This is a very busy month for me - I keep looking at the beehives and wishing I could open them up and get the honey....but I'm teaching at Emory right now in a compressed semester that ends at the end of August and I haven't had a weekend at home to open the hives.
This weekend is the moment. I'm home, I've graded the midterm exams and nothing is standing between me and the honey except perhaps the weather and of course, the bees!
I've bought Mason jars; a 17 inch pan to help me cut chunks of comb from the frames; several large plastic buckets; and a very special uncapping fork for the honey that I plan to strain.
The strainers arrived from Dadant this week and tomorrow and Saturday I plan to try to take the honey. I'll try to post step by step how it goes.
I've found a method used by Michael Bush to crush and strain some of the honey so tonight I plan to drill holes in one of my large plastic buckets.
OK, here's the plan:
1. I'm going to open the hives and find one of the filled and capped supers. I'm taking out to the hives a deep super (the only one I have left empty) and a beach towel.
2. I plan to remove the frames from the super one by one;
3. Shake the bees back into the hive and brush off any remaining bees;
4. Put the capped frame into the empty super and
5. Cover it quickly with the beach towel.
When I've removed the ten frames from the shallow, gotten them all to the empty super, and brushed off all bees, I plan to carry the beach towel covered super into the house and go to work.
Stay tuned and I'll let you know how it goes!
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