The Honey Harvest - July 2026 (Part One)

It was time.  Past time, actually to harvest 2026 honey.  We had pulled fall honey in October.  We sold out of all of our July 2025 honey and were now selling the fall honey and were almost out of that.  Time to see what our honeybees had produced.  We woke up and got all the goats milked and cow milked and then got everything set up in our garage to extract honey.

We lit the smoker and began on the last hive on the left.  To pull honey, you open the boxes and go through each frame.  You are looking for frames of capped honey.  Uncapped honey is still nectar.  You don't want to pull this as the moisture content is too high.  In reality, not all frames will be 100% capped.  In that case, the rule of thumb taught to us by the bee club is to go ahead and harvest if the frame is 80% capped.

It is a process of going through each frame, separating frames to harvest versus frames to put back on the hive to harvest later - maybe this fall.  A thing to remember is "this is the bees' honey."  They use it to feed on.  They are sharing their honey with you.  Of course, we want a good harvest, though!  In going through the hives, even though it was VERY hot, the bees were surprisingly mild mannered.

We shook and brushed the bees off of the frames of capped honey and stacked in a wagon.  Then we moved to the patio and blew the remainder of the bees off with a leaf blower.  We don't have a honey house.  We use the garage to do the honey extracting.  I wheeled the wagon with 6 medium boxes of honey into the garage.  I had all cracks in the doors and windows sealed up to keep the bees out.  They are protective of their honey and will seek it out.

Here is a decent example of a capped frame of honey.  When the honey has reached it's desired peak, the bees seal it behind a capping of wax.

This close-up photo is a great example of capped honey.  There is a coating of wax that protects the sweet honey lying just beneath the cap.  To harvest the honey, the cap must be removed.  More on that in a minute...

This photo shows a good example of capped honey as well as uncapped nectar.  As soon as the nectar is dehydrated, the bees will cap those cells as well.

A serrated bread knife is used to cut the outer wax cap off of the frame.  This exposes the sweet honey lying beneath the cap.  Russ, our oldest son, has perfected the craft of uncapping honey.

Tricia uncaps as well.

On some frames, the wax isn't built out enough.  When this happens, the knife doesn't remove the wax cap.  Another tool is used to puncture the wax cap that wasn't broken with the initial knife cut.  This entire process takes place above an uncapping tank that captures the wax.  (We'll use that.  In later posts we'll show that process.)  Honey drains from the wax into a reservoir below.

Here is what a frame of honey looks like that has been uncapped.

Here are four uncapped medium frames of honey ready to go into the extractor.  These are stacked inside the extractor.

The extractor spins the frames at a high rate of speed.  Centrifugal force causes the honey to be pulled out of the frames.  As it spins the honey is withdrawn from the frame and the honey hits the sides of the extractor cylinder and drains to a reservoir beneath.  The extractor that was given to us is powered by electricity.  It takes about 10 minutes to extract the honey from the frames.

The drum gradually fills and must be emptied into food grade 5 gallon buckets through the honey gate.  It goes through a series of filters to remove any bees, fibers, wax and other things that might be in the honey.

Back to the uncapping tank.  As the wax cap is cut off and opened up, he wax collects on top of the uncapping tank.  Honey that is mixed with the wax gradually drains into the reservoir beneath.

You can see that there are marked lines on the tank below.  Just from uncapping, we have 5 gallons just from the uncapping.

This honey is poured through a filter and into a food grade 5 gallon bucket situated below.

Tomorrow, we'll talk more about the harvest.  How much did we get?  How does it compare to last year's harvest?  We'll answer those questions and more.