First honey from Linda's Bees

The very first jar!

If you'll look at the picture of the bucket, you can see that the filtered honey has filled about half of the bucket.

Today I took my first jars and opened the honey gate to fill them. (You'll notice I put a mixing bowl under the gate to catch the drips). The honey flowed out, red and gorgeous - it tastes great too!

Because I kept the supers on throughout the summer, there's no way to identify the flower that this honey represents - those of us who are hobbyist beekeepers produce "garden honey" or "wildflower honey." However this honey is dark, reddish and flavorful and is from the first super I put on the hive when the tulip poplars were in full flow. Probably the main flower contributing to this batch of honey is the tulip poplar.

From Wikipedia: "Poplar Liriodendron tulipifera is actually not a poplar, but honey called "poplar" is a favorite native monofloral honey of the Southern Appalachians. In mason jars it looks black, but when held to the light it looks reddish. It is strong flavored, liked by those familiar from childhood, but not usually liked by persons tasting it for the first time. "

The jar I held up has the sun shining through it and you can see the air bubbles. The jars all need to sit so that bubbles can rise to the top.

Here is the collection of my first honey bottling. This honey bottling was literally a drop from the bucket as it is still almost half full after the bottling.

This afternoon (after the wide mouth jars get cleaned - I FINALLY found them on sale at Ace Hardware down the street) I will cut comb and bottle the honey from Destin frames that had such beautiful comb.