*Honey Extraction*
Duff is a beekeeper and maintains 5 hives. I was fortunate enough to be able to take part in the honey extraction process this year. She wears the bee suit and removes the frames from the hives.
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The white stuff on the combs is a capping that the bees put there to keep the honey contained. The stuff is edible as Sierra picked up a handful and stuffed it in his mouth. An electric hot knife was used to remove the majority of the cappings.
The cappings were scraped into the plastic tub with a grate. Honey dripped from the cappings and collected in the bottom of the tub.
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Now the fun part was slinging the honey out of the frames using an extractor. It’ll hold 6 frames and spins creating centrifugal force which throws the honey against the wall of the drum. Then it runs to the bottom.
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It sounds and bounces worse than an out of balance washing machine. As you can see, there are 3 of us with hands on it. There’s a porthole in the bottom to allow drainage.
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She got just about 5 gallons of nice tasting fresh honey. From the bucket she screened it to filter out any capping chunks or bee parts that might be in it.
Honey extraction is a neat process.
Oh yea… the bees were accumulating at the back door and window trying to get in to get the honey. When we were done, the empty frames and the cappings went back outside for the bees to pick over.
Jaden
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