Final display at the Folk School

At the end of the weekend we had visited beehives both at the Folk School and at one of our teacher's nearby bee yards. We had taken apart hives, cleaned equipment, extracted honey and made candles and other items from beeswax.

On the table you can see the candles we made, the bags of pollen we collected, the honey we extracted. We also made some beeswax ornaments and a couple of wax bowls. Mine is the large one on on top of the miniature hive.

The honey extraction was quite an adventure. First we used a hot knife to cut the capping off of the honey. We put the frames of honey two at a time in the extractor and spun it around and around, slinging honey out of the frames via centrifugal force. Then we filtered the honey through two fine mesh filters into a plastic container with a spigot on it. Finally we filled the honey jars.

Kelly, another class member, and I then squeezed the cappings in our hands to extract the last of the honey - that was a messy job, but when we were finished, we got to taste the honey on our fingers!

On Sunday morning the people staying at the Folk School all had French toast with our extracted honey for their breakfast!

How to light a smoker and other things I learned at the Folk School

I learned many things at the Folk School workshop.

1. How to light a smoker

Virginia used wood shavings. She lit a few at the bottom of the smoker and then built the fire up from there. I am lousy at lighting the smoker, but I think I have been packing it too full before starting it. She dumps it all out when she's through and starts over each time. I have left the unburned fuel in mine after using and just stopped it up to end the fire.


These are a little out of focus because I was taking them while wearing my bee suit and veil and it was awkward to take pictures.














2. How to use a honey extractor.

We took the extractor apart to clean it and then didn't know how to get it together. It took five of us working together before Charles, a class member, finally got it right! That's probably the beginning of a good beekeeper joke - how many beekeepers does it take to put together an extractor? (someone will have to supply the funny answer) For us, it would be one: Charles, but it took five of us klutzing around before we found the answer.


3. How to melt and use beeswax.

Virginia's secret was to pour the wax through the control top part of (unused of course) control top panty hose to filter out any extra stuff from the comb and frames that might accidentally be in the wax. She poured into a 1 liter plastic bottle which is just the right thickness to handle the heat of the hot wax.

4. How to use the hive tool.

I've been using the curved end. Virginia almost exclusively uses the straight end and this allows less of what I end up doing - breaking into comb and causing drips of honey and damage to the comb.