than five gallons.  That's a success in our book.  In the next post (or the next) we'll finish up talking about honey.