Had a brilliant morning with my nieghbours Suz & Gerald who called me to say they were going to check on their bee hives the following morning and asked me if I would like to come and see/help.
Oh yes please! as it was going to be a blistering hot day we decided to start early. They have about 7 hives and after giving the little fellas a quick puff of sleeping drought the lid was lifted and another quick puff and they were more than happy to let us see the glorious honey they have been busily making for the past couple of months.
Puff
another wee puff
There are 2 compartments each holding 8 trays in each hive and they were all full to the brim and weighed just over 2 kilos each. This hive will give roughly 16/18 kilos from the top 8.
My neighbour Suz who at 81 has more energy than some people I know half her age
A happy Bee
You can see how full this one is
The smell that was wafting up from the centrifuge whilst it was spinning was intoxicating, this then gets strained into yet another container to remove any wax before filling the jars.
Pot ready and labelled from last year
It was fun seeing the process and never knew it was so much hard work, the amount of honey that was dripping everywhere and so much cleaning up to do, but when you taste the honey you can totally understand their labour of love. I like that fact that the bees pop over to my garden to collect the nector and then I get to spread their honey on my toast. x
2 comments:
I didn't know how complicated the process was either. Your very brave getting that close. I can see a stack of hives from this house in Guzanno and they're everywhere. On,y drawback is that they happen to like sitting on the washing as it dries and the pollen on their feet leaves yellow dot marks. Ah well, small price to pay for our pollinators and the lovely honey they make
I was not so close and had one of the hive suits on which I might add had to take of quickly or I would have melted it was so hot, so I stood back and watched really. I do worry about getting stung as I react badly to stings but thought the risk was worth it to see this process. Never had the problem of them on my washing line though little tinkers. Thanks for popping in xx
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