Honey!

In January, I became impatient waiting for an extraction day at the San Francisco Beekeepers Association I belong to.  The club holds 5 extraction days a year when members can bring their frames full of honey, put them in an extractor and using the power of centrifugal force, spin out all the honey kept within the perfect hexagonal cells.  The first extraction day this year is June 22.  In January, I decided I couldn't wait any longer so I removed two frames full of honey and used the sit and drain method of removing the honey from the cells.  It was messy, took days, damaged the wax cells, and, in the end, much of the honey stubbornly clung to the frames.  I decided I wouldn't ever get honey from bees that way again! But I did manage to get over a pound of honey, more than enough to share with everyone here in The Garden!

Well, a couple of weeks ago I grew impatient again; June 22, though just about a month away, still was too long of a wait.  So I ordered my very own extractor! The extractor, in a great big box, came in just a few days. I put 9 frames of honey, 3 by 3, in the extractor, and Lena and I spun out over 26 lbs of honey! Check out the video of Lena and I at work with our bee friendly shirts on.

What do you do with 26 lbs of honey? 

We filled our beautiful little wax honey pot that Sara and Ryan gave us with about 6 oz.  Of course we gave some more honey to our Garden family, they've been great tolerating, enjoying even, the bees.  That was about a pound total. We gave our neighbor, Dave, a half-pound jar of honey.  The bees came from his garbage can, if you remember. We've bottled up 15 lbs in 96 little jars to give away at a later date.  Some of the honey, only about a quarter pound, will go into my next batch of beer (an easy drinking summer blonde ale). Soon I will attempt my first batch of mead with about 3 lbs of honey. That leaves me with a bucket of about 8 lbs of honey. That's still a lot of honey!  So I was thinking I'd give away 3 oz, or so, to anyone who comes by with a small jar this Thursday afternoon or Saturday morning!

This Thursday (June 5th) from 4:30 to 6:00 and Saturday from 10:00 to 11:30 I'll be doing some gardening.  The gate will be open.  Come by with your jar, maybe have a little beer, check out the bee hives, and leave with a little honey.